Predator Triton 500 SE Review – Near Peak Preformance on The Go

The Predator Triton 500 SE is the latest model of Acer’s premier gaming laptop. Like with Predator Triton’s previous generations, the device is compact and versatile. It is able to perform well at many different tasks. Deep down, however, it is a gaming laptop that will allow you to take peak performance PC gaming in the go.

Design

This time the design isn’t quite as “e-sports” as in the past. The overall design is relatively simple, exquisite and modern. There’s is no big logo, only a small Predator symbol on the upper right corner and no RGB lighting effect

Compared with the previous Triton series, the 500 SE Pointer has a different look and aesthetic. If you take it out in public, no one is going to think you’re going out with a gaming laptop as it looks more like an office laptop

The Predator Triton 500 SE weighs 2.4kg, with a thickness of only 19.9mm. Not quite as slim as its predecessor, the Predator Triton 300 SE was 17.9mm thin and weighing a mere 1.79kg but with its extra power, it’s not much of a loss. Despite this, the Predator Triton 500 SE has not abandoned any ports in its attempt to slim down. It has a very complete connection port, with a power port, an Ethernet port, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 port, a Thunderbolt 4™ port, and a headphone jack on the left of the machine. On the right, there is a HDMI 2.1 interface, USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface, Thunderbolt 4™ interface, and SD card slot

Keyboard and Mousepad

The Predator Triton 500 SE is equipped with a nice 3-zone RGB backlit keyboard. This includes various lighting effects with a variety of customization options at your fingertips. 

Whether typing out your university thesis or having a LAN party, the keys are comfortable and well suited for long periods of use. The one exception to this however is the Ctrl button on the left. It’s a little too small and can be difficult to press. With that being said, overall the keyboard functions well and it’s easy for your fingers to get instinctively used to the layout. 

There are also some additional PredatorSense buttons on the keyboard to control the laptop’s built-in cooling fans. These include buttons that can monitor the fans, control their speed and put them into overclock. The most convenient of them being the one-key turbo button that makes the fans go nyoooom~

In addition, there is a fingerprint reader in the upper left corner of the touchpad that can be used for some extra security.

Main Display

In a dense sea of 15.6-inch laptops, it’s kind of refreshing to take a look at the 16-inch Predator Triton this time!

• This gaming laptop is equipped with a 16:10 WQXGA (2560 x 1600) IPS narrow bezel screen.
• The laptop’s screen-to-body ratio is 87%
• It supports a 165Hz screen refresh rate and 3ms response time
• It is installed with an NVIDIA® G-SYNC® with a 100 %sRGB colour gamut and up to 500 nits brightness
• The Thunderbolt 4™ interface can support 4K dual displays or an 8K display through a compatible docking station.
• It can also transfer data at a minimum of 32GB/s and a maximum of 40GB/s.

Battery

The Predator Triton 500 SE is equipped with a 99.98 Wh high-capacity battery. It is officially stated that the battery can last up to 12 hours which would provide incredibly portability to the machine. 

That being said the battery’s power will shorten depending on what the computer of being used for. Surfing the net of updating social media could bring it down to 6-8 hours. Gaming on the machine at peak performance could shrink the battery to around 1-2 max. 

Audio

While the audio isn’t bad, it’s hard to say that it’s all that good either. The audio won’t truly pop unless you drive audio too much higher than necessary. It’s the same problem with a lot of laptops where they just aren’t ideal for playing bass. 

With that being said, if you listening to music with moderate modulation, you should still get a comfortable output. As for watching. videos like on youtube or Netflix, dialogue plays clearly, no no problem there at least.

The audio isn’t going to blow you away but it’s not unusable either.

Cooling

One of the major new features of the Predator Triton 500 SE is that it has a more advanced cooling system. The laptop has three built-in fans, including a special fifth-generation AeroBlade 3D fan. There are also 5 heat pipes dedicated to the processor and graphics card to dissipate heat to achieve efficient air intake and output, keeping your pen power at the best performance.

This does come with the side effect of the fans being a bit loud, especially when the Turbo mode is turned on. To be fair though, that goes for lots of fans in laptops so it shouldn’t be too big of an issue.

It also doesn’t feel hot when under heavy use. The heat dissipation system is very well made. 

Performance

Even though the appearance of the Predator Triton is no longer that of e-sports, the configuration is still very e-sports. It is equipped with 8 cores and 16 threads and the 11th generation Intel® Core™ i9-11900H mobile processor with a maximum operating frequency of 5.0GHz. This means that the laptop can run most gaming experiences smoothly, even comparable to a desktop computer. 

It is equipped with NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 3080 8GB / 16GB GDDR6 graphics card, 32GB 3200Mhz DDR4 RAM, up to 64GB RAM, and SSD with 2TB storage space, Intel® Killer E3100G Ethernet controller and Intel® Killer Wi -Fi 6 AX1650i network card.

It’s pretty unexpected that under such a clean appearance, the laptop is packed with such a powerful configuration.

The first game we tried on the laptop was Cyberpunk 2077. If all the image quality is turned to its highest setting, the frames level out at around 50-70FPS. If the image quality is adjusted to a higher than average but not maximum output, it will be increased to between 60-80FPS. If the light chase is turned on, then It will be between 30-50FPS.

We then played Watch Dogs: Legion which just launched some new DLC recently. Thanks to PCIe Gen 4.0, getting around London was super smooth, with minimal loading times. The frame specs were around the same as Cyberpunk’s were. 

Since the laptop has a high refresh rate of 165Hz, it is most suitable for playing FPS games. For the next one, we tried to play “APEX Legends”. If the picture quality is set to the highest, the average is between 90-110FPS, which brings quite the silky-smooth shooting experience!

Final Thoughts

On the whole, the Predator Triton 500 SE is a whole new stage of evolution for the Predator Triton line.

Although the exterior design seems to be relatively streamlined, it is an unfathomable powerful gaming laptop at heart. Not only equipped with the new 11th generation Intel® Core™ i9-11900H mobile processor, allowing players to have a gaming experience comparable to desktop computers but also NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 3080 8GB / 16GB GDDR6 graphics card, PCIe Gen 4.0, etc. The configuration is excellent.

Such a high-end and convenient gaming laptop is definitely a good laptop for you to take out to a friend’s house to play. It’s full of power and versatility. 

You can learn more about the Acer Predator Triton 500 SE on Acer’s Website.

If you’re interesting in other Predator Triton models, check out our review of the Predator Triton 300 SE

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