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The Triton 500 SE is an expensive gaming laptop that doesn’t flex its hardware enough
pending a grip on a gaming laptop isn’t difficult; a cursory search on gaming laptops will net you several options that cost more than $4,000. But finding a laptop that’s giving you the greatest return on your investment is more of a challenge. If you’re spending around $3,000 on a gaming laptop like the Acer Predator Triton 500 SE, you want it to bury the competition, not just scrape by. Unfortunately, the Triton 500 SE is a bit disappointing and doesn’t flex its hardware enough to set it apart in a crowded market.
Housed in its all-silver chassis, the $2,999.99 configuration of the Triton 500 SE we tested includes a 12th Gen Core i9-12900H processor, RTX 3080 Ti graphics card, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of PCIe NVME storage. This hardware is more than enough to take full advantage of its 16-inch 240Hz 2560 x 1600 display. Acer has less expensive models of the Triton 500 SE available, too; the base model, with an Intel Core i7-12700H CPU, RTX 3070 Ti, and 16GB of RAM, costs $2,099.99, about as much as a Lenovo Legion 5i Pro with twice the RAM and storage.
he Triton 500 SE has enough ports that it doesn’t need an external dock or a mess of dongles. Along the left side, you’ll find an ethernet port, DC connector, a 3.5mm audio jack, a single USB-A port, and a USB-C / Thunderbolt 4 hookup. The right side features another Thunderbolt port and USB-A port plus an HDMI output and SDXC card reader.
f you’re sticking to the area around the WASD keys, the keyboard is fine, but trying to get actual work done on the keyboard can be a challenge. The switches have good tactile feedback and a small amount of travel, and they don’t feel mushy, but they’re smaller than average, and the gaps between them make me wish this space were used a little more efficiently. Too often, I missed a key or had to pause what I was doing to search for a function that had been relocated. In a few cases, I hit the key that summons the Acer Predator software instead of the backspace key. I made far fewer errors with the keyboard on the Asus ROG Zephyrus M16 thanks to its slightly larger keys and more familiar layout.
The trackpad is sizable, at roughly 5 x 3 inches, and has a satisfying tactile response with a nice click. It’s accurate and responsive and didn’t randomly register my palms when using it. It’ll get you by if you’re playing Civilization 6, but you’re going to want a dedicated mouse for your Valorant ladder matches. It’s a bit disappointing that the fingerprint sensor takes up part of the upper-left portion of the trackpad. It doesn’t get in the way very often, but I’d rather have a bigger trackpad surface with a fingerprint sensor on another part of the chassis.
At just over five pounds, it might be tempting to call the Triton portable, but the battery life prevents it from going far without an available outlet. The Triton lasts a couple of hours when gaming on battery power, which isn’t spectacular but is slightly more impressive when you consider that it offers roughly the same gaming experience you would get when it’s plugged in. The motherboard is equipped with a multiplexer, or MUX switch, that boosts battery life by dynamically switching between the integrated and dedicated GPUs depending on the task. By leaning on the integrated GPU instead of the RTX 3080 Ti, it managed to get almost three hours of YouTube streaming / working. You can’t expect too much from a laptop this size that uses such a demanding graphics card, but if you need longevity from your gaming laptop, the MSI GS77 Stealth lasts about as long as the Triton but charges you less for the privilege.
Source: TheVerge
