Last year, Acer unveiled their Predator Thronos Air gaming chair, at a high expendable rate, at the IFA. The chair cost around $20,000. This obviously faced some backlash and the company was forced to take away few of the unnecessary mechanics, which, in turn, dropped down the price significantly. They did, however, add the name ‘Air’ and gave it a massage feature. Ah yes, every gaming enthusiast’s dream!
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The Predator
Acer’s sub-brand, Predator, was launched in 2008. They included laptops, desktops, monitors, and a full suite of accessories in their inventory, to get into the rising market of the PC gaming. However, in order to gain a reputation in the market, the company had to face the already stable and much demanded other gaming sub-brands such as HP Omen, Dell’s Alienware, Lenovo’s Legion, and Asus’ Republic of Gamers (ROG).
Despite the strong competition, the company stood its ground. With being the first gaming company to be able to win a Red Dot Brand Award in August of 2019, the Predator XB3 series gaming monitors are what led them to victory. The company also announced a number of new gaming products at the Global Press Conference held on September 4th, 2019 in Berlin, Germany.
Among the announcements were two new Predator Triton gaming notebooks, the Planet9 next-generation esports platform, four new Acer Nitro XV3 gaming monitors, four new Chromebooks, and the twisty C250i portable projector which has an automatic portrait mode for vertical smartphone videos.
Predator Thronos Air
Predator Thronos Air is more of an extremely large gaming gadget that lets you organize the rest of your gaming gadgetry, but strictly, Acer/Predator. Hence, it is not exactly a gaming gadget itself but it still looks pretty high-tech and cool. It is as Acer describes it, ‘a gamer’s cave just like the model released a year ago’.
It is much like its predecessor but without the unnecessary motorization and feedback, and a highly reduced price of $14,000. The valuable addition, however, is its massage feature. Not only can you relieve your worries via gaming but also through a hefty massage at the same time.
Features of the Predator Thronos Air
Despite all the gadgetry removed, the Predator Thronos Air is still remarkable with the rest of its features. The steel structure includes a chair, modular desk, and a monitor arm.
In addition to the massaging feature, it also includes an adjustable keyboard and a mouse tray, that doesn’t automatically swing into action, and a footrest for keeping your feet elevated. The chair still requires to be kitted with three monitors, a gaming PC, and a webcam above the middle monitor. The monitor arm can be manually raised and lowered with a handle located right below the middle monitor stand. You can also position a camera right above the middle monitor, making it easy to live stream the action on YouTube, Twitch, or Mixer.
The chair also comes with a reclining feature. The monitor arm also works on the same principle and can take three 27-inches screens. The chair comes with an optional cup holder and a sturdy hand-rail that can adjust with the screen angle. All of these rigs are designed on manual hydraulics.
A large platform is provided at the back of the chair to keep the area organized. A cable management system is also provided for neatly storing cords and wires out of the way.
Measurements
The original Thronos weighed around 495-lb (224.5 kgs) but the Thronos Air is sleeker and lighter than its predecessor. The dimensions of the back of the Predator Thronos Air are 22.5 x 30.5 inches. The size of the seat is 14.5 x 20.5 inches and the adjustable seat height is 17.3 to 21.5 inches. There’s significant space for a Predator gaming PC (or any PC you prefer) behind the chair. The chair reclines to 130 degrees (while within the Thronos cockpit), and 180 degrees outside of it. The best part of the chair, however, would be its incredible built-in massager.
Acer did their customer well with this feature. The Predator Thronos Air is also designed in such a way so as to hide away all the cabling between the PC bay and the monitor. To make the chair comfier, there is a footrest beneath the table so your long gaming hours are not stressful on your body. On top, there is a camera mounted above the middle monitor, which is in case you are a gaming streamer or just like to Twitch to your friends while you game.
Lacking features
The gaming chair does not come with a monitor, mouse, or keyboard. However, it does offer a bunch of optional extras such as a headset-holder, a USB hub, a camera, a seat-stabilizer to lock the chair in place during energetic gaming sessions, and most importantly, the cup holder.
Other announcements
For gamers who are not willing to spend that much money on their equipment, Acer has other offers stocked up. The Predator Triton 500 is now getting a 300Hz display. It naturally has a 1080p display so you can maximize the frame rates to really take advantage of the 300Hz option. Aside from this, you can take advantage of the RTX 2080 Max-Q GPU inside as well. Other than the display, not many changes have emerged for the rest of the Titan 500, so you get up to a 9th Gen Intel Core i7 processor, with 32GB of RAM, and 512GB of SSD storage. The 300Hz display option is now available and is priced at $2,799.99.
Acer has also launched their thinner and lighter Predator Triton 300 which only weighs 5 pounds. Predator Triton 300 is a 15.6-inch gaming laptop that includes a 9th Gen Intel Core i7 processor, a GTX 1650 GPU, up to 32GB of RAM, and up to two 1TB SSDs configured in a raid array. Acer is including Wi-Fi 6 support, and the 15.6-inch panel will also include a 144Hz refresh rate with a 3ms “overdrive response time.”