Gaming laptops
Dell vs Predator in fight for supremacy
SCORE PRICE £2,500 (£3,000 inc VAT) from pcpro.link/287tri
Rejoice! Gaming laptops are getting slimmer. Where once you would need a 4kg monster to house a top-end graphics card, Nvidia’s Max-Q GeForce GTX 1080 – an underclocked version of the desktop GTX 1080 – means the Predator weighs a vertebrae-friendly 2.4kg. That’s heavier than the 2.2kg Asus ROG Zephyrus ( see issue 279, p68), but at 18.9mm thick this remains a highly portable gaming beast.
Beast is an apt word, too. The 2.8GHz quad-core Intel Core i77700HQ processor is ably supported with 16GB of DDR4 RAM and a 1TB PCIe M.2 SSD. The Triton 700 achieved an excellent 128 in our benchmarks and proved just as impressive in Geekbench 4: a score of 4,443 and 14,774 in the single-core and the multi-core tests respectively are near-identical to the Zephyrus.
The same can be said about gaming performance, as both laptops share the same GPU. In benchmarks such as Metro: Last Light Redux and Dirt: Showdown, the Triton 700 managed 72fps and 113fps respectively with everything on the highest settings.
In real-world tests, the laptop hit over 300fps in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive with everything maxed out, while the more visually intense PUBG hits around 120fps on Ultra settings. Hooked up to an external 1440p monitor, these figures drop to around 200fps and 95fps respectively, with anti-aliasing turned off.
You’ll need to be plugged into the mains to achieve this performance. Unplug it, and you’ll notice a massive drop. You’ll also notice the battery meter plummeting: the Predator lasted a mere 2hrs 9mins in our video rundown test. Still, it’s not surprising given the sheer power housed inside.
The 120Hz panel inside the Predator may also eat away at the battery, but that’s fine by me. Any avid PC gamer will tell you that a 60Hz panel is horrid to play on, but with Nvidia’s G-Sync technology in tow, it’s a joy to play games on the 15.6in Full HD (1,920 x 1,080) IPS panel.
It hits a contrast ratio of 1,053:1, so a tad behind the Asus ROG Zephyrus’ 1,253:1 but still pretty good. Colour accuracy is mediocre with an average Delta E of 2.99, so you won’t want to do any serious photo editing on it, and I was disappointed by a peak brightness of 330cd/m2.
Acer parks two front-facing stereo speakers on either side of the keyboard. These are loud enough to entertain, and can be fine-tuned through the Dolby Atmos software, but you’ll need a Bluetooth speaker for any serious listening.
There are plentiful USB ports spread across the two sides: three USB 3, one USB 2 and one USB-C. The right-hand side also houses a Gigabit Ethernet port, with a 3.5mm headphone and mic jack on the left. HDMI 2 and DisplayPort outputs sit conveniently at the back of the laptop.
Acer opts for a full-sized keyboard with a number pad, but I often hit hash rather than Return, and instead of pressing the left-sided Ctrl button, my little finger sat in between the Fn and Ctrl keys. That was a pain when I was crouching to shoot in CS:GO, where Ctrl is the default button to crouch.
“With Nvidia’s G-Sync technology in tow, it’s a joy to play games on the Predator’s 15.6in Full HD (1,920 x 1,080) IPS panel”
The keyboard’s performance, however, is incredible, thanks to mechanical switches with a short travel distance. I even found it better for typing than my 2015 Apple MacBook – high praise indeed. The keys themselves are backlit with RGB lighting, all customisable for patterns and colour through Acer’s Predator Sense software. I’ve saved arguably this laptop’s most surprising feature for last: the trackpad. This sits above, rather than below, the keyboard, where it doubles up as a viewing window for the RGB-enabled AeroBlade 3D fan. Covered in Corning Gorilla Glass, it looks spectacular, but note that there are no physical mouse buttons and that it gets incredibly hot during gaming sessions. It’s also much less responsive than a normal touchpad. Thank goodness most gamers use an external mouse. The Acer Predator Triton is a gaming laptop with lashings of power. It has a responsive panel and excellent keyboard. The battery life and oddly placed trackpad are the only black marks – aside from the price. But £3,000 is now what you have to pay for the best, most versatile gaming laptop. SPECIFICATIONS Quad-core 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor 8GB Nvidia GTX 1080 with Max-Q Design graphics 16GB RAM 15.6n IPS display, 1,920 x 1,280 resolution 1TB PCIe SSD HD webcam 802.11ac Wi-Fi Bluetooth 4.1 HDMI 2 DisplayPort 3 x USB 3 USB 2 Windows 10 Home 54Wh battery 393 x 266 x 18.9mm (WDH) 2.4kg 2yr RTB warranty