Best Acer gaming laptop deals

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 the full Acer Predator Triton 500 review.

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 $2,000, 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. Mainly if it's meant to complement your existing desktop rig, the Helios 300 is a solid, lower-cost alternative to the Triton 500.

Read the full Acer Predator Helios 300 review.

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 here, but that's a good GPU for 1080p.

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.