The BEST Affordable Gaming Laptop - Predator Helios 300
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2018-05-06
·
1,350 words · ~6 min read
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from a strictly pric to Performance standpoint the Acer Predator Helios 300
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absolutely crushes any gaming laptop
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that we've looked at before but in order
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to get the same basic gaming specs as a
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$1900 razor blade into a laptop for only
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$1,100 what other sacrifices did they
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have to make lots it turns out but that
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doesn't mean that it's a bad product
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description we were pleasantly surprised by the Predator Helios 300 when first
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opening it up the brushed aluminum on the back of the display and the Palm
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rest of the keyboard gives the laptop an unexpectedly premium feel and the
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rigidity of the chassis helps here as well it certainly looks the part of a
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gaming laptop with red accents it's not
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terribly subtle but in my opinion it doesn't go over the top in its attention
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seeking Behavior there are areas like
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around the screen and the bottom where materials like plastic rain Supreme and
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it doesn't have the reassuringly solid feel of something by Alienware but
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it avoids feeling cheap so I'm willing to forgive that two type a USB 2s and a
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type A and type-c USB 3 plus Ethernet
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HDMI 2.0 and even a full-size SD card
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slot adds up to pretty good IO but
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what's more than pretty good maybe even
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fantastic are the internal specs of this shockingly potent little devil with a 6
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gig GTX 1060 a core
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i77700 HQ and 16 gigs of ddr4 memory at
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just over 1,000 bucks this was legitimately the first time like I play
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this game I'll guess how much something costs when I go around to people's
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booths at trade shows this was the first time in years that I was shocked to see
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the price tag on a laptop now obviously
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there are differences here but for the
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pieces of Hardware that actually affect
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gaming performance the Acer Helios on
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paper is the same as much more expensive
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competing products but how about the
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experience well let's put it this way you won't have to worry about having to
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set a game at anything lower than high since this thing has no problem pinning
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the frame rate at the 6 6 HZ refresh rate of the display so no surprises here
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it turns out that whether you cram 370 horsepower into a charger or a two-door
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Civic it's going to move pretty fast and
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it's a bit on the chubby side at 31 mm
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but unlike some of the sleeker and more expensive gaming machines we've seen
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underload the Helios is able to stay nice and cool without becoming overly
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loud either it even Sports a PR pretty
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decent webcam but not all is hunky dory
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to have an IPS screen on a budget oriented gaming laptop at all should be
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the icing on the cake and it does have one whoa but how how do I put this
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delicately it's kind of like a grocery store cake where you bite into it
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expecting homemade cream cheese icing and you end up with some canned Betty
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Crocker that's a little passed its best before I mean to be clear the viewing
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angles and contrast ratio are great it's
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still icing you just regret asking for a
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corner piece maximum brightness could be better described as maximum glowi and
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average Delta e values of 5.67 are only
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okay if you don't see huge outliers and
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you're covering more than 67% of the srgb color space
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I don't want to sound ungrateful here I still wouldn't personally trade it for a
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TN I'm just saying that you won't be doing any serious video editing or
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photoshop unless you want to invest in a secondary monitor to check your work
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another area that Acer skimped is the 48w hour battery to their credit Acer
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was at least honest about this but with
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this kind of showing in our standard battery test basically if you're cting
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one of these around to class you should expect to be getting familiar with the
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power outlet locations the trackpad though is a return to things that are
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pretty good it's accurate and tap to click and gestures work well but I do
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wish that the force required to press was a little less so that dragging and
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dropping files was easier and the keyboard feels pretty good too again the
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force to press the keys is a little too high and they are touch mushy so I can't
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get quite as fast as I could on something like an Alienware or the
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surface laptop which is a bummer because on a gaming laptop quick and accurate
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key presses are a plus but overall it
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does the job it needs to and the inclusion of both a backlight and a full
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number pad are appreciated and the positives don't end there if the 250 gig
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SATA SSD which can be upgraded to NVMe
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by the way isn't quite enough to house your gaming collection adding up to 32
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gigs of RAM or a 2 and 1/2 in hard drive
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on the Helios is really easy each of those has its own compartment on the
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bottom so it only takes one screw to access it should be noted though that
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anything beyond that requires a full disassembly so then in response to our
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original question what you're giving up is screen and battery so if you want a
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laptop for productivity and you just want to game on it a little bit I'd go
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for something at this price point with a G GTX 1050 TI a core i5 and potentially
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nearly double the battery life but if
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you want a machine that is laser focused
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on price to Performance for gaming at
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just over $1,000 the Predator Helios 300
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knocks it out of the park highly
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