PREDATOR TRITON 300 SE gaming laptop review
Contents:
• Gaming laptop makers today seem to be in a race to come up with a brighter, bolder model with plenty of RGB lighting, intricate shapes, and other quirks that manufacturers think gamers should love. Acer, in its updated Predator line, went the other way: today we have a review of the PREDATOR TRITON 300 SE (PT314-51S-70Q6). Let's talk not only about design, but also about performance and convenience. Go!
Package and design
The laptop came to the editorial office in a laconic small cardboard box. Inside there is another box that acts as a protective case: it has special fasteners so that the laptop does not hang out in the package. The set is standard: power supply, technical documentation and other pieces of paper.
• We open the protective case and wonder: did they send us the correct model in general? You manage to wean yourself from the fact that a powerful gaming computer can look so simple and concise. However, this does not spoil it: an anodized aluminum surface (does not get dirty), a neat gray color and a tiny Predator plate – if not for it, this gaming machine is almost indistinguishable from an ordinary office machine. It's nice, by the way, that the manufacturer did not save on the bottom cover – it is also aluminum. Everyone has their own taste, but, you see, a neat gaming laptop is cool. At least it's nice to know that gamers have a choice: if you want, take a colorful and flashy one, if you want, stop at a more restrained option.
PREDATOR TRITON 300 SE has a diagonal of 14 inches, which, along with the appearance and small (17.9 mm – like an ultrabook) thickness, refers us to compact office machines. True, the characteristics have nothing to do with office computers, but more on that later. The laptop weighs 1,8 kg – a lot for an office one, but less than you might expect from a gaming one. The weight is offset by the charger – a 180 W power supply has a mass of about half a kilogram.
Connectors and Ports
In the PREDATOR TRITON 300 SE, all connectors and ports are located on the sides of the case, on the rear panel there are only air ducts. The list is not exhaustive, but sufficient: 2 USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A, Type-C (with Thunderbolt 4 and DisplayPort protocol), HDMI 2.1 (with 4K support) and a combo headphone jack. The only thing missing is an Ethernet cable, you will have to buy an adapter if you want to play via a wired connection. At the same time, the laptop has a Killer™ Wi-Fi 6 AX1650i network card, which is responsible for the stable operation of the Internet and allows for configuration.
We indirectly understand that everything should be in order with the cooling of the laptop: there are air ducts not only on the rear panel – grilles are also provided on both sides, and quite massive ones. In addition, there are small rubberized legs, thanks to which air will freely walk between the laptop and the table.
Display and sound
We studied the delivery set, looked at the laptop from the outside – we open it! The first thing you notice is the excellent rigidity and calibration of the top cover hinges: the laptop is easy to open with one hand, which is often lacking in Windows devices. The hinges allow you to open the laptop completely, 180 degrees – it's not entirely clear why this is needed in a gaming machine, but let it be.
• The 14-inch display uses an IPS-matrix, frequency – 144 Hz, resolution – 1920 × 1080. The contrast is good – 1200:1. The color gamut is not bad – 96% sRGB (72% NTSC), the colors look balanced. From the interesting: the brightness is adjusted not through PWM (or with a fairly high modulation), so the eyes get tired less. The display bezels are relatively small, the view does not cling.
DTS:X Ultra technology is responsible for detailed sound in headphones or connected speakers – it makes the sound surround and allows you to better determine the location of the enemy in games by ear.
Management
The keyboard is the strong point of the PREDATOR TRITON 300 SE: average-optimal key travel, good membrane construction, island type. You can’t count on a separate numpad – after all, only 14 inches. Instead, there are a number of auxiliary keys on the right with volume, mute, mode switching, and so on. What the keyboard looks like
• PREDATOR TRITON 300 SE starts to show its gaming character: there is a three-zone backlight with 4 levels of brightness, which are configured in a special proprietary PredatorSense application.
• The touchpad has a medium size and good sensitivity, although it is the last thing for a gaming audience. At the top left is a fingerprint scanner, we are increasingly seeing this arrangement in laptops of various segments and purposes.
Hardware
The PREDATOR TRITON 300 SE line has an interesting combination of key components: 11th generation Intel processors and a discrete GeForce RTX 3060 card. The instance that we tested is one of the newest – it has a quad-core i7-11370H with a base frequency of 3.3 GHz ( the maximum frequency in Turbo Boost mode is 4,8 GHz; there is even a special button on the keyboard to switch to turbo mode – Turbo). At the same time, there is also a more powerful Core i7-11375H, and Core i5-11300H – we have a kind of golden mean. The chip was introduced in 2021, it processes up to 8 threads, the cache is 12 MB. We will not talk about integrated graphics (Iris Xe), we still have a gaming machine.
• The laptop GeForce RTX 3060 has 6 GB of memory on board, the memory is GDDR6. Points in 3DMark at the stage of Time Spy – 6549. Not bad. In general, the combination of processor and video card ensures the smooth operation of almost any title in Full HD resolution. Even with the maximum settings, the machine consistently delivers 60 FPS. A few examples: Horizon Zero Dawn – 68 FPS in turbo mode, Borderlands 3 – 62 FPS. In general, the laptop fits perfectly for Full HD gaming – and if we are talking about older games, you can count on 100+ or even 150+ FPS.
• RAM – average by the standards of 16 GB, with the ability to replace one module from 8 GB to 16 GB, which will increase the volume to 24 GB. The memory works in dual-channel mode. When choosing a laptop from the PREDATOR TRITON 300 SE line, it makes sense to look at models with the ability to connect additional modules – 16 GB can be called the necessary minimum for a gaming machine, but 24 GB is a completely different matter. AIDA shows about 35 GB / s when reading or writing, about 31 GB / s when copying. Nothing bad or good can be said about the memory – a strong average.
• The storage is a 1TB SSD. It does not break speed records, but no obvious failures were noticed either. It is noteworthy that additional drives cannot be installed – however, a terabyte is quite enough even by modern gaming standards.
• Cooling is on the level: the design is quite standard, and the manufacturer is especially proud of the 3th generation AeroBlade 5D fans with ultra-thin blades. The rest – three heat pipes, air intake from below, output through the rear and side panels – a fairly traditional set of solutions.
Conclusions
• In general, Acer turned out to be a worthy product in the updated PREDATOR line. It looks great and has a compact size, which allows you to use a laptop, including as a working tool. If we are talking about performance, in most cases these features and characteristics will be enough to enjoy your favorite games. For an impressive screen and a comfortable game in 4K, you need to pay much more money – and the PREDATOR TRITON 300 SE represents a kind of golden mean that is suitable for most gamers.
