Acer Predator Helios 300 Review
The new Acer Predator Helios 300 is one of the best gaming laptops we have tested for a while.
This laptop has a class of its own, it is well known for its performance.
Let us find out why in our detailed review and help you decide if Acer Predator Helios 300 is a laptop you should consider buying in 2021.
Starting with the specs, the one that we are going to review has an Intel i7-10750H CPU, Nvidia GTX 2060 graphics, and 16GB of memory running in dual channel.
A 512GB NVMe M.2 SSD and 1TB hard drive for storage, and a 15.6” FHD 144Hz screen,
A 60Hz Refresh rate variant is also available.
For network connectivity, it’s got a gigabit ethernet, 802.11ac WiFi, and Bluetooth 5.
There are a few different configurations available though, such as with 1660 Ti or 2070 Max-Q graphics.
There’s a 17-inch model too, check out the links below for availability and prices.
Why Trust Us:
All of our reviews are based on honest real-time testing and market research. We only recommend products that are worth buying for the prices.
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Acer Predator Helios 300 Gaming Laptop Review Hours Tested = 32 hours | Market Researched = 16 hours  |
External Review Of Acer Predator Helios 300 Gaming Laptop
BODY:
The lid of this laptop has a matte black aluminum finish with blue accents that look really cool there's also a classy predator logo in the center.
The interior also has a cool metal matte finish with more blue accenting, while the bottom is plastic.
Most of the edges are smooth, the front metal edge and corners could be a little sharp on certain angles but are perfectly fine during normal use.
The new design of this gaming laptop looks significantly better compared to last year's model in our opinion.
The weight is listed at 2.5kg or 5.5 lbs on the Acer website and ours was a bit lower than that. (We think Acer might have included the charger too when weighing this machine)
The dimension of this machine is 36cm in width, 25.4cm in-depth, and just under 2.3cm in height, they are about average for a 15-inch laptop.
SCREEN:
This smaller build gives us 7.9mm thin bezels with a 79% screen to body ratio.
The thinner bezels also help in making the laptop less chunky and smaller in every dimension as compared to last year's model.
The 15.6” 1080p 144Hz IPS-level screen has a matte finish and good viewing angles.
No G-Sync available here.
Backlight bleed wasn’t too bad, some slight imperfections around most sides, but they were extremely subtle and we never actually noticed these while viewing darker content.
There was some screen flex, but it wasn’t that bad due to the lid being metal.
Absolutely no problems at all opening it up with one finger, it felt quite well balanced and there were no problems using it on my lap.
The top bezel of the laptop isn’t too thin, Acer has left plenty of room to fit the camera.
The rubber feet at the bottom did a good job of preventing movement while in use.
KEYBOARD:
Alright, let’s talk about the keyboard. Acer Predator helios 300 has 4 zones RGB lighting keyboard.
The WASD and arrow keys have beautiful blue accenting.
The keyboard is well built for a longer typing experience, the keys provide tactile feedback.
You won't have any problem with the keyboard.
On the right above the Numpad, there’s a dedicated button for opening the predator sense software.
The power button is found on the top right corner.
Above the keyboard, on the left, we’ve also got the turbo button.
Pressing this will boost fan speed, raise the CPU power limit, and overclock the graphics for an increase in performance.
However, this button does need the predator sense software installed to work, and sometimes while pressing it there could be anywhere from a one to five-second delay before turbo mode would enable.
There was some keyboard flex while pushing down hard, but during normal use the metal body was sturdy.
TOUCHPAD:
This gaming laptop features a large-sized touchpad that also supports windows precision drivers, which means special gestures like pinch and zoom, three-finger, etc will work.
The touchpad is smooth and provides relatively clicky feedback.
Fingerprints and dirt show up quite easily on the black finish, but as it’s a smooth surface they’re easy to clean.
PORTS:
On the left from the back, there’s a Kensington lock, an air exhaust vent, a power input port, some status LEDs, a gigabit ethernet port, two USB 3 Type-A ports, and a 3.5mm audio jack.
On the right side, there’s a USB 3 Type-C port (no Thunderbolt support though)
A third USB 3 Type-A port, mini DisplayPort, and an HDMI 2.0 output port followed by another air exhaust.
On the back, there are two air exhausts near the corners with a blue finish and like other Acer laptops a warning about it being a hot surface.
though we didn’t find ours to get too hot there.
The bottom panel can be removed by taking out 10 screws with a Phillip head screwdriver.
Inside from left to right, we’ve got the WiFi card, a single 2.5-inch drive bay, two M.2 slots, two memory slots, and a battery.
SPEAKERS:
The two speakers of Helios 300 are found under the front left and right corners.
They sound about average, but not great.
Internal Review Of Acer Predator Helios 300 gaming laptop
COLOR GAMUT:
We’ve measured the color gamut of the Helios 300 gaming laptop using the Spyder 5 Pro.
Our results returned 94% of sRGB, 67% of NTSC and 73% of AdobeRGB.
The score is quite amazing.
At 100% we measured 312 nits of brightness with an 890:1 contrast ratio in the center. So it's also quite bright.
CAMERA AND BUILT-IN MICROPHONE:
The 720p camera is about average, it looks ok but still a bit blurry.
The microphone sounds about average too.
We would recommend you to use your own microphone and webcam when streaming.
THERMAL TESTING:
Let’s move on to thermal testing.
One thing we noticed is that the power cable has a thick head, and when running it out towards the back it does partially block some of the exhaust on the left.
Though we didn’t find this to practically make a difference.
Thermal testing was completed at an ambient room temperature of 21 degrees Celsius.
Let’s start with the stress test results, with the default undervolt, the CPU was reaching 90 degrees in this test.
We enabled the turbo profile, which can be done simply by pressing the turbo button above the keyboard, the temperature of both the CPU and GPU dropped as this sets the fan speed to maximum.
The gaming results saw a similar pattern, with just the turbo profile enabled the results are pretty good compared to other machines.
These results can be improved by using a cooling pad or undervolting the GPU.
One more thing we noticed is that while gaming with the fan at auto speed the WASD keys were a little warm while the middle of the keyboard was warm to touch.
Overall we were very impressed with the thermal performance of the Acer predator helios 300, we are surprised by how this laptop manages the heavy load easily.
BENCHMARK SCORES:
Here are some Cinebench CPU benchmarks showing single and multi-core performance.
Once we enabled turbo mode we were able to get a nice improvement.
GAMING
We have tested a total of 20 games with the turbo profile in use for best performance, some of them are mentioned below
| Games Tested | Settings performance level | FPS |
|---|---|---|
| Battlefield 5 | Maxed out at ultra settings | 80 Fps |
| Apex Legends | Maxed out at ultra settings | Boosted 80 Fps |
| Shadow Of The Tomb Raider | All settings and color level maxed-out | Increased Fps performance |
| Far Cry New Dawn | Ultra settings level | 80 Fps |
| Fortnite | Epic settings level | Fps performance is higher |
| Overwatch | Maxed-out settings level | High performance |
| PUBG | Ultra maxed-out settings | A little lower on ultra settings than other laptops but overall Fps is great |
| Assassin's Creed Odyssey | Full settings | About 70 |
| Dota 2 | Maxed-out settings | High-performance Fps |
All of them are very CPU-heavy games.
To be honest we were really impressed by this laptop's impeccable performance.
The Acer Predator Helios 300 is just 10 to 15 FPS behind the 2070 machines and actually beating the Razer Blade Stealth 13.
Seriously impressive stuff.
BATTERY LIFE
Powering the Acer predator Helios 300 gaming laptop is a 58 Watt-hour battery.
We have tested it with the screen brightness at 50%, background apps disabled, and all RGB lighting off.
on continuous video playback, the Helios 300 gaming laptop lasted for 5 hours and 52 minutes.
While playing the Witcher 3 on medium settings and Nvidia’s battery boost set to 30 FPS the battery lasted for 2 hours in total.
The battery was stable at 30 FPS until there was a 4% charge remaining where it lowered to 8 FPS and was no longer usable.
So overall above-average battery life compared to other gaming laptops we have tested.
When you unplug the laptop from the power you won’t be able to use turbo mode or the overclocking features.
The 180-watt power brick that Acer includes with the Helios 300 appears to be adequate for these specs,.
We weren’t seeing any battery drain during any of our testings.
CONCLUSION:
The Acer Helios 300 gaming laptop is a very impressive machine at this price point.
It exceeded our expectations in pretty much every aspect.
The CPU is undervolted out of the box, it outperformed the competition in many workloads.
This is great for the majority of people who want to buy a gaming laptop that won't break their bank.
Gaming performance with turbo mode was excellent, thanks to the boosted fan speed, raised CPU power limit, and GPU overclock.
Gaming laptops around this price range usually cheap out on the screen, but even color gamut and brightness were good here. making the predator helios 300 one of the best gaming laptops of 2021
We would recommend this laptop for sure :)
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