At IFA last year, Acer has unveiled what was deemed to be one of the company’s most outrageous invention yet: the Predator 21 X gaming laptop. As it turns out, the same can-do spirit has also led to the creation of the new Predator Triton 700 gaming laptop which was announced just a few hours ago at the company’s huge press event in New York.
Instead of going big, Acer’s engineers decided to go the other way around: going slim but without losing the performance that goes with Predator’s status as the company’s top gaming product series. I can’t vouch for the Triton 700’s performance just yet (more on that below) but if you ask me about its slim form factor, it seems that Acer has definitely met its target.
With a thickness of 18.9mm, its metal body helps enhance Triton 700’s premium look. However, the same material also made it a potent fingerprint magnet which is rather unfortunate for its potential owners in the near future.
Another interesting component that Acer has equipped into the Triton 700 is an RGB backlit mechanical keyboard even though at a glance, it certainly does not look different from most laptop keyboards out there.
Once I pressed the keys though, I immediately noticed the familiar tactile feedback and clicking sounds of a mechanical keyboard. The travel distance is quite alright too although the keys somehow do feel quite soft.
Positioned on the top of the keyboard area instead of the other way around unlike the majority of other laptops in the market, Triton 700’s touch pad is actually made from Corning Gorilla Glass.
Not only that, it is also transparent which allows users to see the laptop’s AeroBlade 3D fans and some of its heat pipes. The absence of click buttons on the touchpad makes it rather awkward to use though.
Also equipped with a 15.6-inch full HD IPS display, the Triton 700 comes with a mysterious NVIDIA GeForce GTX 10-series GPU that has yet to be released into the market according to Acer. That being said, I did notice that the demo units at the press event today are actually running on GTX 1080 although some members of the press have pointed out that it might be a new variant of the GTX 1080.
Given that the Triton 700 will only be available in August, that seems to be quite plausible. Meanwhile, the gaming laptop will also come with either 7th gen Intel Core i5 or Core i7 in addition with up to two NVMe PCIe solid state drive and 32GB DDR4-2400 RAM.
All in all, I would say that the Triton 700 is a much-welcomed addition to the Acer Predator series and gaming laptop market in general since most top tier models out there are physically quite thick. The combination of firepower and slim form factor that provided by the new gaming laptop is quite alluring indeed – but the asking price is quite steep.
