Acer’s Special Edition range of gaming laptops are designed to cram the power of a monster machine into a more refined body. Six months after announcing the Triton 300 SE, the company is busting out the Triton 500 SE, promising that same blend of respectable looks and gonzo power. The Triton 500 SE can be specced with an 11th-generation Core i9, RTX 3080 graphics and 64GB of RAM. Despite that, Acer says that you can still squeeze up to 12 hours of battery life from the thing, and it’s hardly a chunky space-hog, either. Naturally, the machine is aimed at the power crowd, with up to 4TB storage suitable for games or, more likely, video and graphics files.
You get a 16-inch display, with an 87 percent screen-to-body ratio, which has a number of custom order options. Would-be purchasers can pick a 1,250-nit 165Hz WQXGA mini-LED panel with full coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut, ideal for professionals. Or, they can go for a more gamer-friendly 240Hz WQXGA IPS screen with a 3ms response time and NVIDIA G-Sync.
The Triton has new chips as well; it’s configurable with up to an 11th-Gen Intel Core i9 processor and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 GPU. (Acer hasn’t shared the clock speeds and graphics power you can expect from these chips yet, so I look forward to digging those up during the review process.) It also provides more ambitious specs for power users than previous Tritons, supporting up to a whopping 64GB of memory and 4TB of storage. (Last year’s Triton 500 maxed out at 32GB and 2TB, respectively.)
The Triton 500 SE has pretty much every port you might need, including two Thunderbolt 4 ports, one on each side, in addition to two USB 3.2 Gen 2, one HDMI 2.1, one 3.5mm audio jack, one SD card reader, an ethernet port, and a DC-in for power. One of the USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports supports power-off USB charging as well.
Acer is also very excited about the new cooling system, which features what it refers to as its “5th-Gen Aeroblade 3D fan” in a triple-fan system with five heat pipes. Acer says this will provide up to 10 percent better airflow than the previous Triton 500. We’ll have more specific metrics once we’ve been able to write a full review of this device; my first impression is that the fans were often audible on this pre-production unit, but I never felt an uncomfortable amount of heat and never saw the CPU get anywhere close to a worrying temperature.
In terms of when, where, and how much, the Triton 500 SE will arrive in the US in June, with the base model (likely packing the Core i7, 16GB of RAM, RTX 3060 graphics and that QHD 165Hz display) setting you back $1,750. The Helios 500, meanwhile, arrives in August, with the price starting at $2,500, but likely to move further northward depending on what specs you pick.
Acer also announced an updated version of its bulkier, pricier, and high-performance Predator Helios 500, which also has new 11th-Gen processors and Nvidia 3000-series GPUs. This laptop can come with a 4K Mini LED 120Hz display or an FHD 360Hz display. The Helios can be configured with up to 64GB of RAM as well. That model is coming to North America in August starting at $2,499.99.
