Hi, today's review is special, because here I've got the 2019 Acer Predator Helios 300
which beats all possible records and outperforms many higher speced laptops, but it costs even
$700 less than some of them.
Equipped with 6-core i7-9750H processor and GTX 1660Ti graphics the Predator works on
highest possible clock speeds while keepping the temperatures respectively low.
And there are no really compromises made in order to fit it in $1200 price point.
In this video I will show you as many comparisons as I can to help you decide if the new Predator
is the laptop you wanna go for.
As always in the video description i left Amazon links for USA and this time also for
other countries to check the current price.
To skip to any part of this video you can use the timestamps down below.
I'm Chris from techfindsreview.com and now let's jump into the review.
If it comes to design, the new Helios has been significantly changed.
Now it's more portable, the logo on the lid is backlit and it has blue accents instead of red.
It's very nice to see the metal top pannel and deck in this price point - it gives the
laptop premium feel and additional durability.
The bottom is made of solid plastic and worth mentioning is that the rubber feets do a great
job preventing the laptop from sliding.
The back of 2019 Predator looks awesome - I love the triangular exhausts with blue heat sinks inside.
On the front of the laptop there is a nice silver trim and the keyboard is eye catching
thanks to white key strokes.
Despite the matt texture of the deck, fingerprints show very easily, but they are easy to wipe away.
Since the laptop has thin bezel display it's not too big and it's fairly thin.
If the portability is important to you I have to mention that the 2019 Predator comes with
very small and light power brick compared to other laptops that I've tested.
And for those who frequently use webcam, the 720p one is located properly on the top bezel.
The keyboard in Predator is good and practical.
It has 1.7mm key travel, good spacing and comfortably big arrow keys.
You have also one dedicated key to open the control center app, and the turbo button which
improves the performance and sets the fans to max, more on that later.
The keys with white strokes look great but the lighting is not as strong and vivid as
in other gaming laptops.
However comparing to keyboards in previous Predator products it's way better and I actually
loved using the laptop with blue or white backlit only.
You have 4 zones of lighting and few simple effects, so you can customize the keyboard a bit
but please note that the most popular $1200 model with 1660Ti comes with only
blue keyboard lighting in the USA.
The models with higher specs and some of 1660Ti models come with RGB, so make sure that you
buy the right one.
The touchpad uses Windows Precision drivers so you can take advantage of the gesture controls
and the tracking is good.
It's a bit pity that it doesn't have separate buttons, there is only the clicking mechanism
under the touchpad for left and right click.
At least it has smooth surface and I find it above average precise.
If it comes to port selection you have pretty much every needed IO except for SD card slot
which Acer probably decided to remove to fit 2 air exhausts on the sides.
They don't include a dongle though, so you have to buy one yourself if you need it.
The display in new Predator Helios 300 is surprisingly good.
For $1200 you can find many products from other brands sold with 60hz pannels only.
The Predator is equipped with 1080p, 144hz IPS pannel with 3ms response time.
Despite it doesn't support G-Sync i place it in the top 3 of 144hz pannels
that I've seen, because it's outstanding.
It's as smooth as the display in the Asus Scar 3 which is $600 more expensive.
If it comes to color accuracy it can reproduce 97% of sRGB color gamut, 75% of AdobeRGB
and the brightness is 315 nits.
The colors are very vivid and sharp, so the games look great, but i can recommend
this laptop for content creation as well.
The tone of the image was just perfect, not too much warm and not too cold
so the color reproduction was real.
I don't know if it comes factory calibrated, but it looked like it does, and it was done perfectly.
However there was one thing that was not perfect.
I found screen bleeding which was also slightly noticeable during normal use
when the content on the screen was black.
This may vary between laptops because of diversity in the production process, however this is
only a cosmetic issue which you may not even notice.
The sound in Predator is above average.
The laptop has has noticeably more bass than many other devices, but it's not as good
as Asus ROG laptops.
I was surprised how clear was the sound.
On stock settings it had a lot of detail and depth, but if you want you can equalize it
in Waves MaxxAudio software.
OK, let's quickly mention other configurations and prices of 2019 Helios 300.
You can get it with the GTX 1660Ti, RTX 2060 or RTX 2070 Max-Q.
It's also available with different storage and RAM options, so if you don't wanna bother with upgrading it on your own,
you can buy just the right configuration.
As a default the 2019 Predator comes with 144hz display, but I've heard about 60hz models
too depending on the country.
The most popular $1200 model is what I've got here - it's well known for the best price
to performance ratio out there and it often goes on sale for $999 on Amazon.
You can check the current prices in the description below, especially in the Black Friday.
Alright, now we're going to take a look at the thing that makes this laptop outstanding
- the performance.
You can find many laptops with the same and even higher specs but only few of them can
compete with 2019 Helios 300 if it comes to performance.
This laptop is insanely fast right out of the box thanks to efficient cooling system
which allows to maintain the maximum 4GHz multi core clock speed for i7-9750H and 1.94GHz
for GTX 1660Ti while gaming.
You will benefit the most of higher frame rates in CPU depended games like Fortnite,
Battlefield 5, GTA 5 or Watchdogs 2, but also in graphics programs.
I made a separate gaming benchmark video where i tested 20 games on this laptop,
so if you want more details you can check it out.
If you're interested how the configuration with RTX 2060 performs in games i'll also
leave the link for gaming benchmark video made by Matias Tech and his comparison between
GTX 1660Ti and RTX 2060 models of 2019 Helios 300.
Above the keyboard you have the turbo button which instantly raises up the fan speed to
maximum and overclocks the GPU core and memory.
It also increases the CPU power limit from 45 to 56W.
You definitely wanna use turbo mode for gaming but keep in mind that in order to maintain
highest possible clook speed at low temperatures the laptop gets really noisy, around 60 decibels.
Thankfully on idle and during basic tasks the fan noise in not an issue at all.
If it comes to temperatures i'm very satisfied seeing low 80's on the CPU most of the time.
It's impresive that despite overclocking the graphics and increasing the power limits of
such powerful CPU the Predator is able to maintain the average temperature of 83 degrees
Celcius on the processor and 71 degrees on the GPU.
I measured the temperatures while gaming and here is a comparison to other gaming laptops
just to give you an idea of how efficient is the cooling in new Predator Helios 300.
Worth mentioning is that it comes undervolted by -0.125V from the factory and that's probably
a big part of such good results, but inside you have one 4th generation Aeroblade 3D metal
fan and one regular plastic fan both of which blow out the air through the exhausts
on the back and also on both sides.
The power cable seems to get in the way of the left exhaust but it doesn't affect the temperatures.
However the power input placement is kind of annoying.
As for the storage there are various configurations of Predator - my unit came with only 512GB
M.2 PCIe SSD which was very fast.
The games were loading in a blink of an eye and the system startup took only from 10 to 15 seconds.
You have also second slot for additional M.2 PCIe SSD and one 2.5" drive bay for Hard Drive.
The laptop comes with all necessary parts for upgrade but on the sticker on the HDD kit
it says that upgrading it yourself may affect the warranty terms and you can send
the laptop to Acer's service to get it done by professionals.
However if you're going to add more RAM, additional Hard Drive or SSD on your own,
i made a step by step detailed guide showing how to disassemble and upgrade this laptop.
I'll leave the link in the description.
The battery life hits around 5.5 up to 6 hours when browsing the web, watching YouTube
and doing light productivity work.
When gaming, battery dies after 1.5 hour.
I find it above average score for a gaming laptop.
Alright, since the price is one of the main advantages of the Predator you probably wanna
know how it compares to other laptops with similare specs.
I found 6 laptops with GTX 1660Ti, 16 gigs of RAM and i7 processors.
The only exceptions are the Asus TUF FX505 which is equipped with Ryzen 7 processor,
and the HP Omen 15 which comes with RTX 2060, but i included it to this list, because it
is's probably the cheapest RTX 2060 laptop out there.
However, this configuration of Omen as same as Lenovo Y540 come with 60Hz display only.
The difference between 144Hz and 60Hz is massive yet they are still more expensive than 2019 Helios 300.
They both have optional 144Hz display, but of course the price will be higher.
We also have 2 laptops with 120Hz pannels - the Asus FX505 and MSI GL63.
As i mentioned before, the Asus comes with Ryzen 7 3750H, 4-core processor
which is not going to deliver you the kind of performance the Predator does.
The laptop is cheaper, but i think that it pays off a lot more to pay 100 bucks more to but Helios.
If it comes to the MSI, this is probably the best alternative for Predator on this list.
It's more expensive and bigger, but it has the best keyboard out there with per-key RGB.
And what's more important it has great cooling system which will allow you to reach the same
good performance as Predator.
The Asus Strix G has efficient cooling system as well, but it costs $1500
while offering not really more and better features.
It has the same good 3ms response time display but unfortunately it lacks the webcam.
If i already talked about cooling it's worth mentioning that other devices on this list,
i mean Alienware and Omen struggle to keep the temperatures low
so in comparison to the Helios 300 it's a definite disadventage.
And finally the last laptop i didn't talk about yet is the Alienware m15 which as you
can see has the highest price tag here.
Considering the specs of this model, you get the same + better cooling system buying Predator for 350 bucks less.
Alright, it seems to be everything that you need to know to make a wise choice.
Check the video description to find Amazon links for the laptops that i mentioned
and for more related reviews or comparisons.
That's all for today and i hope you found this video helpful.
Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments and if you like this kind of reviews
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On my channel you can find detailed laptop reviews, laptop comparisons, gaming benchmarks
and more.
Now thanks for your time and see you in the next video.