At nearly six pounds, the new Acer Predator Triton 700 isn't exactly ultraportable, but it's still svelte for a gaming notebook and makes up for its heft with a mechanical keyboard and other features you won't find on your average Chromebook or MacBook Air.
In fact, when you consider everything Acer crammed into the Triton 700, unveiled on Thursday along with a slew of other new Acer gear, it's remarkable that it all fits into a 0.74-inch tall notebook that weighs 5.7 pounds. To start, there's a seventh-gen Intel Core processor, Nvidia GeForce 10-series graphics card, two NVMe PCIe SSDs in a RAID 0 configuration, and 15.6-inch full HD IPS display.
Gaming-specific features include a customizable RGB-backlit mechanical keyboard, and a window made of Corning Gorilla Glass that lets you catch a glimpse of the cooling fan and five heat pipes. In a twist, the window also functions as the notebook's touchpad, which sounds really cool until you remember that you'll be using your mouse to play most games.
But there are some downsides. At $2,999, the Triton 700, which goes on sale in August, is eye-wateringly expensive. It commands a premium of more than $1,000 over the new Razer Blade, which has a smaller 14-inch screen but is also lighter at just over 4 pounds.
If you're in the market for a significantly cheaper gaming notebook and don't mind carrying around some extra weight, Acer also unveiled the new Predator Helios 300 (above), which goes on sale in July. It's available in a 15.6-inch model starting at $1,299, or with a 17.3-inch display for $1,399. You won't get a fancy window-cum-touchpad or an SSD raid array (the Helios 300 uses a 1TB HDD), but you will get Nvidia GTX 10-series graphics and a seventh-gen Core i7 or Core i5.
Meanwhile, for gaming at home, Acer has two new Predator external displays on offer. The Predator x27 is a 27-inch 4K monitor with 384 individually controlled LED zones to improve color saturation. (By dimming the individual diodes that correspond to the darker part of the picture, the monitor is able to display deeper blacks, a feature that's also increasingly found in TVs).
If you want a curved display, you might consider the Predator Z271UV, which boasts a 3ms native response time and built-in speakers. Both monitors feature quantom dot technology and built-in eye-tracking, assuming your games support it. Pricing and availability weren't announced.