The Acer Predator Triton 300 SE is a compact gaming laptop that can double as a work PC, especially for content creators. It's relatively slim and portable at 1.7kg, yet capable of churning out plenty of frames in modern games.

The Triton's 14-inch display comes with a 2,560 x 1,600-pixel resolution that's crisp and great for productivity, especially with its 16:10 aspect ratio. The display is bright (up to 500 nits) with vibrant colours. But despite its gaming-friendly 165Hz refresh rate, I find this screen too small for my liking. I recommend hooking it up to a larger, external monitor if you can — the laptop has both HDMI 2.1 and USB-C Thunderbolt 4 display outputs. Something like a work-oriented LG DualUp Ergo monitor at the office, and an Asus ROG Strix XG259CM gaming monitor at home, for example. In fact, the 14-inch screen is not the only compromise of this dual-use notebook. As a gamer, I'm slightly disappointed by the lack of an Ethernet port. But the fingerprint sensor is a plus point for those using the Triton as a work machine.

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Like some newer gaming laptops, the Triton has a MUX switch that lets user disable the notebook's integrated graphics, and use the more capable dedicated GeForce RTX 3060 graphics chip. You'll get slightly better gaming performance with the dedicated graphics chip only. For example, the Triton's overall 3DMark Time Spy went up from 7,671 to 7,807 after enabling this option. It's a small boost, but not a game-changer. Note that you'll need to restart the laptop each time you enable/disable it. The Thunderbolt 4 port will also be disabled with the dedicated graphics mode.

With its mid-range graphics chip, and 12th-gen Intel Core i7-12700H processor, the Triton can handle any game you throw at it. Of course, it will struggle somewhat if you turn on ray tracing. But otherwise, 1080p games at maximum settings ran fine. Watch Dogs: Legion chugged at 49fps at Ultra, while Metro Exodus averaged around 54fps at Ultra. More importantly, the keyboard felt relatively cool. No doubt, the laptop bottom felt warm, but the heat management was pretty good overall. The laptop fans were definitely audible, but the constant whine made them tolerable.

One downside of using a gaming notebook, even a slim one, for work is battery life. The Acer Predator Triton 300 SE lasted 4.5 hours in our video playback test at maximum brightness. It's decent for the category, but of course, most thin-and-light laptops will have upwards of seven hours uptime. Now, if you want a single, capable PC for both work and play, the Triton looks like a good option. But you may have to ensure it's always close to a power outlet, and get extra monitors in your office and home to fully unlock its potential. It's a good thing then that Acer is currently throwing in a free 27-inch gaming monitor (worth S$338) with each purchase (till end Sep 2022). Get it now for S$2,948 at Shopee, Lazada, and Amazon SG.

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Note: Review set provided by Acer.