Design and construction
As expected, the Predator comes in a big, heavy and thick chassis that houses all this powerful hardware. It’s a necessity for almost all notebooks from this class and it will take some time for the OEMs to start building slimmer machines. The notebook feels really sturdy, solid and has great design, at least in our opinion.
Starting with the lid, its surface is covered in soft-touch, black, matte plastic with two red stripes with LED backlight and the Predator logo in the middle, which is also backlit. It features several curves and linings giving a distinguished and aggressive looks. It doesn’t bend under pressure and the hinge feels just fine – it’s not overtightened and the lid can be opened with just one hand. The bottom part of the notebook consists of the same materials, but after the disassembly we found out to be reinforced with thick layer of aluminum and due to that it feels pretty solid and can’t be twisted even when big pressure is applied. Other than that, the lower part of the chassis has several vent openings for better airflow and can be paired with external cooling pad. You’ll also notice the subwoofer and two openings for the loudspeakers that are paired into groups of two making a total of four loudspeakers.
EDIT: We received valuable information about the build of the machine and it turns out that the rigidness we’ve talked about in the paragraph above is due to a glass fiber construction. The main body is made of plastic (polycarbonate) and 40% glass fiber in a 1.8 mm layer. The glass fiber properties assure more lightweight and tougher construction than a normal aluminum composite. While the aluminum bends a tad easier, the glass fiber is more rigid and unbendable.
As you can see from the image below, the properties of the fiber glass are pretty useful in this situation and it’s a better option compared to other alternatives that are oftenly used in this industry.
As we mentioned in our first impressions article, the sides of the machine kind of reminds us of Dell’s Alienware offerings due to their flat design. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though. The left side contains the DC charging port, two USB 3.0 ports, one SD card reader and two 3.5 mm audio and microphone jacks. There’s also the swappable optical drive that can be replaced with the additional fan module. We do have to address our concerns on that one because at times the fan module doesn’t fit as it should and you should pop it in with some extra force. Nothing too serious, though. Continuing with the right side where another two USB 3.0 ports reside along with an additional USB Type-C connector. Interestingly, Acer has included not only one HDMI port but also a DisplayPort for better 4K gaming with an external monitor. The LAN port isn’t left out as well. Moving to the back we see the main exhaust vents that are made of plastic, but look pretty nice. In fact, it looks so nice that can be easily mistaken with a sports car, for example. And at the same time, it continues the aggressive design signature blending with the rest of the chassis. The front, however, only has two grills intended for the two pairs of loudspeakers.
The interior, on the other hand, is where actually the Predator shines. We absolutely fell in love with the keyboard – it offers good tactile feedback with long key travel and it even mimicks a traditional mechanical keyboard. And as we all know, mechanical keyboards are perfect for gaming. The presented keyboard here is not only suitable for gaming but for typing as well. The LED backlight is separated into two zones – one for the main keyboard and one for the NumPad as the latter’s light is in blue. Moreover, the arrow keys and WASD keys are well separated from the rest of the buttons and the extra space for the palm rest comes in handy.
Basically, the keyboard is placed a little closer to the screen in order to provide bigger palm rest area and we really liked it. The macro keys appear to be a bit small, but you’ll get used to it quickly. Another thing worth mentioning are the functional keys for adjusting the volume and media player buttons. They are all too far from the “Fn” button and both hands are needed when hitting play or adjusting the volume for example. It’s a small and negligible issue for some, though.
As for the trackpad – it’s flawless as expected. It’s rare to come across a bad touchpad at this price range and we are happy with the performance. The dedicated mouse buttons offer long key travel while the touch panel is responsive and accurate. There’s a small button with red LED indicating that the touchpad is active and you can disable it with one press during gaming to eliminate unintentional touches. It’s rather strange when the button is green when the touchpad is inactive and red when it’s active.
We are happy with the design and construction presented in this notebook. It looks and feels like a high-end machine offering enough sturdiness and aggressive looks. And as expected, the notebook’s weight is a bit high and the thick profile suggest the same. Still, this is quite normal for a notebook in this category. While the overall design of the chassis is rigid and the matte, soft-touch plastic surface used for the making of this laptop feels great, we have concerns about its durability. In the long run, the surface’s properties might wear off and scratches and dents will be more noticeable. We’ve addressed this issue on other notebooks as well, including the ASUS ROG G751 and Lenovo Y50.
Disassembly and upgrade options
The teardown of the notebook is rather easy and the upgrade is even easier. Only one service cover gains access to the most commonly upgraded hardware – 2.5-inch HDD/SSD slot, two M.2 SSD slots with one being 2280 and the other 22110, 2 RAM slots, and another two on the other side of the motherboard. You can read about the disassembly in detail in our dedicated article
Specs sheet
The specs sheet provided below is for this model only and may vary depending on your region or configuration.
| CPU | Intel Core i7-6700HQ (4-core, 2.60-3.50 GHz, 6MB cache) |
|---|---|
| RAM | 64GB (4x 16384MB) – DDR4, 2133MHz |
| GPU | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M (4GB GDDR5) |
| HDD/SSD | 500GB M.2 SATA SSD + 2TB HDD |
| Display | 17.3-inch Ultra HD (3840×2160) IPS, matte (optional) |
| Optical Drive | Yes |
| Connectivity | LAN 10/100/1000 Mbps, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 |
| Other features |
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| Battery | 88.8Wh / 6000 mAh |
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