Acer Predator 17 X Review

Acer Predator 17 X Review

Welcome to a Biomedical Battery specialist of the Acer Laptop Battery

The 17-inch gaming notebook with battery such as Acer AC14B18K Battery, Acer AC14B3K Battery, Acer AC14B8K Battery, Acer KT.0040G.004 Battery, Acer E5-771 Battery, Acer ES1-711 Battery, Acer V3-371 Battery, Acer P236-M Battery, Acer AC14B13J Battery, Acer AC14B18J Battery, Acer ES1-111 Battery, Acer B115-M Battery has long been a staple of the PC gaming market, but the VR-ready Acer Predator 17 X aims to push things to the next level. This hefty gaming notebook packs a desktop-class graphics card, an impressive 4K display, blazing fast quad-core processor and an even faster SSD … everything early adopters need to make a portable VR gaming rig. Is it worth the equally impressive asking price? Read this Acer Predator 17 X review to find out.

Although the Acer Predator 17 X looks like an attractive 17-inch gaming powerhouse, the exterior doesn’t offer much in the way of innovative design. In truth, if you place black electrical tape over the logo the average PC gamer might not be able to identify the Predator 17 X next to its competitors from Alienware, Asus, MSI and Lenovo.

The back side of the screen lid showcases a silver Predator logo which lights up red when the notebook is powered on. The entire plastic chassis is covered in a rubberized soft touch paint similar to the Lenovo Thinkpad line of business notebooks or previous generations of the Asus ROG gaming notebooks. The screen hinge is firm enough to hold the heavy screen in position but loose enough that you can open the screen lid with one hand. The entire chassis feels solid with no obvious flex or plastic creaking under pressure.

The external dimensions of the Predator 17 X measure in at 16.65 x 12.66 x 1.77 inches and the notebook (minus the massive power adapter) weighs in at 10.03 pounds. That means this Acer gaming notebook weighs almost a full two pounds more than competitors like the Alienware 17 and the MSI GT72 Dragon. The access panel on the bottom side of the chassis allows you two swap out the system RAM, M.2 SATA SSDs and the 2.5-inch HDD.

As with most 17-inch gaming rigs the Acer Predator 17 X delivers a wide array of ports and connectors. The left side of the chassis holds the AC power jack, two USB 3.0 ports, a dedicated microphone jack, a dedicated headphone jack and the SD card reader. The right side of the notebook features a single USB Type-C port, two more USB 3.0 ports, a full-size HDMI port, a full-size DisplayPort, Ethernet and a Kensington lock slot. Acer decided not to include an optical drive despite the fact that engineers probably could have made a DVD or Blu-Ray drive fit.

When it comes to battery life the Acer Predator 17 X is something of a mixed bag. At first glance the battery life from this Acer falls short of most modern gaming notebooks. However, this is due in no small part to the 4K display. All those extra pixels require power, which means the battery inside our Acer Predator 17 X review unit drains much faster than it would if the notebook used a FHD screen with just 1920 x 1080 pixels. The PowerMark benchmark below shows battery life after a non-stop loop of automated tasks designed to simulate web browsing, office productivity, video streaming and gaming. Users should be able to get even better battery life if they aren’t actively gaming or streaming video on battery power.

Overall the Acer Predator 17 X is an impressive gaming rig that has plenty to offer people interested in VR games. Sure, this isn’t a budget gaming PC, but there are many notebooks in the same $2,500-$3,000 price range that can’t power the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift. If you’re serious about using a notebook with a VR headset then this is one of the most affordable VR-ready gaming notebooks you’ll find this holiday season.

At the time of this writing the Predator 17 X comes in two main configurations (with more configurations coming to stores by Christmas). Both of the current configurations come with the Intel Core i7-6820HK CPU, desktop Nvidia GTX 980 graphics, a 1TB 7200 RPM storage drive and 32GB of system RAM. The 4K system we reviewed here comes with a single 512GB SSD as the main boot drive and is priced at $3,200. The full-HD version of the Predator 17X comes with a 1080p display and two 256GB SSDs in RAID 0 as the boot drive for $2,800. All 17 X laptops come with a two-year warranty.

We love the 4K display in our Acer Predator 17 X review unit, but if you don’t care about Ultra-HD resolutions and just want a VR-ready notebook then the 1080p configuration will save you $400 and perform just as well. Either way, this is one of the best solutions for VR gamers in 2016.