Gaming is a big deal for Acer. The Taiwanese firm's booth at Computex 2015 prominently displays its line of "Predator" gaming gear — including full-sized PC cases, monitors and other components. And now Acer's gaming focus extends into the mobile world, with the emergence of the Predator 8 tablet — a ferocious 8-inch tablet running Android and targeted at gamers, and coming to market in late 2015.
The Predator looks more like a Klingon bird of prey than an Android tablet
From just about any angle, it's clear you're not dealing with another run-of-the-mill tablet. With its bombastic, angular chassis and bold red accents, the Predator looks more like a Klingon bird of prey than your average Android slate.
The back consists of a few metallic layers, padded on the left and right side by grippier matte chevrons. And in the center Acer proudly displays its Predator branding. It's not a sleek or beautiful piece of technology in the traditional sense. (OK, or in any sense.) Instead it's a product of the kind of thinking that puts a gaming rig into a box with exhausts. It's supposed to look badass, not elegant.
And those red accents aren't just for show. The Predator packs a four-speaker setup — one housed inside each corner — is supposed to make movies and games all the more immersive.
As beastly as this tablet is on the outside, the Predator 8's internals will make or break its performance as a gaming tablet. Officially Acer isn't commenting on exactly which Intel chip is inside, but Intel let slip at its Computex press conference that it's running an Atom X7 CPU. This is Intel's top Atom processor — a chip previously seen in Microsoft's Surface 3 which claims double the graphics performance over the previous generation.
That graphical prowess was plain to see when Intel and Acer demoed Asphalt 8 on the device at this week's Computex press conference. And while we'll have to wait until the fourth quarter to see how the finalized hardware runs modern Android games, the Predator 8 could be a strong rival for gaming-centric slates like NVIDIA's Shield tablet.
MORE: Computex 2015
