BERLIN—When Acer announced its Predator "gaming" tablet, something didn't sit right with me. Maybe it's that I don't think of Android as the premiere gaming platform, or that I don't think of Intel's Atom processors as leading the charge in terms of graphics performance.

So I wandered into Acer's booth today to try out the Predator 8, and, well, ugh.

Let me preface this by saying that the Predator 8s in the IFA booth are clearly pre-production, unfinished builds. But just as I can't grow another inch in height, the Predator 8 can't get a more game-friendly processor or OS.

The Predator is a very unusual-looking tablet, with its four speakers jutting out from the corners. You won't mistake it for anything else. I didn't find its design unappealing, but it could be divisive. It's only 0.34 inches thick, and 12.3 ounces.

I threw GFXBench 3.0 at the Predator 8, and it got 15 fps on the Manhattan test and 31 fps on the T-Rex test. On Geekbench, it got 1030 single-core and 2985 multi-core. Those are very respectable scores for a general-purpose tablet, but the Predator is being advertised as a beastly gaming device. I'm sorry, but 15 fps on Manhattan isn't beastly; the iPhone and Nvidia Shield Tablet both double the Predator's GFXBench scores. The Geekbench scores fall short of the latest Apple, Nvidia, and Samsung products. And don't get me started on real PCs.

The Predator uses an Intel Atom x7 processor, making it the latest in a series of that's-nice-but-why Intel Android-based products I've seen recently, like the Asus ZenFone 2. The "why" in all of these cases tends to be price, and at $299 the Predator 8 is very well-priced. If you're a gamer, you know that's not altogether a compliment. Intel delivers a lot of value for money when it comes to basic productivity, media, and casual gaming, though.

I was happy to see Asphalt 8 on the tablet, as it's one of my general-purpose test games. I drove through two courses, and the Predator was definitely a bit less responsive than some other devices I've used, which benchmark better. Also, the haptics were berserk. Acer advertises immersive sound with four front-facing speakers and an immersive gaming experience with rumbles and bumps, but I found the rumbles and bumps to just be too much. Yeah, sure, you should feel it when you're on a dirt road, but I was even feeling the haptics on the smoothly paved parts of the course. It was just too rumbly.

I don't know a lot of serious gamers who have Android as their platform of choice. Nvidia has been banging the drum for serious Android gaming for a while now, and not a lot of people have been listening. I play games on Android devices all the time—I've even reviewed some—but when I talk to people who consider themselves "gamers," they tell me Windows and iOS are far ahead when it comes to available high-end titles with immersive graphics and dynamic experiences. (That raises the question: why doesn't this tablet run Windows? Shouldn't a gaming tablet just run Windows?)

I know I'm hammering on this thing, and I'm being a little unfair. The Predator is appealingly slim, the 1080p screen is bright (although nowhere near Galaxy Tab S2 levels of color intensity), and I love the quad speakers. The issue here is the raised expectations. Acer promised a thoroughbred, but it just delivered a cart horse.