The best Acer gaming laptop deals are around us all the time. Watching, waiting to pounce. The Acer Predator gaming laptops stalk in all their alpha glory, with the Helios and Triton packs covering the mid-range and high-end experience grounds. Don’t forget the Acer Nitro line-up either: great entry-level gaming laptops for those on a tight budget. They may not be as honed or muscular as their more expensive siblings, but they still pack impressive punch where it matters most.
Thankfully, Acer has finally removed the word ‘Predator’ from its laptop’s lid too, which might have caused some misunderstandings in public.
There was once a time when the GPU supply shortage affected stock in all product categories, and laptops were not immune. The good news is we have our clever money-saving bots scouring the internet for the best Acer laptops deals—both older models and the newest, shiniest releases.
Due to the sheer breadth of specs, styles, and price points in Acer’s portfolio, finding the specs to match your needs isn’t as easy as we’d like. With more and more laptops touting brand new GPUs like the Nvidia RTX 30-series, the choices and options can be overwhelming. But that’s what we’re here for. Below are some of our favorite Acer gaming laptops we’ve tested out this year.
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Once you get past the initial dread of its god-awful startup sound, the Acer Predator Triton 500 is hands down one of the best gaming laptops I’ve ever used. Small enough to fit in a backpack and light enough not to be a burden, it stuffs a 15-inch screen into a 14-inch frame for an RTX gaming experience that is, against all odds, both portable and potent.
It doesn’t have the strongest battery life, having conked out at less than three hours in our in-house battery test, but you can’t expect to play intensive triple-A games unplugged for long anyway.
What you can expect from the Acer Predator Triton 500 is a blissful, quiet, high-performance gaming laptop capable of outpacing the latest consoles. You can get it in RTX 2060 and 2080 flavors, and while the latter can be configured with up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, I recommend the middle-of-the-road option for the best value: Intel Core i7 processor, RTX 2080 graphics, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of NVMe PCIe SSD storage.
If it weren’t for a few glaring design oversights and a notable lack of screen resolution choices above 1080p, the Triton 500 would be a perfect machine. Still, it’s a relatively inexpensive gateway to ray-traced graphics rendered in real-time, deserving of its place on the best Acer laptop for gaming throne.
Read our full Acer Predator Triton 500 review.
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Though it comes in 15.6-inch and 17.3-inch flavors, we prefer the 15-inch Acer Predator Helios 300, a budget-minded clamshell made for gaming in each of its many forms. Despite being available in ten different configurations, they are all almost good choices.
The Predator Helios 300 is one of the better-performing mid-range gaming laptops, packing in plenty of power for under $1,500, which is not an easy task. The vast number of configurations even let you find a way to drive the price even lower by skimping on inconsequential components (for gaming, at least), like RAM or a screen with a lower refresh rate, you can save yourself a hefty chunk of change.
The Helios 300 is a solid, lower-cost alternative to the Triton 500. It’s worth keeping an eye out for simply because it offers great power at a thoroughly reasonable price. It’s not maybe the thinnest or most portable gaming laptop around, but it makes up for that by being powerful where it matters most.
Read our full Acer Predator Helios 300 review.
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Just because you’re on a budget doesn’t mean you have to miss out on playing some killer games on the go. The Acer Nitro 5 offers plenty of AMD configurations and Intel ones for not much cash, and you can still enjoy 1080p gameplay at modest frame rates.
You’re generally in the realms of the GTX 1660 Ti or the RTX 3050 here, at least at the more affordable end of the Nitro 5 spectrum, but they’re powerful enough for 1080p. And with the RTX 3050, you can even potentially enjoy some ray traced pretties with DLSS 2.0 support thrown in for good measure.
If you’re a student, the Nitro 5 has plenty of ports for all your accessories like portable hard drives, gaming mice, and other goodies without breaking the bank.
Acer’s NitroSense fan-control app makes sure that your laptop always remains cool during heavy usage. This means you can work on your lap without frying said lap. The touchpad can be temperamental; we recommend picking up a gaming mouse to complement this laptop.
