Acer’s new gaming laptops feature mini-LED, 3D displays, and affordable prices
Acer has announced new high-end Predator gaming laptops, along with a new Swift X 16 MacBook competitor.
FrankLin
Acer has announced a fresh slate of laptops, including some high-end models in the Predator Triton, Swift lines, plus lots more.
The gaming laptops are the biggest announcements, including a Predator Triton 17 X that comes with a 17-inch mini-LED screen. This monster new gaming laptop looks a lot like other Predator laptops, but this one comes with a 1000-nit display, up to an RTX 4090, and an Intel Core i9-13900HX.
But that’s an expensive bit of kit that comes in a very large chassis. If you’re looking for something smaller and cheaper, Acer also announced the Predator Triton 14. This is a renamed version of the Triton 300 SE (which was always a bad name), but now upgraded with some much more high-end components. It’ll now have options for a 250Hz mini-LED display, RTX 4070, and Core i7-13700H.
This is a direct competitor with the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, a very popular gaming laptop with a similar footprint. The G14 also got the upgrade to mini-LED this year, and the Triton 14 looks like it uses a similar panel, which can only go up to 600 nits of peak brightness. For that more dramatic HDR effect, stick with the brighter Triton 17 X.
The Triton 17 X will start at $3,799 when it becomes available in North America this May. The Triton 14 also comes out in May and will have a starting price of $1,499.
Acer is also releasing two midrange gaming laptops under its Helios brand, the Predator Helios Neo 16 and Helios 3D 15. The Helios Neo 16 is completely new, though it looks a lot like other Predator Helios laptops, such as the previous-generation Helios 300 or 500. Acer seems to have done away with that naming scheme altogether, which is a good idea. The Helios Neo 16 comes with up to an RTX 4070 with up to 140 watts of maximum graphics power. Despite being a midrange gaming laptop, there are some solid displays options, offering up to a 165Hz 1600p resolution panel.
The Helios 3D 15 starts at $3,499 and will be available in North America in June. The Helios Neo 16, meanwhile, will be available in North America starting in May at $1,199.
Beyond gaming, Acer has also announced the Swift X 16, which is the company’s MacBook Pro competitor. This is one of the first laptops to use AMD’s new Ryzen 9 7940H processors, as well as Nvidia’s RTX 4050 graphics. The display is one of the standout features. It’s a 3200 x 2000 resolution OLED panel certified as DisplayHDR TrueBlack 500 by VESA. At 0.7 inches thick, it’s marginally thicker than the 16-inch MacBook Pro, while being over a half-pound lighter.
There are loads of different configurations that will be available for the Acer Swift X 16, but the prices start at $1,250, which comes with a Ryzen 5 7535H, 512GB of storage, an RTX 3050, and 16GB of RAM.
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Luke Larsen is the Computing Editor at Digital Trends and manages all content covering laptops, monitors, PC hardware, and everything else that plugs into a computer. Luke joined Digital Trends in 2017 as a native Portlander, happy to join a media company that called his city home. His obsession with technology is in observing the ebb and flow of how technological advancement and design intersects with our day-to-day experience of it. From digging into the minute details to stepping back and seeing the wider trends, Luke revels in telling stories with tech.
Before working at DT, he worked as Tech Editor at Paste Magazine for over four years and has bylines at publications such as IGN and The Oregonian. When he's not obsessing over what the best laptop is or how Apple can fix the Mac, Luke spends his time playing designer board games, quoting obscure Star Wars lines, grilling chicken wings, and endlessly tinkering with his pedal board.
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