Under the hood, the system features appropriately high-end specs, including an Intel Core Ultra 9 288V CPU, 32 GB of RAM, a 1-terabyte solid state drive for storage, not to mention graphics courtesy of a mobile Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 GPU. This is one of the most decked-out laptops I’ve tested to date, and performance was solid, though surprisingly and disappointingly not even close to record-breaking on any benchmark I threw at it (including productivity and AI tasks).
Results were generally in line with high-end business- or creative-focused laptops of recent vintage, but with the added benefit of being able to handle video games. That said, even the graphics didn’t overly dazzle me: Framerates just weren’t as impressive as I’d hoped for, considering the RTX 5070 GPU. The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI I recently tested offered roughly double the gaming performance of the Triton, with a lower-end graphics card.
It’s nonetheless a delight to use. The keyboard is responsive, and I enjoyed working with the touchpad once I turned the haptic response level to maximum, which makes it more intuitive to tap and click on. The OLED screen is incredibly bright—near the brightest in the field—and the six-speaker audio system can really crank out the sound. At close range, it was painfully loud once I pushed it above 30 percent.
Low Power
Photograph: Chris Null
On the downside, a battery life of 6 hours, 50 minutes (playing YouTube at full brightness) is probably marginal for creatives, though you’ll be able to stretch that with careful power management tactics (which will also help tone down the rather loud fan). The unit is also shockingly slow to boot.
A bigger problem might be a bizarre issue I encountered wherein the laptop—idling after completing some benchmarks—got hot. And then hotter and hotter and hotter. Eventually, the unit was so hot to the touch that I measured it with a laser thermometer. The underside of the laptop hit a scorching 144 degrees before I finally shut everything down. That’s not just hot enough to burn you; it’s hot enough to cause third-degree burns. Acer did not have any explanation for the issue but, like me, was happy the issue didn’t return for the remainder of my testing after a reboot.
At $2,500, Acer is asking a lot for a machine that performs well but not so well that it’s exemplary. The inclusion of discrete graphics necessitates that price hike—at least in part—but the whole package still feels like it’s priced at too high a premium. The excellent Razer Blade 14, for example, might not be as flashy as the Triton, but it can deliver the same if not better performance. You’ll have money left over to buy a nice Wacom tablet too, if that’s what you’re after.
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