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Acer Predator Triton 14 AI review: A true ultraportable gaming laptop

When I review products, I try to take other perspectives and use cases into account as much as possible. I'm very aware that I'm not the target audience for every device. But once in a while I run into something that seems like it was designed specifically for me and it just hits different. With the Acer Predator Triton 14 AI, that's pretty much the situation. While it isn't the flashiest or most powerful gaming laptop on the market, it has pretty much everything I look for in a portable system that lets me play games on the go — and then some. 
Design and display
The term ultraportable is typically reserved for more traditional thin-and-light productivity machines, but I think it definitely applies to the Triton 14 AI. At just 3.5 pounds and 0.71 inches thick, Acer's rig is actually a touch lighter and just as thin as a Dell 14 Premium (3.7 pounds and 0.71 inches), despite featuring a much beefier GPU. And even compared to rivals like the Razer Blade 14 (3.6 pounds and 0.64 inches thick), the Triton 14 AI isn't losing much ground there either.


Furthermore, while some gaming notebooks go overboard with edgy aesthetics and an abundance of RGB lighting, the Triton 14 AI looks refreshingly understated. Sure, it still has customizable LEDs behind the Predator logo on its lid and per-key lighting on its keyboard. But aside from that, the laptop feels like an exercise in restraint for a category that often favors excess.The other small design flourish is a pixelated Predator logo (that looks like it was made from a tiny dot matrix display) to the right of the touchpad.. I think it's a clever touch that hints at the notebook's gaming focus without hitting you over the head with it. 
Despite its size, the Triton 14 AI also has excellent connectivity. You get two USB-C ports (one on either side), with Thunderbolt 4 support on the right while the other is used for power and USB 4 data speeds (both can be used for charging). There are also two USB-A 3.2 jacks, 3.5mm audio, a full-size HDMI 2.1 connector and even a microSD card reader. That means you can easily hook it up to an external monitor (which you really ought to have when fragging at home). Alternatively, when you're not gaming, it can be a great mobile editing station because offloading photos and videos from a camera via microSD is a cinch. 



The Acer Predator Triton 14 AI's right side features a microSD card reader, two USB ports (one Type-C and one Type-A) and a full-size HDMI jack.


Sam Rutherford for Engadget


Acer didn't cut corners with the Triton 14 AI's display either. Sure, its 120Hz refresh rate could be a touch faster or it could have gone with a slightly higher 3.2K display like on the Dell 14 Premium, but those are real nitpicks. The OLED panel produces rich colors and in my testing, the display on my review unit actually exceeded Acer's stated 340-nit brightness by a few percent. 
While Acer included six speakers that get plenty loud, my one small gripe is that they aren't located in the best spots to maximize audio quality. There are two drivers hidden behind tiny grilles on each edge of the laptop and four more located on the bottom. This means unless the laptop is sitting on a hard reflective surface like a desk (without something like a desk mat in between), audio often sounds muffled or dampened. It's not a dealbreaker and I understand that the Triton 14 AI's petite dimensions didn't leave much room for up-firing drivers, but I wish Acer had found an arrangement that sounds slightly better. 
Keyboard, touchpad and an unusual special feature




The Acer Predator Triton 14 AI features a keyboard with per-key mini LED lighting and a touchpad with built-in stylus support.


Sam Rutherford for Engadget


In addition to per-key lighting and a pleasantly bouncy typing experience, Acer added a few extra features to the Triton 14 AI's mouse and keyboard that you don't normally see on gaming laptops. On the left above the function row, there's a physical button that makes it fast and easy to switch between various performance modes with a single press. There's also a dedicated Predator key that acts as a shortcut to Acer's app, where you can do things like tweak settings or adjust the laptop's lighting.
Down below, the Triton 14 AI features a large seamless touchpad made from Gorilla Glass, similar to what you get on a Dell 14 Premium. However, to address the issue of you not knowing where the trackpad ends and the rest of the notebook's deck begins, Acer added two light strips on either side. It’s a simple and elegant solution that looks nice too. 



Not only does the Predator Triton 14 AI's touchpad feature stylus support, Acer included an active pen in the box, so you won't need to buy one separately.


Sam Rutherford for Engadget


However, the Triton's real party trick is that it also supports stylus input (via MPP 2.0) with 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity. This means you can use it like a small built-in Wacom tablet. On top of that, the laptop ships with an active pen, so you don't need to shell out extra money for one. And because Windows recognizes the stylus out of the box, there's no extra setup required. So while this isn't something I will use all the time, it's nice to have for times when I feel like taking notes, sketching or just need to sign a document electronically.
Performance
Our $2,500 review unit features an Intel Core Ultra 9 CPU with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD along with an NVIDIA RTX 5070 GPU. Notably, this is as big a graphics card as the Triton 14 AI can handle, but considering similarly-sized rivals like the Razer Blade 14 have the same limitation, it's hard to be upset. More importantly, even without the option for an RTX 5080 or 5090, Acer's tiny gaming laptop still boasts respectable performance.



The Acer Predator Triton 14 AI features a vivid 14.5-inch OLED panel with a WQXGA+ (2880 x 1800) resolution.


Sam Rutherford for Engadget


In Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p and Ultra RT settings, the Triton 14 AI hit 55 fps, which is a notch above the 45 fps I got from the Radeon 8060S in the ROG Z Flow 13. It also means that with just a tiny bit of tweaking, it's easy to push framerates above 60 while keeping almost all of the graphics settings maxed out. Meanwhile, in Returnal at 1080p on Epic, the Triton 14 AI fared even better, hitting 115 fps. That falls short of what I saw on the Alienware 16 Area-51 (154 fps), but considering that's a larger system with an RTX 5080, the difference between the two machines is understandable.
As for cooling, Acer went beyond simply using a built-in vapor chamber. Instead of the paste or liquid metal used by the competition, the company says this is the first time a graphene-based thermal interface material has been used inside a gaming laptop. This makes a difference, especially on a notebook this thin, because it means for less demanding games like Teamfight Tactics, if you adjust its performance mode you can actually play them on your lap without worrying about scorching your legs. That said, you still have to watch out because there are two largish fans on the bottom as well, so for more serious titles you'll still want to switch to a table or desk. 
Battery life



The Acer Predator Triton 14 AI's stay relatively cool in normal use thanks to a vapor chamber and a graphene-based thermal interface material. However, under heavy loads, it will still get a bit toasty.


Sam Rutherford for Engadget


Longevity is often a concern for small, power-hungry gaming laptops like this. But somehow, Acer managed to fit a more than adequate 76Whr battery inside. On PCMark 10's Modern Office rundown test, the Triton 14 AI lasted seven hours and 26 minutes. That's three hours better than larger systems like the Alienware 16 Area-51 (4:13) and half an hour better than smaller rivals like the ASUS ROG Z Flow 13 (6:54). And even though it fell short by an hour when compared to a traditional ultraportable like the Dell 14 Premium (8:30), that's still very solid when you consider the Triton’s more powerful graphics. 
Wrap-up
If you're in the market for a more powerful and sedentary type of gaming laptop that might only get moved around a couple of times a month (if that), the Triton 14 AI might not be for you. But as someone who prefers gaming laptops that are, you know, actually portable, this thing is pretty much my ideal notebook. 



Even though it's a gaming laptop, the Acer Predator Triton 14 AI's design is refreshingly understated.


Sam Rutherford for Engadget


For $2,500 as tested, the Predator Triton 14 AI has a vivid OLED display, solid performance, surprisingly good battery life and an incredibly sleek chassis that begs you to take this thing everywhere. It's a bit pricey, but considering a similarly-specced Blade 14 costs $2,700 (before sales or discounts), you might even say it's a bit of a bargain. What puts this thing over the top though, is that Acer could have stopped there and no one would have complained. But then it added extra features like ample ports, powerful cooling and built-in stylus support (not to mention the included pen). In a lot of ways, this isn't just a travel-friendly gaming machine, it's a true do-everything ultraportable.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/acer-predator-triton-14-ai-review-a-true-ultraportable-gaming-laptop-145300067.html?src=rss