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

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I purchased this laptop to take on a trip. It arrived and I was very excited. After I booted up the computer it looked just fine. However I ran a benchmark on it and it showed that only an Intel HD 630 card was installed when it was suppose to come with a Nvidia 1060. I did a windows update... nothing. I then went to Nvidia and downloaded the driver and it said there was no matching hardware. I then called the support number for it. There is this nice card in the box that says dont call Amazon, call Acer. I did and they said that since I purchased it from Amazon the only way they could help me is to tell me to return the product to Amazon for a refund. What a huge disappointment.

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The laptop was out of the box for two weeks before the GPU failed. Support was OK, but a hardware repair would take seven to ten days turnaround, and no guarantee that the problem wouldnt happen again. Easier to wipe it, and send it back to Amazon for a refund, and get something better. My reccomendation is to avoid this particular machine. It is built well, and was snappy while it lasted, but failing after two weeks has certainly made me decide that Acer is on my Do Not Buy list.

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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.

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I am one year into ownership of this laptop and I am incredibly disappointed. At first, I was impressed with the fast loading times and the powerful Geforce 1060 graphics card. The exterior cases feels nice and solid. For the price, the specs seem too good to be true. So, why the low ratings for Material, Picture, and Sound quality? This laptop crashes whenever I try launching most of my games. I have tried nearly everything to fix this thing. Ive tried using the recovery partition that it came with, rolling back the drivers, updating the drivers, and everything in between-- including clean installs of NVIDIAs drivers and reflashing the BIOS. System stability deteriorated to about 10-15 minutes between crashes before I swapped out the RAM. Today, I swapped in RAM that should be superior to the OEM Kingston sticks. Stability has improved *slightly* but my games are still crashing. Perhaps I can do more. But I SHOULDNT HAVE TO. When I buy a product I expect it to work without having to spend hours of my free time trying to troubleshoot it. I cant send the laptop in for work because Im in Afghanistan. Perhaps I was naive expecting this thing to work without having to RMA the entire thing. Anyway, shame on Acer for whatever horrible quality control issue this is. Ill probably try to RMA the entire thing when I rotate back stateside, but what a huge disappointment. Buy this thing if you feel like taking a gamble.

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So far I have had little to no issues, I bought a 1 tb firecuda hard drive along with it and use it mainly for gaming, I run most the games on high or ultra, people on reviews might complain about the screen but I actualy think it looks great. Keyboard is nice,the laptop does get a lil warm, 80c but after changing a battery from high performance to balanced it stays around 73 with same high settings. But they say laptops are meant to get warmer so nothing really to worry and thats after a good gaming sesh. Overall I love it for the price. Def get a gaming mouse and hard drive though because the 256 ssd just isnt a whole lot. Dont forget to update bios and drivers!

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I picked up this Acer Predator Helios 300 Gaming Laptop a few weeks ago to keep me gaming on the go. I already had a fairly strong desktop and my lifestyle was changing in a way that meant I would be away from home more often, so I considered a gaming laptop around the $1,000 price range. This laptop was new and looked quite impressive and was recommended to me by a number of laptop enthusiasts so I thought Id give it a shot. Pros: - A full-size GTX 1060 at this price point is a great deal. It will play almost any game on the laptops 1080p display very well! Youd be hard pressed to find a game today that runs poorly at that resolution (even with ultra settings) on this laptop. - The i7-7700HQ is a great performer at this price range. It will handle productivity tasks quite well. - The build quality feels very good. The laptop feels solid, the keyboard is responsive and is backlit, and the materials feel like theyre high quality, even the plastics. - The battery life is really solid for a gaming laptop. Of course, gaming will drain the battery very quickly. - The cooling solution is quite effective for a laptop. The fans are powerful and can be a little bit loud but thats okay when youre gaming. Its very quiet while doing anything less intense. The OK: - The included SSD is nice but overall storage is lackluster. This warrants an additional drive. Thankfully its quite easy to install a new drive in this laptop. - The display is an IPS panel. Its a rather low end IPS panel, but its still not too bad. The colors look good and it feels pretty responsive. I didnt notice any serious blurring or ghosting while playing games. - The speakers are loud and clear. Im not an audiophile so I cant speak to the quality of them, but it suited my needs and if I turned them up I could hear them from quite far away. - The gamer aesthetic. Some people love it. Some people hate it. Im rather indifferent, myself. The bad: - It gets pretty warm while gaming. The heat rises into the keyboard and can make it rather uncomfortable. I struggled to think of much of anything that was really bad about this computer. Some of the meh points might be big detractors for some people but I really didnt mind. Overall, a great gaming laptop for the price. If youre building a desktop PC Id wager youd have to spend about $900 (as of 9/6/2017) or more to get similar performance... usually laptops have a much bigger price premium to get this kind of performance!

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Let me start by saying I never write reviews ever, but this laptop is amazing. People have been talking about the firmware being outdated. Thats fixed. My laptop came with 1.3. No wifi issues either. No overheating issue (Played on it all day today, graphics on ultra). Lets talk about the screen. its Not amazing but its not bad. Its like your favorite artist and an artist you hate made a baby. Its mediocre. BUT! An i7 7700 and a gtx 1060!!!!???? Worth af... I layed in bed before writing this and played PUBG on ultra with ZERO issues. Before that an MMO rpg on ultra in a raid of 25 people and I never fell below 80 frames. Overwatch, same thing, never fell below 90 frames. Remember... I NEVER WRITE REVIEWS! Im that satisfied with my purchase. P.s. 2 year warranty as well.

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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.

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UPDATE 8/6/2017: since the very first time i bought it ive had a problem with WiFi. Everytime i boot up the laptop and connect to the WiFi, i wont be able to access to internet until i disable i re-enable the WiFi card. Then ill be able to use it. I suspect this isnt a hardware issue but i couldnt format the laptop since i very first bought it because they made it really difficult to disable UEFI. If you do, then you wont be able to boot at all from any removable device or the SSD. So ive used it with the pre-installed software which i get to think has some software that conflicts with WiFi driver. Ive seen a couple of people talking about WiFi issues as well with this laptop. If you buy it (which i recommend) make sure to format and install a clean Windows. Still doubting about buying this laptop? Yeah i know, too good to be true? Ill share with you my experience. I bought this laptop from the Amazon seller. When youre abotu to buy to can buy it from Amazon or Acer. Same product, different price. I chose Amazon, 150 bucks cheaper. Design: The laptop is extremely attractive. Its clearly gaming oriented, and you can notice that. Definitely the type of laptop that would make people near by stand by you and ask you which one is it. The bottom border of the laptop is a bit sharp, so you would want to use a high chair so you dont rest your arms on it, not nice. The plastic where you rest your hands as well seems to absorb anything so you may want to use it with clean hands, otherwise youll have to clean the plastic frequently. Keyboard and mouse: keyboard is very comfortable and very easy to use. Almost like a mecanic one, of course its not. Its backlit with red light so you dont have to turn lights on to game. Amazing. Built-in mouse seems to have decent DPI, of course you wont game with it, but definitely not a standard laptop mouse pad. Screen: 1920x1080. Really smooth and high quality. Definition is very accurate. Sadly, as most laptop, its 60hz, which means that despite your high-end performance hardware, you wont be able to actually see at more than 60fps any game, cause the screen limits it. Once again, i do not know any laptop with more than 60hz. 60fps is very decent. Performance: The laptop is really fluid, fast and smart. It boots really fast thanks to its processor and SSD. Definitely a great combination of hardware. Final Tips you might wanna see: -First thing to do when you get it: go to Acer site and download updates of both graphic cards (intel and nvidia). Then, update bios to 1.2 version, reboot, and update to 1.3. -You might want to set Nvidia GTX graphic card as default graphic card from the Nvidia 3D settings. Else youll use Intel HD Graphics 620 card for games and its not good. -Battery is kind of a weak point. When gaming, you get less than an hour. Game connected. Would i recommend it? Over and over again. Excellent product for the price. You may get the same specs from HP or Alienware for double the price. And youd hardly get higher specs. You dont need more than what this offers. Stop searching.

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After reading the reviews of this laptop I decided to give it a try. Ive had it for a few days now and have played on it extensively during that time. All the games I have played from game developers such as EA and Blizzard have played extremely well and I have had no issues at all. I am at home a lot after suffering from an injury and recovering from surgery so I have been putting it through its paces. As soon as I opened the box the first thing I did was go ahead and install the Seagate 500GB SATA that I purchased to go along with it. I must say the install was very easy with the exception that I have large hands and those screws at so small. I then of course had to go through the normal setup and allow windows to update which is standard for just about any computer. Next I visited the Acer site and going down their list I installed all the current driver and firmware updates starting with the BIOS. Note: I did install the BIOS updates in the order they were released and had no issues at all. I then updated the GPU using the NVidia control panel as well as the rest of the hardware such as keyboard, integrated graphics card, etc. from the device management page as well as formatted the 2nd hard drive. So far I have been very pleased with the results. I allowed the NVidia program GeForce Experience to optimize my games and havent felt the need to change any of the setting. I get excellent frame rate even in demanding areas of the games I play although I know Im probably not using this laptop to its fullest potential. As far as cooling goes the surface does get a little warm but turning on the Cool Boost option in the PredatorSense program took care of that and when I know the GPU will have to process a lot of information I go ahead and turn the fans to MAX although that is probably not needed. Even with the fans to max and turning at approximately 6000 RPMs this laptop is very quiet. I read some reviews that stated it had dead keys or other problems right out of the box. I have had none of these issues and the product exceeds my expectations for the price point.

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