This is the Triton 500.
It's a brand new gaming laptop, and it's the first truly
thin-and-light gaming laptop that Acer's ever made
I mean they've made thin devices before, "thin" devices
But this is the first one they've made that was actually competitive
with the other thin-and-light gaming laptops in the premium segment
And for the first attempt at making a truly thin-and-light gaming laptop
I think they did an awesome job
It's actually cheaper than all the other devices here
So, if you're interested in picking one up,
I would suggest the RTX 2060 configuration
Even right now, I feel like the RTX 2080 Max-Q or the RTX 2070 Max-Q
are just not worth the value's at, 2060 is the way to go
Gaming performance is very good on the RTX 2060
On the 144Hz panel, stuff just looks really smooth
All the popular titles are going to play very well on this thing
It also has an overclockable GPU
So in the software in here, you can bump it up a little bit if you want
The thermal performance on this device is also pretty good
I do not know if the fan profile is different between the different configurations
So this is their weakest configuration, the 2060
and the thermals are comfortable, but the fans do get loud
Also, if you activate Cooler Boost and crank up the fans to max,
you get the best thermal performance but it gets even louder
and at that point, you definitely need to have headphones
if you're playing games or anything like that
Now, as I used this device, I realized that this thing was very familiar
This whole device and all the components and how they built it was very familiar
It's because it is basically a clone on the inside to the MSI GS65
Now, that is a device that I've reviewed in the past and I'm quite familiar with it
So when I crack this thing open, I just recognize like
There's so much about this that is very similar to the GS65
The internals are designed in a somewhat annoying way
You only have easy access to your Wi-Fi card and your battery
I'll get into the battery details in a second,
but you don't have access, at least easy access, to your RAM or your drives
You have to unscrew the motherboard
and do a pretty extensive disassembly to access them
And on a gaming laptop, I feel like that's a bit of a miss
A lot of people want to switch those things out and upgrade them in the future
and it's just a difficult task on this particular laptop, same with the GS65
The speakers on the side are also not great, they're very average sounding
Acer has some software to try to make sound a little better, a little different
But, doesn't matter what the software is doing,
they just, they sound very plain
Okay, inside, the keyboard and the trackpad are also very similar to the GS65
The mechanism on the keys are a little bit different
but the layout is surprisingly similar to the GS65
Now, I prefer the keyboard on the Triton
I feel like it's just a more responsive keyboard
It feels better to me for gaming and typing and
I would say that of the thin-and-light gaming laptops, like this whole stack here,
I would say that this is the best keyboard for the average person
I think most people get used to this keyboard quicker than any of these
The lighting on this keyboard is zoned lighting
So instead of individually lit keys, they have three different zones
But they also have this thing where the WASD keys have this blue tinted plastic
and when you change the colors of the lighting,
the lights of those keys have this blue hue to them, which is a little bit weird
But having zoned lighting, it helps to keep the manufacturing costs down
It also has a turbo button at the top of the keyboard
You press it, and the fans kick in
The trackpad is pretty good. It's running Windows Precision drivers
It's got a pretty smooth surface
There's nothing I would really complain about this trackpad
It is a little small, if that matters to you
but it's pretty solid for a gaming laptop
The screen, 144 Hertz, 1080p panel
It's supposedly overclockable to 3ms response time,
but it's bright, it's reasonably color accurate
I think it's a great screen for gaming
Now, the build quality on the Triton 500
is something that I think is quite special, especially because of its price
This is a cheaper device than the MSI GS65
but I think this is a better built device than the MSI
This is a very light laptop, this is 1.9kg (4.2lbs)
The Triton (4.6lbs) is 250 grams more, which may not seem that significant,
but it is noticeable, but for that extra weight,
you get a device that's built better
There's less flex on the chassis, the bottom panel is a little bit sturdier
The whole device feels just better built
Also, the finish of this device is slightly better
If you look at the bottom edge of this thing, the edge is less sharp compared to the MSI GS65
It's also got very similar ports to the MSI
3 USB-A, 1 USB-C that supports Thunderbolt 3,
and it also has an Ethernet jack, which is nice on a thin-and-light gaming laptop
But compared to the market, what you're getting with this device is better bang-for-your-back
The Triton 500 has excellent performance for a reasonable price
It also has a pretty good battery life
It's a 84 watt-hour battery and I got 6 hours with the screen at 250 nits
It's a pretty decent sized battery
The AC adapter, it's 180 watts, it's relatively compact
but because the battery life is pretty decent on this laptop
I don't feel like it's a bring it around with you wherever you go
But overall, I think they did a great job on their first attempt at a thin-and-light gaming device
I do think it's better than the GS65 for me personally
If I had to decide between the two, I opt for the Triton 500, but yeah
If you do pick one up though, RTX 2060 instead of that RTX 2080 Max-Q.