 Easiest way to look like some kind of chump in 2017? Have a thick-ass laptop. Trust me, you will not be picking up any of the M'ladies if you're packing anything over an inch. And remember boys, it's not just the size of the laptop that counts, but what you're able to do with it. Well, Acer seems to think they've solved both of these problems by packing what they say is the fastest. GTX 1080 Max-Q GPU into this sleek 18.9 millimeter frame. And speaking of frames, today's video is brought to you by ShadeTree Sunglasses. They're handmade from hardwood materials, featuring polarized lenses, and they come with soft and hard carry cases. Use offer code LINUS to get five bucks off through the link below. So with its cool gray aluminum back panel and somehow less tacky than usual, must be the blue accent Predator logo, there is no denying that Triton 700 is a different breed of gaming laptop. This is one fine-looking machine. Opening it up, the thick bezels and the plastic around the webcam are not ideal, but these can be forgiven once you see that sexy glass window that subtly shows off the cooling fan and the heat pipes below. And look, it is not just about that bling bling. I mean, you've got to respect design that performs while also managing to turn sexy engineering into a showpiece. And the fact that they also managed to integrate the multi-touch trackpad into it is straight up cool, even if it's not ideal for usability. More on that later. Moving down from the tempered glass, we get to the oddly placed keyboard embedded in a very sturdy aluminum chassis. The keyboard is fully programmable and boasts full RGB backlighting, although in my opinion it does look best when it's left blue to match the lights on the side and the logo on the back. We can take a look at the I.O. now. Thunderbolt 3 with four PCIe lanes, lots of USB, full-size display port and Ethernet. Very nice. Okay, now let's just boot it up and... Oh wow. Okay, really? That's not controlled by system volume? Well, make sure you disable that in the BIOS or you're gonna be that guy. On the other hand, maybe you want your friends, colleagues and neighbor down the street to know just how powerful your notebook is. Because with internals like these, this thin and light monster should make short work of all but the thickest of rivals. With that said, specs are nothing without cooling. Thankfully, the Triton 700 has some legitimately impressive cooling chops, and for the most part, it succeeds at keeping both the CPU and GPU from thermal throttling. Our GPU hit a shocking 71 degrees max at room temperature and only a combined synthetic load managed to overload the CPU's cooler. And that is a pretty unrealistic workload. And this is all while staying calm and for a gaming machine, relatively quiet. Like, I got it running right now. Mic's right there. Acer even overclocked the GPU a bit to make theirs the fastest Max-Q laptop available, consistently beating out the ASUS Zephyrus. Though, admittedly, this is a bit of a hollow victory since overclocking, what is essentially an underclocked chip, is kind of like sandbagging your fitness tracker for the rest of the week so that you can do 200% of your daily goal on Friday. A real desktop GTX 1080, or for that matter, even a thicker laptop with a non-Max-Q 1080, puts both of these pretenders to the throne in their place pretty handily. But, your desktop wouldn't have an integrated 120Hz 1080p IPS display with G-Sync, now would it? The display is a bright point for this product. Literally. Like, it's bright, and with good viewing angles, and satisfactory motion blur. It's great to look at while you game. And, if someone wants to look at you, the webcam is pretty solid too. Now, the speakers didn't blow me away, but they're not bad at all, especially considering how thin it is, if you don't mind the lackluster base, and having a Dolby Atmos certification is great if you're a headphone user. But let's get back to the interface. The trackpad looks really cool, and you could make the argument that gamers would be pretty likely to take advantage of the recessed USB port to carry around a high-performance wireless mouse. But if you care about size enough to pay a premium for this, versus a less totable gaming notebook, then you probably are planning to try to use it as a portable device from time to time. And while ergonomically, this placement actually didn't bother me nearly as much as I expected, it's a lot better than the weird-shaped ones on the right of the keyboard, in my opinion, you do need to be careful not to mash keys on your keyboard with your palm, and there are definitely some other issues. The boundaries are poorly marked, with no tactile bump to indicate that you've crossed them, the glossy Gorilla Glass is a greasy fingerprint magnet, the lack of physical buttons for two-handed operation is a huge downer for me personally, and, those are real heat pipes down there, it gets HOT reaching as high as 53 degrees under load, although this should only be an issue if you were to use the trackpad immediately after a gaming session. On the subject of planning to use it as a regular notebook, the custom mechanical keyboard is awesome, with a nice short but satisfyingly clicky key travel that makes it a great balance for both gaming and typing. Alex wanted to rate it damn near perfect, and saying that if they threw in a wrist rest, it could be a 10 out of 10, while I did find it a touch on the stiff side. Though with that said, the, uh, power brick is really big, and battery life still gets killed by basically every other laptop. Remember guys, GTX 1080 laptops don't use onboard graphics and Optimus technology to save power at idle. For the tinkerers out there, popping the Triton 700 open and unscrewing this heat shield reveals the five heat pipes responsible for the impressive performance results we saw, as well as two M.2 slots and two DDR4 SODIM slots. Now they're all already populated on our config, so you won't be upgrading much unless you want to throw away what's already in there to beef up your RAM or storage down the road, but I still appreciate that they aren't soldered. That's something you can't take for granted with all Thin and Lights. Leading us to a conclusion time, I guess. You know what? Overall, I really like the Predator Triton 700. It's pretty easy to recommend. Great performance, okay battery life, considering all the other factors, and there's only one thing that really goes against it. The price. At $3,000, it's not a budget option, and it's $400 more than even the competing Asus Zephyrus. But, with that said, you're already paying a huge premium over just buying an equivalent desktop plus a separate Thin and Light for travel, so between the two of them in my mind, the Triton 700 is the way to go, thanks to the better battery life and, in my opinion, better trackpad placement. The first content to appear on a new platform rarely takes full advantage of the new paradigm. For example, the first TV shows were basically radio shows with a camera turned on, and today we're in a similar place with VR. But already, innovative filmmakers are pushing the art form forward, and Intel is pushing both the technology and the community forward by partnering with rising filmmaker Eliza McNitt to take audiences behind the scenes of her upcoming VR film Pale Blue Dot. You'll actually be able to control your own adventure as you peek behind the curtain, learning about how visual effects, sound design, and creative direction converge into a brand new type of experience. The first version of the internet gave everyone a voice, letting people around the world, including young Linus, create whatever content they wanted, and the next wave is for the audience to consume content any way they want, and that is what VR is about. So check out the latest episode of On the Making of the Pale Blue Dot, and learn more about the project using the link below. So thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked, you know what to do. But if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit that like button, or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description. Also linked down there is our merch store, which has cool shirts like this one, and our community forum, which you should totally join.