Acer Predator Z301CT Review

The Acer Predator Z301CT is an enthusiast gamer monitor, you can tell that from the red livery and aggressive looking stand.  Suffice to say it might look a little out of place on your work place desk, but that’s not really the target audience of this curved ultra wide screen monitor from Acer.

This model ticks all the boxes for the discerning gamer, it has adaptive sync in the form of Nvidia’s G-Sync, it has a super fast refresh rate, ramping up to 200hz and excellent response times to provide a lag free performance.  The ultra wide format essentially means this is the same height as a a traditional 24″ monitor but with extra width.

Some might be put off by ultra wide formats as it becomes hard to take in the whole screen, but this is where the 1800R curve helps bring those edges into view.  It might sound counter intuitive but this also give “straighter” images.

So far so good, nothing that we haven’t seen before and with this premium price you might be expecting a higher resolution.  To be fair, I would say 1080p is still going to look sharp on a 30″ 21:9 screen and actually stepping up to QHD could make things look small without well functioning scaling.

Build Quality

If you’ve seen models in the Predator range before then the look and feel of the Z301 will be familiar to you. You’ll find the usual red aim faster trim around the base, because, you know, no self respecting gaming screen wouldn’t. The stand itself is a sturdy aluminum and heavy plastic affair more than capable of supporting the ultra wide dimensions. It allows for decent movements too, height, swivel and pivot. And if that’s not enough, you can also mount it to a 3rd party stand via the standard VESA 100 attachment.

The screen has a 1800R curve which provides a nice wraparound affect, bringing the furthest corners of the screen into your eye line. As someone who is not a big fan of bigger monitors I actually find a curve very useful in this respect, I don’t like not being able to take in the whole screen and a curve helps mitigate this for me.

The interesting thing about this build is the inclusion of Tobii eye-tracking technology.  You’ve been able to add this to your setup for a while in the form of an additional purchase, it’s essentially a bar that you can place alongside your monitor.  But the Predator Z301CT has this built in.

The device uses infra red sensors to track your eye and head movements and translates these into on screen interactions.  This type of technology has obvious applications for those with disabilities but in this implementation it has been setup to help move your gaming screen and target bad guys.  You’ll need compatible games though.

Connectivity is well supported, as a G-Sync monitor you’ve got DisplayPort and HDMI 1.4 to attach to your PC. There is also a USB hub that must be connected if you wish to use the eye tracking feature. There are also 3W speakers included by surely gamers will be using their own headphones.

Performance

The Predator is a game orientated screen so you know its going to give good game performance. It has a number of technologies built in that help it to stand out above your day to day office monitor. For a start, it can be pushed up to a stunning 200hz, this is about as fast as monitors get at the moment and with diminishing returns you can be assured of a supremely responsive feel. Of course you’ll need a powerful rig to render 200 frames every second, but it helps that this is an HD screen.

Alongside the blazing fast refresh rates, the Z301 also employs Nvidias G-Sync module. So really you’re going to want to be a Nvidia graphics card owner if you’re buying this monitor. It will work with an AMD card but you won’t be able to switch on G-Sync. Adaptive sync technologies syncronise the monitors refresh rate to the output of the graphics card ensuring smooth tear free images. You can read more about this technology here.