Acer Predator Helios 300 (i7-8th)

Description

Acer has lately elevated its predator line of gaming laptops to elite status with the Helios 300, delivering the best of the best for less money. The Acer Predator Helios 300 PH315-51-78NP is the latest in Acer’s gaming line, and it has lots of things going for it. First, it has a cool name. It’s reasonably priced, though not the very inexpensive laptop you can get with these specs. And, it can be paired with a virtual reality (VR) headset.

This gaming laptop is built around a muscular Intel “Coffee Lake” eight-generation CPU and a GeForce GTX 1060 GPU, a combination that will run anything thrown its way with resilience.  Battery life is middling, but the Helios advantages are centered on whether you prefer a comfortable keyboard, nice aesthetics, sturdy build quality and gaming prowess over anything else. For a gaming laptop, we are inclined to stick with most part.

The Acer Predator Helios 300 is available in two versions: 15-inch and 17-inch. We are reviewing the 15-inch model, with a full HD IPS panel (144Hz Refresh Rate). It looks like the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G, both are midrange gaming laptops, set on a black profile with red accents on the lid and vent grilles.

On the lid, there is a pair of crimson streaks paralleled on either side of a gray-metal Predator logo. The red accents extent to the rear exhaust, the WASD keys and touchpad are also outlined in red.

It measures 1.1 by 15.4 by 10.4 inches (HWD) and weighs 5.95 pounds. Not very portable, and not the heaviest out here. Most of the chassis is made of plastic, including the underside and the bezels around the display, but the outer lid and the keyboard deck are made of all-metal. Acer added a shiny edging around the keyboard, with the same theme extending to the lid that is covered in textured black triangles.

We all have different tastes, but the red-and-black color scheme does it for me. Also, putting into consideration how much creativity went into designing the curves on the Acer Predator Helios 300’s design, a newer scheme would have been better, though.

KEYBOARD AND TOUCHPAD

The chiclet style keyboard on the Predator PH315-51-78NP has nice travel, and it comes with a dedicated numeric keypad, which is a bonus for a 15-incher. In fact, it is very spacious, backlit with a large palm rest area. The WASD have painted red accents, while the rest of the keys are black and white with backlighting. The keyboard is ideal for gaming with comfortable keys that provide long travel.

Acer doesn’t include any programmable keys, like most gaming laptops do, but they did implement a power button into the layout on the upper right. It isn’t possible to dim the keys individually. The touchpad has red accents as well and is smooth to use with a good dual-cooling system.

DISPLAY

The Predator Helios 300’s 15.6-inch in-plane-switching (IPS) screen has a native resolution of 1,920 by 1,080 pixels. The screen has a matte finish, so you can comfortably use it, even in bright lighting conditions, without picking glare from the surface.

Being an IPS panel, its viewable from even odd angles, which is important when you have many people viewing the screen, some from over your shoulder. For the price, it is easier to expect a little more from the display, something better than 1080p, but it would be a bit of a stretch from a gaming laptop, or a high-refresh-rate panel, making this screen just fine.

After all, having a higher res-screen doesn’t mean that the Helios 300’s innards components would be able to handle graphic-intensive AAA games and deliver butter-smooth frame rates at 1440p or 4K. Speaking of innards, we’re looking at the system’s hexa-core 4.1GHz CPU, GTX 1060 GPU, 256GB SSD and 16GB memory.

BATTERY LIFE

On battery life, the Predator Helios 300 is stuck at the middle with 5 hours 12 minutes when streaming videos, but battery drain becomes a reality on actual game-play. For that, you’ll need to connect to a power outlet if you’re planning on longer sessions. Machines with better graphics performance, such as the Asus ROG (G752VT-DH72) and the Origin EON15-X, only last a little more than 2 hours given their processing power combined with large, hi-res screens sucking up power.