Hands-On: Acer’s Blade-Like Predator Triton 17 X Takes Clear Aim at Razer

Acer’s Predator game lineup includes several features. cute Aggressive design But its latest Triton 17 X looks a lot more like the Razer Blade than I expected from a Predator-branded PC, and that’s a good thing.

Acer sent me a prototype of the Predator Triton 17 X. This means that the performance, finish, and/or components may not match the final shipping unit, so we can’t benchmark it or analyze the internals just yet. I remember the impression of.approximately the same thickness as Blade 16 (Acer claims a 0.86-inch to 0.87-inch Blade 16, but when you put the two side by side, Acer has a slightly thicker back.) 6.61 pounds. RTX 4090 and Core i9-13900HX (both included in the unit).

But the design also stands out with its all-metal, all-black shell, reminiscent of Razer’s Blade laptops, save for the extra cutouts for cooling vents on the sides and back of the device.

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For those who like a little color, the keyboard is RGB with a small Predator head logo under the bottom right corner of the keyboard, which is also RGB backlit. It looks cool and looks cooler than it should. There’s also a narrow RGB lit button above the keyboard, to the left, which at first I thought was the power switch (until it failed a few times, even after plugging in the laptop; the power button is in the top right). keyboard).

This is really for switching between power profiles, which is useful if you want to jump into eco mode to browse the web or watch a movie without worrying too much about fan noise. But most people aren’t likely to change power modes often, and given that some people want to change it via Acer’s software, this seems like an unnecessary addition in most cases.

Another key feature of the Predator Triton 17 X is the mini LED display.Several high-end laptop makers are jumping into this generation of Mini-LED territory (and MSI Titan GT77 HX It’s still the best one I’ve tested so far.) But with the promise of 100% of the DCI-P3 color space and 1,000 nits of brightness, the Acer panel here looks great on paper. ), with extreme blacks and vivid colors, it looks great on my eyes too. john wick 4 trailer.

We’ll have to get our final review unit and do our usual display testing to see how it compares to Titan, Razer Mini-LED packing Blade 16, and other high-end gaming laptop displays. If you need high resolution, be aware that the Triton 17 X has a maximum resolution of 2560 x 1600 (and 250 Hz). There’s also the option of a 400 nit 240 Hz IPS display, which will likely be considerably cheaper. And the laptop’s hinge opens a full 180 degrees, making it easy to share its screen with others. This was unexpected.

Having more peripherals than just gaming, I like the Triton 17’s rich connectivity. This is reflected in Blade laptops as well. On the far left is the barrel connector for the big power brick (required if you’re dealing with the RTX 4090), a 2.5 Gb Ethernet jack (Wi-Fi 6E is also included), USB-A (3.2 Gen 2), and Thunderbolt. 4 (USB-C) and headset audio jack.

On the far right is a full-size HDMI 2.1 port, an SD card slot, and another pair of USB-A and Thunderbolt Type-C ports.

One of the things the Triton 17 X doesn’t impress me with is the audio output. Acer says there are six speakers here, he has four silver grilles on the edges of the laptop, and a large mesh area above the keyboard. But, at least in our unit, the volume was impressively loud, but when I listened to my favorite test track, Buck-Tick’s classic “Muma – The Nightmare,” there was very little bass and Sakurai’s Atsushi’s vocals were very positive in the mix. terrible. I thought this might be a problem with sound optimized for games. But when I launched his DTX software that came with it, the Music preset was selected.

Anyway, this is a pre-production unit, so we’ll have to wait for the final model and a full review before we can make a full verdict on audio. It was bright, crisp and color accurate. However, when the window was oriented behind me, the image tended to be washed out and softened. Again, we’ll have to test the final unit, but it’s nice to have a 1080p webcam on your gaming laptop.

We’re looking forward to seeing how the final version of the Triton 17 X performs in our tests and how the battery holds up. for graphics switching), this laptop performs well enough. Ultimately it comes down to how much power a 1,000 nit mini LED display consumes. And of course, we can’t wait to test how well the screen holds up to the increasing mini LED competition.

But if the performance matches what you’d expect from the hardware, Acer’s Predator Triton 17 X could be one of the most compelling gaming laptops in years. at the price. As of now, we know that the Triton 17 X will sell for $3,799 in May. It will start at 4,499 euros for him in Europe and the rest of the world in June.