Acer Predator Helios 300 Gaming Laptop, 15.6" Full HD IPS, Intel i7 CPU, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 256GB SSD, GeForce GTX 1060-6GB, VR Ready, Red Backlit KB, Metal Chassis, Windows 10 64-bit, G3-571-77QK

The Things I Like: The Acer Predator 300 is a solid machine that can easily run just about any modern game it is given at its monitors 60 Hz refresh rate. It is a solidly built computer, with the majority of the build being heavy duty plastics with metal accents throughout. The body does not bend when you pick it up with one hand. Its speakers are good, but not overwhelming in quality. They are certainly loud enough for movie watching in bed, maybe not so much for playing music at a party. The 1060 runs games really smoothly at 1080p, and the i7 makes light work of multitasking and hardcore CPU intensive games (Looking at you Total War). The fans are powerful, and not loud at all unless toggled to full blast. Speaking of, they can be controlled using the Predator Sense app installed on the computer. I would highly recommend turning on the TurboBoost when playing games. It is also very light for the amount of hardware this thing boasts. It is easily handled and packed away. The design is obviously aggressive, but most gaming laptops share the aggressive design notes and i think it is subtle enough that it would pass in an office setting. At the current $1050 price point you will not find better internals. I managed to pick this up on Prime day for $899 and at that price it is a steal. Adding the Seagate SSHD makes this machine viable as an everyday work/home computer with an additional 2TB of storage. Both the SSD and SSHD are very fast drives, so startups are lightning quick and apps open just about instantly. Things that Bug Me: The monitor is not exactly the best I have seen. It is IPS so view angle isnt an issue, but it is very dim by most standards. I have found myself mindlessly trying to turn up the monitor brightness and then remembering that this is the highest it goes. The track pad isnt the best either. There is an awkward amount of resistance and travel in the push buttons, but using the touch feature makes it much easier to use. I would recommend using an external mouse whenever possible. UPDATE YOUR DRIVERS!! This is very important as the BIOS drivers, Video Card drivers, and just about every other driver is severely out of date. Good news is Acer has them consolidated on their website, so do that first. It is an annoyance though. The last thing is the battery life. It is simply not very good. Expect about 2.5-3 Hours unplugged of browsing and multitasking. Honestly dont even try to game with this unplugged, the hardware simply doesnt have the power supply to run at max output for graphics intensive apps and your battery will die before you are done. This is the same for most gaming laptops, but some more than others. So overall a great machine with a few minor annoyances. I wish I could give it 4.5 stars, but with the sub par battery life, monitor brightness issues, and awkward track pad I couldnt say it is a flawless buy. However, you will not find a better bang for your buck when it comes to gaming laptops if you are strictly looking at the hardware/price ratio. And lets be honest... thats why you are here :)

Show more

I got this laptop for Christmas after having a self-built desktop gaming rig for over 10 years. We constantly were updating its parts and components but I got super tired of that, plus its lack of portability. It also utilized a pretty poor WalMart TN panel monitor. Decided on this laptop due to its price point, graphics card, and IPS screen. After having a TN monitor for so long, this vastly exceeds that in every way. Plus the screen is not glossy so glare is not an issue at all. There is some backlight bleed but for me, its hardly a thing, I dont notice when watching movies or gaming unless the screen goes black or its a heavy night-time scene. I admit the screen could be a little brighter but since I live in a cave its good for me. It handles my graphics programs well like Photoshop and Illustrator. No issues there. Colors appear true enough for my needs, and beats the TN panel screen I used before...yikes! IPS is where its at, even if this is considered by some to be a weaker-end IPS panel. Still bests TN any day of the week. Viewing angles are great for me. I havent opened the bottom to see if I have the caddie pre-installed but I did not get anything but a bag of tiny screws in the box with the laptop (which was well-packed BTW). I dont have a need for adding another drive at this time since Im using externals for storing art files and the like. I dont want to bog this down like I did my desktop. It plays everything Ive thrown at it with ease...though I admit my most graphically extensive game right now is just Evolve: Stage 2...but it plays that on max settings no problem. I look forward to seeing how well it will handle Monster Hunter World when it comes to PC, because that will be my game of choice for this machine. Unlike most of the reviewers here, however, I wish it had MORE extreme gaming to its look. I like gaming rigs to scream its a gaming rig. I get that most people I guess take them to work or school and thus need their systems to look like everybody elses mommas netbook so they dont get stolen (or they want to remain a closet gamer)...but I like heavy, hefty beast machines that are eye-catching and unique. This design is sleek as a panther, light as a college text book, and aside from the red backlighting (which is mild) it could pass for a non-gaming rig. I dont know why so many feel its design is off-putting. Its modest in its gaming-ness. Now, I would love to give this 5 stars, but after having this rig a couple months I have run into a problem I have every day. I watch a lot of YouTube videos and streamers, but when I pause a video and then unpause after a few minutes, the speakers sometimes become suddenly full of static. I checked the bios and it appears its fully updated to the latest right out of the box, and I have also gone to Acers website to re-install the driver updates for the speakers, and even Microsoft. Everything appears to be fully updated, yet I still have this problem. Sometimes I can just switch to a couple of different videos, exit and go back into YouTube, or close the laptop and re-open it and itll fix itself, and sometimes I can plug in headphones and itll slowly fix itself, but a complete fix to get rid of the static is always rebooting. I havent been able to find a reason why this continues to happen but dealing with it daily has been frustrating. I dont feel its important enough to warrant sending it to Acer and its intermittent enough that I think it would be hard to troubleshoot on their end. However, this is currently my only issue with this laptop. I could only be happier if I didnt have those static problems. I know desktops are vastly superior for gaming and artwork that I need the high performance for, but updating a desktop has its constant costs, and I decided to switch to a laptop. For the price point, when this becomes outdated I can simply buy another one. It costs about the same to update a desktop rig every so many years. Im so glad I finally got a laptop. Its practically life-changing. I can sit on a couch comfortably or take it to bed or a coffee shop, and Im not limited to sitting in one spot all day in the house.

Show more

Pretty awesome product. I have been looking for a powerful rig for some time. I dont game regularly, but I do love a good game. This ran CS/GO on full blast so fast I was able to come out on top after not playing for over a year. Its stylish, feels well built, has a pretty good screen (I think I will use an external for everything anyway). What I love-- Its fast-- huge jump in speed from my I5 laptop, even though that one had an SSD. It comes with 16Gb of RAM, and a 6GB video card, which means that youll be tearing through games at top graphics. I like the Predator sense, which gives you a gui for your heat, fan, and cpu usage. I really like the tactile feedback on the keys, as Im an author, student, and IT specialist. I like that you can upgrade to 32gigs of ram, faster WIFI, and that you can run a bunch of VMs on this beast without worry. Overall, this product is pretty awesome. What I dont thoroughly enjoy, I was one of the unlucky ones that had a computer that came without the second SSD/HDD caddy. I simply wrote to the link thats been provided on a question above, however, and Im supposed to be getting one soon. I also dont really love the screen-- the colors seem just the slightest bit off, though its not off-putting enough to complain much about. I also dont love that this computer comes sans DVD drive-- as I said, Im an IT professional, so its not a huge deal getting an external, but its just the little things. Overall, Id recommend it, I like it, and Ive changed my mind on ACER products in a good way.

Show more