At IFA 2019 in Berlin, Acer announced a new thin and light Predator Triton 300 gaming laptop that is reasonably well-equipped. It sticks with Intel's 9th generation Core processor family rather than one of its new 10th generation "Ice Lake" chips, but still manages to weigh just 2.3 kg (5.07 pounds) and measure less than 2cm (0.78 inches).
Configurations will vary, but it will be offered with up to a Core i7 processor, paired with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 GPU that comes standard. It also features a baseline 16GB of DDR4-2666 memory, which is expandable to 32GB.
For storage, the Predator Triton 300 supports up to two 1TB M.2 NVMe SSDs in RAID 0, alongside up to 2TB of HDD space. The RAID 0 implementation is somewhat curious—NVMe SSDs are typically very fast to begin with, and putting two of them in RAID 0 seems like an unnecessary added risk of failure versus using a single, higher capacity SSD (if one drive in a RAID 0 array fails, your files on both drives are kaput).
Moving on, this is a 15.6-inch laptop with a 1080p (1920x1080) IPS display. Built for speed, it has a 144Hz refresh rate and 3ms response time (in overdrive). Whether the GTX 1650 can take advantage of a 144Hz refresh rate will depend on the game being played, and the image quality settings—esports titles tend to be less demanding.
Acer tapped Rivet Networks for the laptop's wireless and wired connectivity, which consist of a Killer Wi-Fi 6 AX1650 card and Killer GbE LAN controller, respectively. In addition, from the pictures we have seen there appear to be three USB 3.1 Type-A ports, two USB 3.1 Type-C ports, an HDMI output, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Finally, the keyboard features zoned RGB lighting (it looks like three zones). And while hard to see in the press renders, Acer says the WASD keys, arrow keys, and dedicated Predator Sense key are "concave shaped and transparent for ease-of-use." The Predator Sense key brings up a utility for configuring various settings.
The Predator Triton 300 will be available next month in EMEA starting at €1,299. It's not clear when (or if) it will ship in the US, but that works out to around $1,430.
