Plenty of companies have promised to produce a gaming laptop that could be upgraded over time. If we’re honest, nobody has managed to properly deliver on that pledge until now, as Framework launches a meaningful CPU and GPU upgrade for the Laptop 16. Almost two years after the machine first went on sale, you can now swap out its discrete Radeon RX 7700S for NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 5070. If the company deserves a standing ovation for that feat, then it gets an extra prize for bringing an NVIDIA GPU to AMD’s hinterland. 

Hardware

Framework’s late-2025 upgrade for the laptop is arguably more important than every product it’s released since its very first. It’s the first chance for users (of any laptop, really) to swap out or add a discrete GPU to an existing machine. If you bought the first-generation model, you could have relied on the integrated graphics, or equipped it with a discrete Radeon RX 7700S. Now, you get the option to buy NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 5070 with 8GB DDR7 RAM which you can add to the chassis yourself. The company has also repackaged the existing Radeon RX 7700S with the promise of less fan noise and better thermal performance than the previous model. 

The new GPU pulls some of the focus away from the new mainboards, which are equipped with a choice of AMD’s Ryzen AI 7 350 or Ryzen AI 9 HZ 370, both of which promise to deliver 45W TDP. As before, you can equip the board with up to 86GB RAM, one or two SSDs, and your pick of ports via the six expansion card slots housed in the chassis. 

If you’re buying the laptop new, you’ll get a raft of smaller upgrades, starting with a new 165Hz, 2,560 x 1,600 panel which supports NVIDIA G-Sync. Plus, a new top cover, improved keyboard, number pad, webcam, Wi-Fi 7 support and an upgraded 240W power adapter. Sadly, I can’t talk about these as I was testing the upgrade from the 2024 model which just included the new mainboard and GPU module. 

Framework did listen to gripes about that rear-slung USB-C port which previously didn’t support charging. It was an omission that severely vexed my colleague Devindra Hardawar in his review of the original machine. But now, if you splurge for the RTX 5070, you can now use the rear port in the way that most people would intend. (If you’re unfamiliar, the Laptop 16’s discrete GPUs are packaged in self-contained  “Expansion Modules” that go into the back of the chassis. The Radeon version could only be used for accessories and/or connecting additional displays.) 

Rounding out the changes is Framework’s continual promise that it’s improved the cooling situation. The thermal paste has been switched out for Honeywell PTM, there’s a new, redesigned fan geometry and tweaked pipes for better airflow. And, look, I don’t want to ding Framework for failing to deliver on one promise when it’s kept so many others. But if you’ve followed the company for any length of time, you already know what I’m gonna say in the In-use section.

The obligatory AMD port compromise

Framework

As is custom whenever discussing an AMD-toting Framework machine, you’ll need to memorize the diagram of which expansion card slots will work with which devices. We’re not going to ding Framework for an issue present in all AMD hardware, and the only reason it’s noticeable here is that you have the choice of which ports to use for what. You don’t have the sort of universal port flexibility that you might otherwise be expecting.

Installation

Laptop 16 is bigger and more complex than its smaller siblings, but that doesn’t mean it’s any harder to maintain. The company’s iFixit-style guides hold your hand so well that popping the mid plate off should feel as natural as breathing. And you get a real sense of how well the components are laid out when you’re asked to take them all apart and put them back together. The company says replacing the mainboard and graphics module should take you an hour, which is far too generous. It took me about 22 minutes to get everything swapped in and set up, to the point where I think installing the new drivers was more laborious than this.

I can’t stress enough how much of a feat it is to have a modular, upgradeable gaming laptop that offers you the chance to leap a generation. Being able to pull out a two-year-old Radeon to swap in a fresh RTX is the stuff of dreams (for some people, at least). Imagine how long it’ll be possible to keep this machine going if this type of bi-annual upgrade cycle continues. This isn’t a particularly difficult process, making it easy enough for those folks who would otherwise blanch at the idea. 

In-use

Daniel Cooper for Engadget

Of course, strapping such a powerful chip and graphics [INAUDIBLE DUE TO FAN NOISE] lead to issues. As discrete components, both the mainboard and expansion module need their own self-contained cooling. That’s never going to be as efficient as a holistically designed laptop. When you’re not taxing the machine, it’s not an issue at all, it’s only when you use it for its intended purpose that it becomes a serious problem. If you want to play games with this thing, get headphones or put the subtitles on, and don’t even think about using this in public. Did… did you hear that? CAN YOU HEAR ME? I SAID… AS DISCRETE COMPONENTS…

And that’s before we get to the heat that this thing kicks out. I’ve got my unit on a stand with about four inches of clearance from the desk. I put my hand underneath the chassis to feel how warm it was getting and it was enough to make me never want to put this on my lap, ever.

It’s a shame the noise and heat is such a bear as it’s a machine with sufficient grunt to impress many a jaded enthusiast. I set Cyberpunk 2077 to the highest settings I could (Ray Tracing: Overdrive) on 1080p, and it was able to comfortably produce 140 fps. Setting it to the defaults (Ray Tracing: Low, but the resolution set to the display’s maximum) it was able to crank out 182 fps. 

You’ll find similarly-impressive performance if you use the Laptop 16 more for productivity than gaming. It compressed a 38GB 4K video file down to an 8GB HD mp4 in 28 minutes and 29 seconds. Using LM Studio, I was able to run Google’s Gemma 3 27B model with what I’d call fairly decent performance. Certainly, the chatbot wasn’t responding as quickly as Gemini would online, but it was hardly stuttering. I’d say that the performance here is more or less what you’d expect from the specs, with the one downside being that godawful fan noise.

Pricing

If you buy a new Laptop 16 pre-built from Framework, the Ryzen AI 7 configuration starts at $1,500, the AI 9 at $1,800. Add in the RTX 5070 and you can add another $699 to that price, which is the same cost as if you buy the GPU standalone as an upgrade. Or, if money’s tight, you could buy the new machine now and then add in the 5070 whenever you’d like — that’s the benefit of modularity.

It should be obvious you can get laptops with these sorts of components for less if you look elsewhere. In the run-up to the holiday season, I’ve seen machines — such as HP’s Omen Max — offer a Ryzen AI 7 and an RTX 5070 Ti for under $2,000. But here you’re not just buying a laptop, you’re buying into Framework’s broader ethos. You’ll get the fastest machine it can sell you right now, plus the ability to cheaply swap out to the next big thing in a couple years’ time without the cost of buying a new machine. 

As I said back when reviewing the Ryzen AI 300 upgrades for the Laptop 13 earlier this year, Framework is well placed to take advantage of the world’s political situation. If the price of a whole new laptop skyrockets, then you can at least make a saving by just replacing what you need.

Wrap-up

I wonder if “Should you get one?” is the best question to ask and answer given the singular furrow Framework is ploughing. If you want a powerful laptop where every part can be replaced or upgraded, you don’t really have a serious alternative. Laptop 16’s natural target market is professionals and enthusiasts who value modularity and longevity over everything else. These new components give you enough power to play games, run AI models locally and whatever other demanding tasks you’ll throw at it.

As for everyone else, it’s a question of how willing you are to accept the heat, the noise and the slightly agricultural aesthetics. After all, this machine isn’t the sort of gadget you’ll be looking to move on in a few years’ time, it’ll be one you’re committing to for a long while. 

When I review products, I try to take other perspectives and use cases into account as much as possible. I'm very aware that I'm not the target audience for every device. But once in a while I run into something that seems like it was designed specifically for me and it just hits different. With the Acer Predator Triton 14 AI, that's pretty much the situation. While it isn't the flashiest or most powerful gaming laptop on the market, it has pretty much everything I look for in a portable system that lets me play games on the go — and then some. 

Design and display

The term ultraportable is typically reserved for more traditional thin-and-light productivity machines, but I think it definitely applies to the Triton 14 AI. At just 3.5 pounds and 0.71 inches thick, Acer's rig is actually a touch lighter and just as thin as a Dell 14 Premium (3.7 pounds and 0.71 inches), despite featuring a much beefier GPU. And even compared to rivals like the Razer Blade 14 (3.6 pounds and 0.64 inches thick), the Triton 14 AI isn't losing much ground there either.

Furthermore, while some gaming notebooks go overboard with edgy aesthetics and an abundance of RGB lighting, the Triton 14 AI looks refreshingly understated. Sure, it still has customizable LEDs behind the Predator logo on its lid and per-key lighting on its keyboard. But aside from that, the laptop feels like an exercise in restraint for a category that often favors excess.The other small design flourish is a pixelated Predator logo (that looks like it was made from a tiny dot matrix display) to the right of the touchpad.. I think it's a clever touch that hints at the notebook's gaming focus without hitting you over the head with it. 

Despite its size, the Triton 14 AI also has excellent connectivity. You get two USB-C ports (one on either side), with Thunderbolt 4 support on the right while the other is used for power and USB 4 data speeds (both can be used for charging). There are also two USB-A 3.2 jacks, 3.5mm audio, a full-size HDMI 2.1 connector and even a microSD card reader. That means you can easily hook it up to an external monitor (which you really ought to have when fragging at home). Alternatively, when you're not gaming, it can be a great mobile editing station because offloading photos and videos from a camera via microSD is a cinch. 

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

Acer didn't cut corners with the Triton 14 AI's display either. Sure, its 120Hz refresh rate could be a touch faster or it could have gone with a slightly higher 3.2K display like on the Dell 14 Premium, but those are real nitpicks. The OLED panel produces rich colors and in my testing, the display on my review unit actually exceeded Acer's stated 340-nit brightness by a few percent. 

While Acer included six speakers that get plenty loud, my one small gripe is that they aren't located in the best spots to maximize audio quality. There are two drivers hidden behind tiny grilles on each edge of the laptop and four more located on the bottom. This means unless the laptop is sitting on a hard reflective surface like a desk (without something like a desk mat in between), audio often sounds muffled or dampened. It's not a dealbreaker and I understand that the Triton 14 AI's petite dimensions didn't leave much room for up-firing drivers, but I wish Acer had found an arrangement that sounds slightly better. 

Keyboard, touchpad and an unusual special feature

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

In addition to per-key lighting and a pleasantly bouncy typing experience, Acer added a few extra features to the Triton 14 AI's mouse and keyboard that you don't normally see on gaming laptops. On the left above the function row, there's a physical button that makes it fast and easy to switch between various performance modes with a single press. There's also a dedicated Predator key that acts as a shortcut to Acer's app, where you can do things like tweak settings or adjust the laptop's lighting.

Down below, the Triton 14 AI features a large seamless touchpad made from Gorilla Glass, similar to what you get on a Dell 14 Premium. However, to address the issue of you not knowing where the trackpad ends and the rest of the notebook's deck begins, Acer added two light strips on either side. It’s a simple and elegant solution that looks nice too. 

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

However, the Triton's real party trick is that it also supports stylus input (via MPP 2.0) with 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity. This means you can use it like a small built-in Wacom tablet. On top of that, the laptop ships with an active pen, so you don't need to shell out extra money for one. And because Windows recognizes the stylus out of the box, there's no extra setup required. So while this isn't something I will use all the time, it's nice to have for times when I feel like taking notes, sketching or just need to sign a document electronically.

Performance

Our $2,500 review unit features an Intel Core Ultra 9 CPU with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD along with an NVIDIA RTX 5070 GPU. Notably, this is as big a graphics card as the Triton 14 AI can handle, but considering similarly-sized rivals like the Razer Blade 14 have the same limitation, it's hard to be upset. More importantly, even without the option for an RTX 5080 or 5090, Acer's tiny gaming laptop still boasts respectable performance.

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

In Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p and Ultra RT settings, the Triton 14 AI hit 55 fps, which is a notch above the 45 fps I got from the Radeon 8060S in the ROG Z Flow 13. It also means that with just a tiny bit of tweaking, it's easy to push framerates above 60 while keeping almost all of the graphics settings maxed out. Meanwhile, in Returnal at 1080p on Epic, the Triton 14 AI fared even better, hitting 115 fps. That falls short of what I saw on the Alienware 16 Area-51 (154 fps), but considering that's a larger system with an RTX 5080, the difference between the two machines is understandable.

As for cooling, Acer went beyond simply using a built-in vapor chamber. Instead of the paste or liquid metal used by the competition, the company says this is the first time a graphene-based thermal interface material has been used inside a gaming laptop. This makes a difference, especially on a notebook this thin, because it means for less demanding games like Teamfight Tactics, if you adjust its performance mode you can actually play them on your lap without worrying about scorching your legs. That said, you still have to watch out because there are two largish fans on the bottom as well, so for more serious titles you'll still want to switch to a table or desk. 

Battery life

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

Longevity is often a concern for small, power-hungry gaming laptops like this. But somehow, Acer managed to fit a more than adequate 76Whr battery inside. On PCMark 10's Modern Office rundown test, the Triton 14 AI lasted seven hours and 26 minutes. That's three hours better than larger systems like the Alienware 16 Area-51 (4:13) and half an hour better than smaller rivals like the ASUS ROG Z Flow 13 (6:54). And even though it fell short by an hour when compared to a traditional ultraportable like the Dell 14 Premium (8:30), that's still very solid when you consider the Triton’s more powerful graphics. 

Wrap-up

If you're in the market for a more powerful and sedentary type of gaming laptop that might only get moved around a couple of times a month (if that), the Triton 14 AI might not be for you. But as someone who prefers gaming laptops that are, you know, actually portable, this thing is pretty much my ideal notebook. 

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

For $2,500 as tested, the Predator Triton 14 AI has a vivid OLED display, solid performance, surprisingly good battery life and an incredibly sleek chassis that begs you to take this thing everywhere. It's a bit pricey, but considering a similarly-specced Blade 14 costs $2,700 (before sales or discounts), you might even say it's a bit of a bargain. What puts this thing over the top though, is that Acer could have stopped there and no one would have complained. But then it added extra features like ample ports, powerful cooling and built-in stylus support (not to mention the included pen). In a lot of ways, this isn't just a travel-friendly gaming machine, it's a true do-everything ultraportable.