Acer Triton 500 – a solid and compact gaming laptop
Acer Triton 500 is a compact gaming laptop that caters to both gamers and people who travel a lot and need a companion. The Triton 500 combines gaming and portability in a pleasant way.
Gaming laptops are generally thick and heavy because they need a high performance cooling system, generous batteries and automatically the components are a bit larger.
In this case we have a compact gaming laptop, a small weight and if you are not an expert you can confuse it with a multimedia laptop.
The Triton 500 has been designed to be a gaming laptop, and the user occasionally goes away and has to take his gaming laptop with him. To be serious, I don’t know how many of you have 2 laptops: an ultra-easy office and a gaming one.
This is how the Triton 500 is defined. But in order to be an ultra portable but also very good gaming laptop, some sacrifices were required. We talk about the hardware platform that is slightly atypical but still a very good one.
Inside we opted for an older generation processor, a Core i7-8750H. There is no problem with it and no big differences are between it and the 9000 series. It just works at slightly lower frequencies and is cooler, so it automatically needs a smaller cooling system.
The video card chosen is an RTX 2080 Max-Q, so a slightly weaker version than the standard one. I do not see a problem here either because the plate itself is a beast even in this version.
But to be able to make such a compact laptop, you need to carefully choose the components that are at risk of producing a bomb. Acer carefully chose the processor and the video card and I say it is a very good combination.
We also receive 32GB DDR4 RAM at 2666MHz, 15.6-inch Full HD IPS 144Hz screen produced by AUO, model B156HAN08.2, 2 256GB SSDs in PCIe Express NVMe format in RAID, Windows 10 Pro installed and RGB illuminated keyboard.
About the design you find that the Triton 500 is very compact, that is very small in size, it is thin and easy. The pictures speak for themselves but I want to make certain details: the construction is a premium and everything you feel is a premium.
The case is plastic, but so well finished that when the laptop is cold it leaves you feeling like it is metal.
The joints are solid and of good quality, and the screen hinge is sturdy! To get an idea of the thickness of the laptop, the LAN jack has entered the limit being fixed as its edge. So the laptop is as thick as the LAN jack.
Even the screen has very thin edges and makes the footprint of the laptop smaller. It looks very good as it is. It weighs 2.14kg and feels solid even though it is a lightweight laptop.
On the connection side it offers LAN, USB, HDMI and 2 jacks on the left and mini Display Port, USB Type C and 2 USBs on the right. It is a complete, very good connection for a gaming laptop.
The keyboard is illuminated and you can change the color of the dedicated software. It feels good to press and offers very good feedback. You can play freely without feeling like you are empty. It is well built to provide real and pleasant feedback.
About the 4 cell battery I will not tell you too much because most of the time I used it connected to the socket. It is not a laptop that will be used on the battery, very rarely likely. I estimate around 5 hours autonomy considering the hardware.
What I really appreciated is the easy maintenance. If you undo the screws on the back you can very easily remove the cover and have access to the battery, the 3 fans and the memories.
The temperatures that Triton 500 reaches in full load are not exaggerated. The temperature inside is maximum 77 degrees for the video card and 90 degrees for the processor in synthetic tests.
But these synthetic tests do not reflect the reality for me because the processor and the video card were kept at 100% for 30 minutes.
In gaming, things are not so that neither the processor nor the video card always work at maximum values. Therefore, in gaming the temperatures are lower. I reached a maximum of 72 degrees on the processor and 65 degrees on the video card.
The cooling system does not make a big difference when working. I initially thought I would hear a loud sound as the fans were smaller. Honestly it was not, and the sound was normal and disturbing only if the house is completely quiet.
But when the TV goes on, you still have the sound from the game, there are still people talking through the house, the sound produced by the cooling system is weak.
For me the most important thing is how it is presented in gaming, what FPS brings out and what details you can play. I tried a few popular games because basically you can play anything on this laptop. All games run on maximum graphics settings.
In conclusion, the Triton 500 is a good laptop that does what it promises: it is very easy to carry, it has very good gaming performance, it does not burn while playing, it has a good software and a solid construction.
