Acer Predator Helios 300 review
Our Verdict
While the Acer Predator Helios 300 laptop has potent game functioning, information technology'due south held back by loud fans and a frustrating keyboard.
For
- Good game performance
- Powerful hardware
- Lots of configuration options
Confronting
- Bottomless keyboard
- Very loud fans
- Expensive
Tom's Guide Verdict
While the Acer Predator Helios 300 laptop has strong game performance, it's held dorsum by loud fans and a frustrating keyboard.
Pros
- +
Skilful game performance
- +
Powerful hardware
- +
Lots of configuration options
Cons
- -
Bottomless keyboard
- -
Very loud fans
- -
Expensive
Acer Predator Helios 300: Specs
CPU: 10th-gen Intel Cadre i7-10750H at 2.sixty GHz, 6 cores
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060
Display: fifteen.6 inches, 1920 ten 1080
RAM: 16 GB
Storage: 512 GB SSD
Dimensions: 14.3 x 10.0 x 0.ix inches
Weight: five.5 pounds
The Acer Predator Helios 300 gaming laptop looks good on paper. No matter which configuration yous buy, it packs some extremely powerful hardware, along with easy hookups for bigger displays, a screen with a fast refresh rate and a full number pad on its keyboard. But while the Helios 300 does indeed run games very well, it's held back past a number of major problems.
Productivity on a Helios 300 is difficult, thanks to a truly dreadful keyboard, extremely loud fans and a middling battery life. The Acer Predator software doesn't exercise annihilation terribly exciting, and the speakers are subpar. With inconveniently placed ports and a bulky build, the Helios 300 isn't that easy to ship, either.
At the end of the day, the Helios 300 does play games very well, and offers a wide range of configuration options. But in the same price range, yous could get some of the best gaming laptops, including the much improve Acer Predator Triton 500.
Larn more in our total Acer Predator Helios 300 review.
Acer Predator Helios 300: Price and configuration options
The Acer Predator Helios 300 has a staggering amount of different configurations. On the Acer website alone, I counted 21 unlike variations.
The cheapest model we found was the Predator Helios 300 PH317-52-716C, which costs $ane,000. It features an Intel Core i7-8750H, 2.ii GHz processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 1050Ti GPU, 8 GB RAM, a 256 GB SSD and a 17.three-inch screen with a 1080p brandish and 144 Hz refresh charge per unit.
At the other end of the spectrum, there's the Predator Helios 300 PH317-53-77X3, which costs $2,400. This model comes with an Intel Core i7-9750H, 2.6 GHz processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 GPU, 32 GB Ram, a 512 GB SSD and a 17.iii-inch screen with a 1080p brandish and a 144 Hz refresh charge per unit.
Our review model, the Predator Helios 300 PH315-53-72XD, came with an Intel Core i7-9750H, 2.6 GHz processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 GPU, 16 GB RAM, a 512 GB SSD and a fifteen.6-inch screen with a 1080p brandish and a 144 Hz refresh charge per unit.
If these specs requite you lot the impression that Helios 300 pricing and configuration options are complicated, you're right. There'southward not much rhyme or reason to the pricing, and information technology's not clear how many more variations — like our review unit — might be waiting in the wings. Since you can't customize any of the models, you'll have to pick one that suits your needs.
Acer Predator Helios 300: Blueprint
Aesthetically, the Acer Predator Helios 300 resembles many other Predator laptops. It'due south got a blackness metal chassis with 2 reflective strips and a Predator logo on the dorsum, all lined in blue. At 14.3 x 10.0 10 0.ix inches, the estimator is admirably compact, given the size of its screen. But at 5.5 pounds, it's a lilliputian heavier than the competition (comparable Acer and Alienware laptops weigh around 4.v pounds).
There are also enough ports to get the task done, although I wasn't thrilled with their configuration. The left side has a headphone jack, two USB-A ports and an Ethernet port; the right side has a USB-C port, a USB-A port, an HDMI port and a mini DisplayPort. The power port is on the back of the machine, out of everything else's way.
The proximity of the USB-C and -A ports on the right made it tough to attach any gadget that required a USB-C dongle while using a mouse — and you really need to employ a mouse, because the touchpad is not great.
Acer Predator Helios 300: Keyboard and touchpad
If there's one reason to avert the Acer Predator Helios 300 at all costs, it'south the keyboard. At first, I was excited by the keyboard'due south numpad — a rarity in xv-inch laptops. But numpads don't make much of a difference if the keyboard isn't comfortable, and the Predator Helios 300 makes productivity typing but about impossible. Worse still: to facilitate the numpad, the rest of the keyboard is off-center, meaning that you'll have to position the whole laptop slightly to the side of where you desire to use information technology.
The about damning thing about the Helios' keyboard is that it but doesn't register every keystroke. That's because the keys are stiff and resistant, and require y'all to depress them completely before they register a command. Every bit a light-fingered bear on typist, I constitute myself constantly missing letters, spaces and railroad vehicle returns, making my messages jumbled and unreadable, and my articles full of typos. Equally a rule, I e'er write my laptop reviews on the laptops themselves, but I simply couldn't bring myself to practise information technology for the Helios 300; the last production would have been unreadable.
Some of the keyboard shortcuts are incomprehensible, too. The mute role gets its own button, merely volume and screen brightness are relegated to function shortcuts on the arrow keys. The zippo on the numpad is squeezed in abreast the right arrow, while the play/interruption, fast-forwards and rewind features are nowhere near the other audio options. If you buy the Helios 300 and plan to use it at home, a wireless keyboard — preferably with Bluetooth, since USB ports are at a premium — is simply about a necessity.
The touchpad doesn't fare much better: a huge, overly sensitive surface seems tailor-fabricated to misinterpret a resting palm as a dragging finger. The sooner you disable it and hook up a mouse, the happier you lot'll be.
Acer Predator Helios 300: Display and sound
The Acer Predator Helios 300'southward screen looks OK. With 1080p resolution and a 144 Hz refresh rate, it can (and does) run many games at more 100 frames per second; the resolution probably doesn't demand to be whatever college, given the screen'southward size. The blues and greens of the mural in Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition weren't too saturated, but they didn't pop, either. The reds and browns on the surface of Mars in Doom (2016), however, felt vibrant and lifelike.
The screen tin reach (on average) 276 nits of brightness, display 106% of the sRGB colour spectrum and has a color accuracy delta-E of 0.32 (closer to zero is better). These numbers are all a petty below average. I did discover that the screen never got that vivid — and when I did turn the brightness up, it looked a little washed out.
The speakers are likewise underwhelming. While they can get pretty loud, there's barely any bass, and all of the music I played had a muddled, indistinct quality to information technology. The speakers are also ofttimes at risk of getting drowned out by the fans — only more on that later.
Acer Predator Helios 300: Operation
The main purpose of a gaming laptop is to play games, and the Acer Predator Helios 300 succeeds on that count. I put the arrangement through its paces with Doom (2016), Historic period of Empires II: Definitive Edition, Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales and World of Warcraft, and the calculator ran each one at Ultra graphical settings at 1080p resolution, often with 100+ frames-per-2d frame rates.
I can't recall the frame rates dipping beneath lx, even on demanding titles. Some even reached 145 frames per second, which is the maximum that the screen tin support.
In terms of benchmarks, the Helios 300 managed 55 fps for Assassinator'due south Creed Odyssey, 57 fps for Borderlands 3, 82 fps for Far Cry New Dawn and 81 fps for Grand Theft Auto Five, all at Ultra settings. On the Geekbench 5.ii bogus criterion examination, the Helios 300 scored 5,276.
Compare and contrast with the Alienware m15 R3 (2020). This car scored 57 fps on Assassin's Creed Odyssey, 59 fps on Borderlands iii, xc fps on Far Weep New Dawn and 79 fps on Grand Theft Machine V. It earned a 6,343 Geekbench 5.2 score. The Helios 300 is somewhat backside in about all categories, but not by much.
Acer Predator Helios 300: Oestrus
The Acer Predator Helios 300 doesn't get very hot. Even later running iv games in rapid succession, its core temperature peaked around a manageable 73 degrees Celsius. The keyboard can attain about 100 degrees Fahrenheit, which is admittedly uncomfortable, but inappreciably scalding. While the underside gets quite hot (110 degrees Fahrenheit), it's not as though about people residuum gaming computers in their laps.
To facilitate these temperatures, notwithstanding, the Helios 300 relies on some extremely loud fans. Productivity work stays pretty tranquility, when the integrated graphics carte is in use rather than the detached Nvidia GPU. Simply the 2nd yous get-go playing a game, the fans blast into overdrive and drown everything else out — the music, the chat and perhaps even your in-person conversations.
It's better to have loud fans than an overheating CPU, but the Helios 300 makes the whole room noisier when it's running games.
Acer Predator Helios 300: Battery life
At three hours and twelve minutes of battery life, the Acer Predator Helios 300 falls somewhat short of the 3:21 average for gaming laptops. On the other hand, very powerful gaming laptops tend to get only about ii.5 hours of battery life, so the state of affairs could have been much worse. It won't last a cross-country flying, but every bit long as y'all stay within 3 hours of a power outlet, it's hard to imagine the Helios 300 non serving its purpose.
Acer Predator Helios 300: Verdict
In our Acer Predator Helios 300 review, nosotros discussed how this system has decent hardware and good game functioning. Everything else, however, feels sorely lacking. From the inexcusable keyboard, to the so-and so screen, to the extremely loud fans, the Helios 300 is often a difficult machine to use. Its better configurations are pretty expensive, to boot — if you tin can navigate the complicated buying process.
What's odd is that Acer already has a much better machine in the aforementioned price range: namely the Acer Predator Triton 500. Much thinner and lighter, with better performance and more sensible configuration options, the just major thing y'all're giving upward is a numpad — and a numpad on a bad keyboard isn't all that useful.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/acer-predator-helios-300
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