Acer Predator Helios 300 (2018, 15-Inch) Review - Review 2022

Don't want to—or can't afford to—shell out kilobucks on a gaming laptop? Today's midrange GeForce-based models fill that void. Among them: Acer's Predator Helios 300 (starting at $ane,099.99; $1,299.99 as tested, in its 15-inch version), congenital around muscular Intel "Coffee Lake" eighth-generation CPUs. Information technology's designed for speed, whether for coincidental rounds of Fortnite or pushing your car to its limit by tethering it to a virtual reality (VR) headset. With its GeForce GTX 1060 graphics, the Helios 300 will run almost whatsoever game you throw at information technology with agility. The catch: Some competing models will, besides, for around the same money, and many accept better bombardment life. So the Helios 300's advantage centers on whether yous prefer its keyboard layout, colour scheme, and build quality. (We're fans, for the most part.)

What's Black and Blood-red and Grey All Over?

Acer offers the Predator Helios 300 in versions with fifteen-inch and 17-inch screens; the model for review here is the former. In advent, the Helios 300 isn't too much of a departure from the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G($829.99 at Amazon) I reviewed just before information technology. It's a midrange, mostly black gaming laptop that's been embellished with red accents.

The lid, for instance, bears 2 crimson streaks etched on either side of a gray-metallic Predator logo. The rear exhaust, also, is bordered in carmine plastic. Likewise, the WASD keys and the touchpad are outlined in red for the sake of visibility. The chassis measures 1.1 by 15.four by 10.4 inches (HWD), and information technology weighs five.95 pounds.

While the underside of the system and the bezels effectually the display are plastic, the outer hat and the deck that surrounds the keyboard are all-metal, giving off a cooler, more premium feel than the remainder of the machine. As well calculation flair is the shiny metallic edging around the keyboard. The pattern theme carries over to the lid, which is decorated with a series of textured black triangles at the forward border.

Tastes vary, but I'm not a big fan of the red-and-black color scheme. It has become so common amidst gaming laptops these days every bit to border on cliche. (Your mileage may vary, of course; I come across far more gaming laptops than almost people.) Seeing how much thought went into the curves and edges of the Predator Helios 300's design, I would accept liked a more than original, or at least a unlike, palette.

The Predator Helios 300 has a standard chiclet-style keyboard layout. The keys have more bounciness than other gaming-laptop keyboards I've tried, such every bit the one on the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G. The touchpad, meanwhile, is plastic-surfaced. It feels better than most gaming-laptop touchpads, due to the slight bounciness y'all get when you press it all the way down, but it does not take the concrete left and right clickers that some new machines, such equally the Lenovo Legion Y530($749.99 at Lenovo), practise. That's fine, though, because if you're gaming on a laptop, you're more than likely going to pair it with a gaming mouse, anyway. Esports fiends and competitive gamers wouldn't requite any touchpad the time of day in a proper match.

Solid Audio Organization and Screen

The speakers on the Acer Predator Helios 300 sound decent, simply the fact that they're down-firing doesn't do them credit under some circumstances. Many laptop designs feature speaker grilles positioned forward of their keyboards and in front of their displays. That's not the case here. The speakers are to the left and right of ii rubber anti-skid pads on the underside of the laptop.

With the laptop pressed into your lap, these speakers will naturally sound deadened. On a proper desk or other hard surface, all the same, they sound about the aforementioned as an upwardly-facing speaker grille, considering of the manner the laptop is elevated off the desk past the safe pads. (Reflecting the sound off the difficult surface amplifies the perceived book level.) All in all, the sound is crisp enough for a laptop at this toll point.

The 15.6-inch in-plane-switching (IPS) screen on the Acer Predator Helios 300 has a native resolution of one,920 by ane,080 pixels. The screen has a matte finish, so, even in brilliant lighting weather, you won't become a lot of glare from the surface. It's too viewable even when you're not looking at the laptop straight-on. This is a typical trait of IPS panels and matters specially if y'all game in a group and tend to take spectators peering over your shoulder.

Impressive for this toll range (the most expensive 15-inch model of the Helios 300 caps out at $1,399.99) is the Helios 300's 144Hz loftier refresh rate brandish. 60Hz is the standard for almost machines, and anything higher is generally exclusive to more expensive laptops or displays. At 144Hz, the Helios 300 can display many more frames per 2nd, at to the lowest degree in instances when the hardware is capable of pushing that high (usually dependent on the game beingness played). If it were trying to display at a college resolution, going above (or fifty-fifty striking) 60fps with a GTX 1060 would be a stretch, but at 1080p, the laptop's GTX 1060 can make use of the higher refresh rate in less graphics-intensive titles.

Speaking of the internal components, the Acer Predator Helios 300 wields a 2.3GHz, quad-core Core i5-8300H in the entry-level configuration. The model I'm reviewing here has a two.2GHz, half dozen-core Intel Core i7-8750H. Configurations start at 8GB of RAM and go upwards to the 16GB I tested. (The machine is upgradable to a maximum of 32GB.) Our review unit also shipped with 256GB of solid-state storage and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 graphics with 6GB of dedicated video retentiveness. Acer also offers a 17.3-inch version of the Acer Predator Helios 300 that comes outfitted in three configurations, topping out with the aforementioned Core i7-8750H processor and GeForce GTX 1060 graphics.

The Predator Helios 300's port option is sufficient for its form. On the left edge is a Gigabit Ethernet port joined by an HDMI port, a single USB 3.ane Gen ane Blazon-C port, a USB three.0 port, and an SD card slot...

On the correct are two USB 2.0 ports, a headphone jack, and the connectedness bespeak for the Ac adapter...

On the wireless connectivity front, the Acer Predator Helios 300 incorporates 802.11ac Wi-Fi and back up for Bluetooth v. Similar all Acer Predator laptops, the Helios 300 comes with a two-year warranty standard.

Half dozen Cores of Oomph

In the functioning trials I ran, the Predator Helios 300 conducted itself well confronting competing laptops that PC Labs has reviewed in its cost range. Much of that is down to the inclusion of the vi-cadre/12-thread Intel Cadre i7-8750H processor and the GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card, a very stiff combination for gaming at 1080p and no slouch for media-crunching and productivity tasks.

The machines I'll be comparing information technology to here use lower-power Core i5 or final-generation Core i7 processors (all with fewer cores and threads at their disposal), combined with GeForce GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti GPUs. Looking at the numbers, that explains why the Predator Helios 300 came out ahead in every examination except for battery life, where the Dell Inspiron 15 Gaming 7000($749.99 at Dell)led the competitive set y'all encounter in the chart with its eleven-hour-and-1-minute (11:01) runtime off the charger. The Helios 300, on the other paw, lasted just 3:58 looping PC Labs' test video file earlier running out of juice.

Looking at these charts, the Predator Helios 300 stacks up all-time against the configuration of the Lenovo Legion Y520($899.95 at Amazon) nosotros reviewed last twelvemonth. However, at both companies' suggested retail prices, the Helios 300 is $60 more for superior performance. In our producivity testing, the Helios 300 showed off the strength of Intel's 8th-generation Java Lake processors with a PCMark 8 score of 3,945, whereas the Lenovo Legion Y520 scored iii,484 points. The six cores and 12 threads of the Java Lake CPU also spearheaded decisive victories in the Cinebench and Handbrake tests, which are highly sensitive to multi-threaded performance.

See How We Test Laptops

Smooth 1080p Gaming

In the GPU-intensive 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme benchmark exam, the Predator Helios 300 scored v,547 points, compared with the 3,617 points the Lenovo Legion Y520 attained, a graphics-performance boost in the Helios 300's favor of more than fifty per centum. It'due south a big leap in operation from a GeForce GTX 1050 Ti to a GTX 1060, especially a total-ability GTX 1060 like in the Helios 300.

I besides ran this laptop through bench tests in a couple of popular AAA games at its native 1080p resolution. The Predator Helios 300 tallied an boilerplate of 74 frames per 2nd (fps) in the 2022 title Far Cry v at Normal settings, and 63fps at the more demanding Ultra preset. In the game Rise of the Tomb Raider, it garnered 82fps at Medium settings, and 68fps at Very High. In both cases, that means smooth frame rates. Indeed, for AAA gaming with the onboard 1080p display, the Predator Helios 300 proves itself to be a robust mobile gaming companion. These numbers are par for the course for a laptop featuring a GeForce GTX 1060.

If your gaming tastes are more than elevated and demand resolutions higher than 1080p (while maintaining frame rates of 60fps or better), and then you're going to take to shell out more bucks for a laptop with a GeForce GTX 1070, along with a higher-resolution screen. An culling is another machine with a loftier-refresh-rate 1080p panel. The 2022 version of the Razer Blade($1,445.00 at Amazon) immediately comes to mind as a candidate, though you lot could spend less past opting for an Alienware 15 configuration toting a GTX 1070, an Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 1080p/60Hz brandish for about $1,650 from Dell. (That said, a GTX 1070 is likely overkill, or at best, improvident time to come-proofing, in that Alienware configuration with its standard screen.) Otherwise, in this price range, yous can bank on a lot of GTX 1060- and GTX 1050 Ti-based machines, both of which are suited for robust mainstream gaming—just non in conjunction with screen resolutions college than 1080p, if you similar to keep detail levels additional.

A Build-Quality Ace for the Bucks

At $1,299.99 as tested, the Acer Predator Helios 300 is a decent value. Above all else, yous're paying for the Intel Core i7 Coffee Lake processor and GeForce GTX 1060 graphics chip. Equally a bonus, you lot're netting a gaming laptop with a build quality that outdoes much of the competition in its toll range. The Helios 300 doesn't shift the market-pricing landscape, but information technology doesn't accept to. Instead, it gives you exactly what yous paid for: a bones gaming laptop that adheres to what nearly buyers would anticipate paying for such a automobile. Information technology's a step up from the all-plastic, entry-level gaming laptops that run a couple hundred dollars less.

If it's AAA titles and VR gaming that you're after, the Predator Helios 300 is a rock-solid option that sets the pace in its toll range, even if information technology doesn't wow on value, bombardment life, or unique features. Notwithstanding, if your goal is to spend less to play your favorite MOBAs or esports titles, the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G is a more budget-conscious pick with the aforementioned color scheme and a step-downwardly GTX 1050 Ti on board. The Editors' Pick-winning Lenovo Legion Y530 is another option worth looking at, with a simpler, cleaner look (though, in our test unit of measurement, simply a GTX 1050).

This is a market packed with well-executed alternatives. Only the Helios 300, in most aspects, brings the fight with the all-time of them.

Best Laptop Picks

• The Best Laptops for 2022
• The Best Inexpensive Gaming Laptops for 2022
• The All-time Ultraportable Laptops for 2022
• Tested: The Lightest Laptops for 2022
• The All-time Battery Life Laptops for 2022
• More Laptop Reviews
• More than from Acer

Laptop Product Comparisons

• Slick Ultraportables Confront Off: 2022 Apple MacBook Air vs. Microsoft Surface Laptop 3
• High-End Mac Showdown: Apple tree iMac vs. Apple MacBook Pro

Further Reading

• Microsoft Blames Liquid Nitrogen for Soldered RAM in Surface Devices
• What to Do if Your Laptop Is Plugged In But Not Charging
• PC Trends For 2022: Lighter and Smaller Machines, Merely Bigger Displays
• Report: Apple to Launch a 12-Core ARM Mac
• Razer Launches Updated Blade Stealth 13 Laptop With GeForce GTX 1650 Ti Graphics, 120Hz Display

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/netbooks-products/28528/acer-predator-helios-300-2018-15-inch-review

Posted by: pickenselly1966.blogspot.com

Share this post