Yesterday Acer announced a new Chromebook 15 and a couple new Android tablets in the Iconia lineup, but those weren’t the only devices they have set to launch this year. Acer wants to expand more into the gaming scene and reportedly have a few new gaming products they plan to launch throughout 2015, one of which aims to attack the NVIDIA Shield tablet market and its aiming right for the heart. Acer’s new gaming focused tablet is called the Predator, and is part of the larger Predator line of gaming products they have launching later on this year. While Predator sounds dangerous and like something to be feared, whether or not the Predator tablet has what it takes to live up to its name remains to be seen.
Acer, during a New York event yesterday showed off a dummy slate of the upcoming Predator tablet, albeit without sharing too many details about what kind of specifications or hardware consumers have to look forward to. You do get a good look at the design of the Predator though and it’s obvious Acer wasn’t going for a sleek design, but rather more of a beastly exterior akin to what you see from ASUS Republic of Gamer laptops. All that’s really known about the Predator tablet at this point in time is that it will support a haptic feedback system within the touchscreen display, (imagine playing Modern Combat 5 and having the display rumble and vibrate during explosions or intense firefights) and that it will carry four front-facing stereo speakers that presumably give some amazing audio output, however at the moment since reports are stating that the slate was just a dummy and no one has seen the tablet powered on or in use, the quality of the audio is unknown as well.
The last bit of exact detail about the Predator that is out in the wild is that it will come equipped with an 8-inch display, although the type of display is unknown as is the resolution. From the images we can see that it will carry a rear-facing and front-facing camera, but again the quality of the cameras is a mystery just like most of the other specifications. For all it’s worth, the Predator could be a good start if Acer wants to be taken more seriously in the realm of gaming, and the name as well as the design are certainly menacing enough. A menacing name and hardcore design won’t keep the Predator from becoming the prey though if it goes up against other devices that are more capable of gaming on mobile. It’ll need a mean set of internals to fight back. Hopefully more details including pricing and availability will surface in the near future.
