A closer look at the Acer Triton 500 SE

Acer's Triton has slimmed down and will be marketed as a creator-focused laptop, as well as a gaming one.

Dan Ackerman

Dan Ackerman leads CNET's coverage of computers and gaming hardware. A New York native and former radio DJ, he's also a regular TV talking head and the author of "The Tetris Effect" (Hachette/PublicAffairs), a non-fiction gaming and business history book that has earned rave reviews from the New York Times, Fortune, LA Review of Books, and many other publications. "Upends the standard Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs/Mark Zuckerberg technology-creation myth... the story shines." -- The New York Times

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Dan Ackerman

Feb. 21, 2022 10:03 a.m. PT

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Of the gaming laptops updated by Acer in early 2022, the Triton 500 SE is the most powerful. These photos are of an early non-final test unit we got to check out just after CES 2022.

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It's configurable with up to a 12th-gen Intel Core i9 processor and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti laptop GPU.

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Built-in PredatorSense software controls the keyboard backlighting as well as other system tweaks such as fan speed and overclocking.

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The system is just a hair under 20mm thick, with a 16:10 aspect ratio and a 16-inch screen.

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The touchpad is covered with Corning Gorilla Glass and has an integrated fingerprint reader.

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Inside, there's a triple fan system using Acer's own AeroBlade 3D fans for cooling.

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Ports on the left side include an SD card reader, USB-A (3.2), USB-C (Thunderbolt) and HDMI 2.1.

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On the right side, you have power, Ethernet (plus Wi-Fi 6E), USB-A (3.2), USB-C (Thunderbolt) and an audio jack.

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The updated Acer Triton 500 SE should be available in March or April, with a Core i7/3070Ti version for $2,299 and a Core i9/3080 Ti version priced at $2,999.