Acer Predator Triton 300 SE (2022) Review

Acer’s 2021 edition of its 14-inch Predator Triton 300 SE was amongst our favourite gaming laptops of the 12 months—compact, succesful, and fairly reasonably priced. The 2022 Triton 300 SE (begins at $1,349.99; $1,949.99 as examined) presents a like-priced base mannequin with a brand new twelfth Technology Intel Core i7 CPU, however our amped-up assessment unit boasts an excellent sooner Core i9 chip and a surprising OLED show. Its Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 GPU breaks a sweat in essentially the most demanding titles, however usually delivers a gentle 60 frames per second (fps) or extra for every type of contemporary gaming. Add a roomy 1TB solid-state drive and lengthy battery life, and you’ve got a extremely fascinating laptop computer that challenges the most effective 14-inch gaming rigs such because the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, the Alienware x14, and the Razer Blade 14 whereas undercutting them on value.

The Predator Triton 300 SE is much from the primary 14-inch gaming laptop computer, however whenever you mix its compact footprint and high-end specs, it comes throughout as remarkably well-rounded. The Acer measures 0.78 by 12.3 by 8.9 inches (HWD) and weighs 3.75 kilos, barely thicker however lighter than the ROG Zephyrus G14 (0.73 inch and three.64 kilos) and the Blade 14 (0.66 inch and three.92 kilos). The Alienware X14 is the thinnest at 0.57 inch however heaviest at 3.96 kilos.

(Credit score: Molly Flores)

All 4 are premium 14-inch fashions price displaying off, although I feel the all-metal Blade 14 has essentially the most premium construct of the bunch and the Asus is particularly aesthetically pleasing. The Predator’s bodily development is strong however unremarkable, and its plastic chassis cannot maintain a candle to the Razer. There’s a little bit flex for those who press the keyboard deck, and it lacks the design aptitude of the others, although a pleasant two-tone end (half metallic, half brushed) retains the lid from wanting wholly plain.

Whereas what we (and everybody else) name 15- and 17-inch laptops often have screens measuring 15.6 and 17.3 diagonal inches respectively, these machines’ shows are precisely 14 inches, which is a crucial consideration when deciding if they’ve sufficient display actual property in your style. The panels are significantly smaller than their counterparts, which can really feel restrictive for those who plan to make use of a brand new pocket book as your important gaming rig with out an exterior monitor.

(Credit score: Molly Flores)

That stated, I usually do not discover these methods too small, and you’ll’t beat their portability. The Acer’s show additionally boasts a 16:10 facet ratio, which supplies you a barely taller view than the acquainted 16:9. That is more and more frequent amongst productiveness in addition to gaming laptops, yielding a couple of additional vertical pixels—full HD is 1,920 by 1,200 as a substitute of 1,920 by 1,080 pixels, whereas QHD decision is 2,880 by 1,800 pixels.

As for this explicit panel, it appears incredible. Our assessment unit flaunts the Triton 300 SE’s high display choice, a 2,880-by-1,800 OLED show whose image high quality is impressively sharp. As with different OLED panels, colours particularly pop and look wealthy and vibrant, making this one of many nicest screens I’ve seen on a gaming laptop computer. The gorgeous panel helps considerations in regards to the smaller display dimension fade away, as a result of it merely appears nice.

(Credit score: Molly Flores)

Players ought to word, nonetheless, that the display’s refresh rate tops out at 90Hz, a far cry from the 144Hz and past of different high-end gaming laptops. Honestly, as you will see in our benchmark outcomes, this Predator will not push most fashionable AAA video games previous 90fps, although you will lose a little bit of a aggressive edge with esports and multiplayer video games that profit from sky-high body charges (although such video games aren’t ultimate fare for a 14-inch laptop computer, anyway). Acer’s base-model or various show is a 1,920-by-1,200-pixel IPS panel with a 165Hz refresh charge.

Inputs and Connectivity

The Triton 300 SE’s keyboard and touchpad are each respectable, however not as spectacular because the display. As with most laptops this dimension, the keys are a little bit cramped, however there’s sufficient room for comfy typing when you regulate. The keys do not ship essentially the most suggestions we have felt from a gaming laptop computer, type of anticlimactically hitting backside when pressed, however they do ship an excellent quantity of journey.

(Credit score: Molly Flores)

It is not stunning that such a compact system lacks the room for a big touchpad, however the Predator’s pad does really feel small. It is principally high quality—it tracks panning and presses effectively—however I did discover my finger bumping pretty typically into the fingerprint scanner within the high left nook, which interrupted my mouse maneuvers. That could be right down to how I personally use the touchpad, however it appears the sensor can be much less in the best way if moved to the higher proper nook or elsewhere within the palm relaxation. It is a minor criticism, however one I believed was price noting.

The Triton 300 SE has a wide variety of ports. On the left aspect, you will discover the ability jack, a USB-C port with Thunderbolt 4 assist, and a USB 3.1 Kind-A port. The fitting edge homes one other USB-A port and an HDMI monitor connector. It is not an enormous array of ports, however it does present the connections most customers ought to want.

(Credit score: Molly Flores)

The webcam above the display additionally delivers 1080p as a substitute of the minimal 720p decision, a boon on this period of distant work. Its video high quality is unquestionably a reduce above low cost shopper laptop computer cameras. The audio system are additionally strong, fairly loud with out shedding high quality at max quantity even when they lack bass in comparison with some fuller setups.

(Credit score: Molly Flores)

Parts and Configurations: The Cut price Base Mannequin, or the Fanatic Loadout?

Our Predator Triton 300 SE take a look at unit is a Finest Purchase unique priced at $1,949.99. That takes it past the reasonably priced midrange and into high-end territory, however remains to be cheaper than the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 and Alienware x14 models we examined. Moreover the construct and deluxe OLED show described above, our Acer packed a speedy Intel Core i9-12900H processor, 32GB of reminiscence, a 1TB SSD, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 GPU.

(Credit score: Molly Flores)

It is a powerful loadout, particularly for a 14-inch laptop computer, although the worth is possibly a bit wealthy for an RTX 3060 versus an RTX 3060 Ti or 3070. Bigger gaming rigs on this worth vary virtually uniformly function sooner GPUs, although the Acer is not irregular given dimension constraints—the x14 has the identical RTX 3060 at an excellent increased worth level with a Core i7 as a substitute of Core i9 CPU.

You possibly can argue that the Triton 300 SE base mannequin (additionally bought at Finest Purchase) is an excellent sweeter deal: For $1,349.99, you get a Core i7-12700H processor, 16GB of reminiscence, a 512GB SSD, the identical GeForce RTX 3060, and the complete HD show. The CPU, display, and storage characterize apparent downgrades, however the Core i7 is lots succesful (particularly for gaming) and half a terabyte of storage is satisfactory. The bottom system is rather more consistent with final 12 months’s Triton 300 SE, which we praised as an important worth at a $50 increased determine. Our fanatic take a look at configuration loses some worth enchantment, however each have their deserves.

Certainly, our assessment unit arguably presents extra bang in your buck than its abovementioned opponents, outpacing them with regards to the processor and show. Is that this benefit solely good on paper as a substitute of in real-world efficiency? Let’s discover out.

Testing the Predator Triton 300 SE: Core i9 and RTX 3060 Can Do It All

We matched the 2022 Triton 300 SE’s efficiency towards not solely its chief 14-inch rivals however the 16-inch Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 7, which clearly presents much less portability however reveals what a superior GPU can do in a bigger laptop computer with higher cooling for about the identical worth. You may see the contenders’ actual specs beneath.

Productiveness Exams

The principle benchmark of UL’s PCMark 10 simulates a wide range of real-world productiveness and content-creation workflows, measuring total efficiency for office-centric duties similar to phrase processing, spreadsheeting, net searching, and videoconferencing. We often additionally run PCMark’s Full System Drive storage take a look at, however it repeatedly returned an error on the Predator, although the SSD gave us no bother with different apps and video games.

Three benchmarks give attention to the CPU, utilizing all out there cores and threads, to charge a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 makes use of that firm’s Cinema 4D engine to render a posh scene, whereas Primate Labs’ Geekbench 5.4 Professional simulates standard apps starting from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine studying. Lastly, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to transform a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p decision (decrease instances are higher).

Our remaining productiveness take a look at is workstation maker Puget Techniques’ PugetBench for Photoshop, which makes use of the Inventive Cloud model 22 of Adobe’s well-known picture editor to charge a PC’s efficiency for content material creation and multimedia functions. It is an automatic extension that executes a wide range of common and GPU-accelerated Photoshop duties starting from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving a picture to making use of masks, gradient fills, and filters.

The Triton by and enormous did very effectively in these checks, main the best way in Geekbench and Photoshop and touchdown on the rostrum in different benchmarks. This means a really proficient laptop computer for on a regular basis use and even picture and video enhancing in addition to gaming. A Core i9 CPU and 32GB of reminiscence are undoubtedly a bonus for content material creators, and never significantly frequent at this dimension both. Provided that the Predator additionally prices lower than its rivals, it comes away wanting fairly good for those who want a extremely moveable system for productiveness and artistic apps when not taking part in video games.

Graphics and Gaming Exams

We take a look at Home windows PCs’ graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark: Evening Raid (extra modest, appropriate for laptops with built-in graphics) and Time Spy (extra demanding, appropriate for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). We additionally attempt two OpenGL benchmarks from the cross-platform GFXBench, run offscreen to accommodate totally different show resolutions.

As well as, we run three real-world sport checks utilizing the built-in 1080p benchmarks of F1 2021, Murderer’s Creed Valhalla, and Rainbow Six Siege. These characterize simulation, open-world action-adventure, and aggressive esports shooter video games respectively. Valhalla and Siege are run twice (the previous at its Medium and Extremely high quality presets, the latter at Low and Extremely high quality), whereas F1 2021 is run twice at max settings with and with out Nvidia’s performance-boosting DLSS anti-aliasing turned on.

Working at full HD fairly than its native QHD decision, the Triton 300 SE hung near the Alienware however could not fairly match the Asus regardless of all three sharing the GeForce RTX 3060, attributable to thermals and the person GPUs’ configured wattage—a major issue with RTX 30 Collection graphics. The RTX 3070 laptops have been, not surprisingly, a step forward.

Aside from head-to-head comparisons, the Acer is a really succesful gaming rig; all fashionable video games will run with no bother, and most will hit 60fps at their excessive or peak picture high quality settings. As proven by Valhalla, you could must dial essentially the most demanding video games right down to medium high quality to succeed in 60fps, as is true of a few different methods right here. Equally, the RTX 3070’s benefit is evident for those who prioritize body charges over portability.

As for that native decision, it should not shock you that we will not advocate working at 2,880 by 1,800 for essentially the most difficult titles. Switching to native decision in F1 2021 with DLSS on slashed our body charge from 81fps to 54fps, whereas Valhalla dropped from 53fps to 37fps at high settings and from 79fps to 54fps at medium. Much less demanding titles, to say nothing of desktop searching or film viewing, can be high quality at full decision, however you will most likely have a greater expertise taking part in most video games at 1,920 by 1,200.

Battery and Show Exams

We take a look at laptops’ battery life by taking part in a domestically saved 720p video file with show brightness at 50% and audio quantity at 100% till the system quits. We be sure the battery is absolutely charged earlier than the take a look at, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.

We additionally use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Home windows software program to measure a laptop computer display’s coloration saturation—what proportion of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 coloration gamuts or palettes the show can present—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per sq. meter).

Portability is nothing with out battery life, and happily the Acer did very effectively, mainly tying the Zephyrus for the gold medal. With 10 hours of runtime, you may confidently depart the AC adapter behind and take the Triton to class or a gathering with out conserving a continuing eye on the battery. As for its OLED display, the SpyderX numbers backed up my eye checks—coloration protection is extraordinarily vast and peak brightness is excessive. It is an important display for avid gamers and creators alike.

Verdict: A Very Worthy 14-Inch Entry

Acer’s newest Predator Triton 300 SE is a powerful contender, packing loads of energy and high-end options right into a compact bundle at a worth that does not go overboard. It comfortably holds its personal towards the 14-inch gaming rigs from Razer, Alienware, and Asus.

There are variations, after all. Whereas we reward the Triton’s affordable worth as examined, the bottom mannequin is a greater worth play at beneath $1,400 together with the GeForce RTX 3060, for those who can dwell with out the dazzling OLED show. Different components embody the Acer’s construct high quality, which is ok however a notch beneath its rivals’. Nonetheless, the Predator’s negatives are a small worth to pay for its attractive display, good battery life, and Core i9 horsepower, so there’s not a lot room for criticism. The brand new Triton 300 SE could not redefine 14-inch machines, as a few of its opponents did, however it joins them close to the top of the category.