Acer Predator Helios 300 Gaming Laptop PC, 15.6" FHD IPS w/ 144Hz Refresh, Intel i7-8750H, GTX 1060 6GB, 16GB DDR4, 256GB NVMe SSD, Aeroblade Metal Fans PH315-51-78NP

Screen Quality: Excellent. 144 Hz, 1920 x 1080 pixels. Screen looks excellent for the price. Youtube and games look great on this screen. Big enough and completely suits all my needs for gaming and watching videos. A lot of laptops in the same price range only have a 60 Hz screen. While that's decent, the fact that this one is 144 Hz is pretty impressive.Battery Life: Meh. It isn't going to last very long even if you're just chillin' watching youtube videos or netflix. Gaming, it's definitely not going to last more than an hour or so. But I always have it plugged in, so I don't really care about this. However, you have to make sure it's in "better performance mode" and not "best performance mode" while doing hardcore gaming. When I put it all the way up to the best performance mode possible while gaming, my battery was actually slowly draining WHILE it was PLUGGED IN. The drain was slow, but it got down to about 94% after an hour or so. That's a bit lame. But after putting it in the proper mode and undervolting and such, there's no issue and it stays at 100%. This is just potential minor issue, but I think it's worth mentioning.Gaming: I can play GTA V at 60fps on ultra settings. League of legends on ultra settings at about 110 - 120 fps. Good enough for me. You should of course search up acer helios predator 300 gaming videos on youtube if you're curious how it performs in various games. It does much better than a PS4 pro. So I'm pleased. Every game I play nowadays, league, GTA, apex legends, etc, runs smoothly and at a high enough fps, so it's good enough for me personally.Cons: Space. You're going to want to spend money on purchasing and installing an extra 1TB or 2TB hard drive or SSD if you're a hardcore gamer like me. The built-in 256 GB SSD the laptop comes with is nice, but with the size of many major games nowadays, it's just not going to be enough for you. Thankfully my laptop came with the screws and stuff you need to install a second SSD, which is what I did. I dropped another 150$ on a second 1TB SSD. I've heard that some people had their "cage" missing that you need to install an SSD, and had to contact Acer to get one mailed to them for free. I was lucky enough to have a cage and screws included with mine.Overheating: Not a problem anymore since I undervolt mine and bought a cooling pad and it runs just fine and at safe temperatures, but if you haven't done either of these things I've heard that the laptop can potentially reach unsafe temperatures.***You will likely have to go on youtube and watch a video or two on how to undervolt your computer so it doesn't overheat while gaming. After doing this I saw virtually no drop in performance but a humongous drop in heat while gaming, so it seems to have fixed everything. After undervolting, I'm able to play demanding games like GTA V on ultra while staying in the 55 - 60 degree Celsius range which I've heard is quite safe and optimal. But it's annoying to do all this if you're a computer noob and don't really want to learn how to do it. It'd be nice if the computer didn't have overheating issues in the first place. Before undervolting, I may have saw heat spikes of about 75 - 80 degrees Celsius while gaming. I am not an expert on computers and GPUs and CPUs and what temperatures they can safely handle for how many years and such. But I've heard people with this computer voice real concerns that their helios has reached 85 - 90 degrees or even higher under certain conditions. I can understand why that would make anyone nervous. That seems quite hot and is a definite issue. Learn to undervolt it a bit or reapply some thermal paste or both and everything should be peachy.I've had it for about a month and I'm quite pleased. I think the CPU and GPU in this laptop are quite good and the price is acceptable. Overall I'm pleased with my purchase and would definitely recommend to anyone getting into PC gaming.

I've had some time to run this laptop through its paces after several weeks testing it out. I was a bit concerned about the small storage, but it is easy enough to upgrade it or add an SSD or small format mechanical drive for storage needs should that become necessary. For now, the 240 GB M.2 SSD works at about 60% capacity. I did find it curious that it runs considerably faster than a similarly equipped tower I have, but that one also has a great deal of hardware and drivers since it serves as the main computer out of 4 for a Boeing flight simulator.Out of the box the Acer Predator Helios 300 15" screen was ready to go. I removed the trial antivirus and Office 365 versions, and installed my preferred OS, the prerelease version of Windows (I've been doing it for years due to the unusual way I use my computers). I then got into the tools and assigned specific programs to either the default GPU or the Nvidea GTX-1060 6GB GPU as appropriate, regardless of whether I would be using my MR headset (also Acer) or not. I added an external switch controlled USB 3.1 hub and the MR headset and was impressed. The sound, when sent through the laptop speakers, is pretty good, on par with TV's roughly the same size, though a bit softer than I'm use to due to the speakers pointing down rather than at me. It's plenty load enough to be heard in the next room clearly, but not so loud it bothers the neighbors like the flight simulator does (I guess I'm louder than the nearby airliners taking off, lol).Once I was happy that everything worked, I allowed Acer to update any outdated BIOS requirements, and then had to get into the BIOS to turn the screen backlighting on full time, rather than have it turn off after a few seconds of inactivity (annoying, but saves power if on battery only). This picked up the speed a bit further towards what I had expected according to all I researched about this machine. I then personalized the screen lid with my own stickers, preferred to the Predator logo and name at university.The primary function of the Helios 300 is in the virtual world, mimicking as closely as possible the arrangement of multiple screens from the flight simulator "inworld" so I could study more effectively and productively for my classes when my disability leaves me stranded in bed at somewhat unpredictable and annoying times. I have Second Life and Sansar set up, both of course to the GTX-1060. Second Life does not appear to have a working model for mixed reality (or even full virtual reality from what I've read), but my testing with Sansar does appear to work rather well. Both operate at roughly 60 fps when I hit the turbo mode, heating things up to roughly 80 deg Celsius at maximum settings on the main screen (Second Life) and with mixed reality (Sansar). A quick word to Linden Labs about the controllers not being recognized had them coding to fix that problem. I'm stationary in the real world, so the controllers are much needed in the virtual world to move about (hence the choice of mixed reality rather than Oculus or Hive at twice the price, plus costs and problematic setup of sensors, in a wheelchair, not happening.For school I get Office365 Student and Educator from the University, all the apps, plus speech to text apps for days I cannot type. I find I do have to use the headset I have for me to be heard properly, the mics built into the laptop tend to pick up everything and try to type words it interprets from the sound of GE and PW airliner engines screaming on departure over my apartment complex. It even tries to type out the birds having their early morning music jam in the large tree outside my window. The headset doesn't pick up anything more than a foot from its front, so problem solved.If planning on intense gaming with this little beast, I strongly recommend a cooling pad under it. At 80 C, that's 20 degrees from being able to boil water at sea level, so a tad warm on the lap. I do not recommend closing the lid during MR/VR sessions at all due to the high temperatures, especially when ambient room temperature is more than 70 F or so.The Helios 300 also comes with 16 GB DDR4 memory, which I intend to upgrade to the maximum 32 GB when I go to add an additional large capacity storage drive. Adding storage and RAM is easy, one screw each for access, 4 additional screws for removing the drive caddy waiting for your storage option. One note on the drive this one came with, what happened to the Optane M.2 drive the machine is supposed to come with? Intel reports that it was installed, but the drive my system arrived with is not the Optane drive it was told was installed. Just a thought, so long as it operates as specified I'm good, and the Optane storage module was never in the description, so no worries. Just an odd thing to come across, I guess.Despite having the extra $200 to go with a 17.3" screen rather than the 15.6" (with a 1 TB drive instead of 256 GB), I am using this one for school when unable to use my main rig, and take it to every doctor appointment to stay caught up with school even if they opt to admit me into the hospital (life with my disability). The 15.6" is much easier to handle behind me than the heavier and larger 17.3" I have retired, which means it can go in my backpack rather than rest on my lap and then slide rapidly forward to the floor when I inevitably have to stop short to avoid running someone down in the hallway that just stepped out from around a corner. Still, the picture is crisper than the older and larger one, which makes watching documentaries or reading my assignments much more pleasant due to reduced eye strain. 2 hours before bedtime (at home), the screen switches modes (a Windows feature) to seriously reduce blue light levels, which works rather nicely to insure I am ready for bed on time and not lying awake for a few hours after.As mentioned, I do not advise having the lid closed when the laptop is running, not even in sleep mode (as technically it is still running), since heat can build rather quickly. I hate touchpads, largely because one of my meds reduces electrical conductivity in my digits (fingers and toes), so touch screens and pads do not see me or act much differently than I had intended. I picked up a rather nice gaming mouse (unknown where the previous one I ordered ended up, but it wasn't with me) that works rather nicely, and it allows me to switch dpi settings on the fly depending upon my range of motion limits on any given day (the higher, the faster and further the pointer on the screen moves, a gaming feature that works nicely wit disabilities as well). On better days, or when I need finer control on a mesh object I am building, I can down-tune it to move more slowly and shorter distances with the same effort. Just a thought, throwing it out there in case others would rather a mouse over a touchpad. The touchpad is easily enabled and disabled using Fn + F7. If you are like me and type a lot, this is a handy little feature.At first, I wasn't certain about the keyboard, since I rarely get along with this particular design. I can type with confidence, however, as it feels quite mechanical compared to my retired Acer laptop I thought had the same design. The red backlighting is easy on the eyes, even when typing in the dark. Just be sure to get into the BIOS to turn the backlighting to always on, or do what I did early on after the update and just memorize the positions of keys that do nothing unless you combine it with another key, pressing those will turn the backlighting back on. It's LED, so they contribute little heat and consume very little power, but for some every watt counts I guess. The numeric keypad works okay, I'm literally use to actual 10-key calculators, so this one is smaller and more bunched together, but I'm sure I will adjust.I never recommend hibernation mode, since it rarely comes back up the way you had it when you told it to save what you were doing. Odds are it'll come up with problems, requiring you to reboot anyway. Sleep mode works (with the lid open), and you can shut it down and later quickly power right back up again.This laptop is "brick-able" if stolen, so keep your serial number handy just in case. You'll lose all your data, but that happened when someone ran off with it anyway. The idea is to destroy the data and make the computer unusable without having to replace everything other than the case, power supply, and battery. It's cheaper to buy one than it is to steal one (most portable electronics are going to this) Do what I do and save important things (like my classwork for the current term) on the one drive, it will then be waiting for you when you get home, to work, or to class when you sign in with your Microsoft account email. Also, be smart and pick a randomly generated password and PIN, you will find life much easier if you do. I use Windows Security for antivirus and firewall protection, it's free and I figure it is their operating system therefor they know where all the security issues are. If not, everything is backed up regularly anyway.There are plenty of videos on YouTube to show you how to easily upgrade storage and memory, including upgrading of the M.2 primary drive, not to mention lots of tips and tweaks for all gamers and power users. Make sure one of the first things you do is register your new laptop with the manufacturer to start your warrantee. I did not go with the Amazon one, mainly because by the time I might need it, I've already replaced the laptop with the latest and greatest anyway. I've had excellent experience with Acer laptops for several years, and have worked on the hardware side of things with tower, desktop, all-in-one, and laptops, so simple repairs I can do for myself (since 1978). If you aren't comfortable doing those repairs, the Amazon warrantee is a very good one (from what I've been told), and I do get it for peace of mind with tech I do not know how to repair. To date, I have yet to have a warrantee issue with Acer, and I look forward to that continuing with this machine. The current price for this laptop is excellent, a bargain when you consider a similarly equipped gaming tower now costs much more.Grab one while you can, and have fun!