Can a metal-clad gaming laptop be had without dropping some serious coin? You bet: Acer's Predator Helios 300 has been making that possible since 2018. Now two generations matured, this 2020 version (starts at $1,199; $1,499 as tested) is largely a hardware refresh of last year’s model with Intel’s “Comet Lake” silicon and up to a 240Hz screen. It put both to good use in our gaming benchmarks, where it produced best-in-class gaming frame rates while almost doubling the battery life of its predecessor. Asus’ ROG Zephyrus G14 remains an outstanding choice for a more portable gamer, but the Predator Helios 300 checks just about every box and then some if you’re after a larger screen. It’s our new Editor’s Choice holder for mid-range 15-inch gaming notebooks.
Upper Entry Level...Or Lower High-End?
The Predator Helios 300 sits between Acer's entry-level gamer, the Nitro 5 (2020), and its top-shelf Predator Triton 500 (2020). It does a classier job of being in this middle tier than the Lenovo Legion 5i and the Dell G5 15 SE (2020), whose all-plastic designs aren't as chic as the Predator's aluminum top and lid.
The metal design isn't without compromises. Although it's very sturdy, the front and rear corners of the chassis are sharp. Additionally, the metal that extends down the sides has squared-off edges at the bottom that I found uncomfortable when I used the Predator Helios 300 in my lap.
A minor change for 2020 is that the lid no longer has the Predator lettering, leaving just the backlit teal logo and non-backlit stripes. It's a cleaner look.
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The Predator lettering under the lid is the only other branding on this laptop. Size-wise, the Helios 300's 0.9 by 14.3 by 10-inch (HWD) measurements are on target for a 15-inch gaming notebook in this class. Higher-end gaming notebooks, such as the Predator Triton 500, usually have less depth because they have trimmer display bezels.
Despite Acer’s specifications listing 5.51 pounds, I weighed my Predator Helios 300 at 4.8 pounds, a normal weight for this class. The pricier (albeit all plastic) Asus ROG Zephyrus M15 (GU502LW) is just 4.19 pounds.
An Ultra-Smooth Operator
The IPS screen on my review model has a 240Hz refresh rate, the unstated standard for premium gaming notebooks in mid-2020. Combined with a 1,920-by-1,080-pixel resolution and an advertised 3ms response time, it's a winning combo for high-speed fragging.
In fact, the display is so smooth that it's easy to appreciate outside of gaming. Simply clicking and dragging or minimizing a window is a new experience. A practical anti-glare surface, ample brightness, and good color round it out. There's no Nvidia G-Sync support (hit that link for a primer on the technology), but it's hard to find that without spending a few hundred more.
The gaming theme continues with a colorful four-zone RGB backlit keyboard.
All zones are the same color in our photos. The preinstalled Predator app lets you change them and save profiles.
The keyboard's feedback is on the mushy side for my preferences, but its short and quick key throws enable some fast typing. A subtle bump on the W key helps your fingers find it. I also like that the WASD and arrow key clusters have thicker borders to appear brighter, which is somewhat visible in the photo below. (The effect is easier to see from above.)
Moving down, the buttonless touchpad sits left in the palm rest to align with the keyboard.
My left thumb tended to rest on it while I was gaming, but the pad's palm rejection ensured that that never triggered unwanted input. The matte surface is easy to glide across. Physical clicks, accomplished by pressing down on the pad, feel a tad stiff though they make little noise.
Plenty of Storage Expansion
Concealed under the front of the chassis are a pair of clear-sounding speakers that won't make you totally regret misplacing your headphones. The real surprise under there, however, requires a Philips screwdriver: upgradeable storage.
The Predator Helios 300 supports up to three drives via two M.2 slots, one of which is filled in my unit by a 512GB solid-state drive, plus a traditional 2.5-inch bay. It would be simple to add a 1TB or even a 2TB hard drive for inexpensive storage, which would save you from constantly needing to swap games off the included drive because you ran out of space. This kind of upgradeability is a great feature that lots of thinner notebooks can't match.
Power Around Back, Please
The Predator Helios 300's port selection is unchanged for the 2020 model. A pair of USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports (5Gbps), an audio combo jack, and a Killer E2600 Ethernet port grace the left edge. On the right, you'll find a USB Type-C port (10Gbps), another Type-A port, plus HDMI and mini-DisplayPort video outputs. Thunderbolt 3 isn't present, but it's not expected in this tier.
All that's truly missing is a media card reader. The Kensington-style cable lock slot at the left rear corner is handy for public spaces. The power jack's location around back is convenient since it’s one less cord sticking out from the side.
The included adapter's right-angle connector doesn't stick out far from the back, either. Inside, a Killer AX1650i card provides Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5. The preinstalled Killer Control Center app lets you monitor and control the network performance of other apps.
The Predator Helios 300 doesn't have built-in biometric features such as a fingerprint reader, something that's not uncommon among gaming notebooks. Its 720p webcam, though properly located above the display, has no better or worse image quality than the cams we see on most laptop PCs in this price range. (It would be refreshing to see a high-quality 1080p model one of these days.)
Midrange Components, Top-Shelf Performance
The Predator Helios 300 in this review (model PH315-53-71QX) is the most expensive U.S. configuration. Compared to the $1,199 base model on Amazon (PH315-53-72XD), this one ups the GPU from a 6GB GeForce RTX 2060 to a Max-Q edition of the 8GB GeForce RTX 2070, and bumps the screen refresh rate from 144Hz to 240Hz. Otherwise, the two share Intel’s mainstay six-core, 12-thread Core i7-10750H processor, 16GB of memory, and a 512GB solid-state drive with Windows 10 Home. Acer’s standard warranty is one year.
The competition in this market segment is fierce. Dell's G5 15 went for $1,429 equipped like my Predator when I typed this, but with just a 144Hz screen; Lenovo's Legion 5i was $1,599 with only a 6GB GeForce RTX 2060 and a 144Hz screen; and the Asus ROG Zephyrus M15 (GU502LW) was $1,579 with twice the solid-state storage (1TB) but just single-zone keyboard backlighting and no webcam. Acer's pricing is right where it should be.
But let's revisit the Predator Helios 300 base model. Unless you're depending on greater than 144 frames per second (fps) in esports titles, it's a much better value than my review model. The performance gap between a 6GB GeForce RTX 2060 and an 8GB GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q certainly isn’t worth the $300 extra by itself, and most eyes will have trouble telling the difference between 144Hz and 240Hz. In fact, outside of esports, both GPUs will be spending their time well under 144fps for titles like Death Stranding, so the higher refresh rate could be a moot point.
Now onto the performance testing, where I compared the Predator Helios 300 to the gaming notebooks whose basic specifications are listed below.
The MSI Bravo 15 is the same price as the base Predator Helios 300. Its eight-core, 16-thread Ryzen 7 CPU is a real monster, though it packs just an entry-level GPU. The Dell G5 15 SE pairs the same Ryzen chip with a 6GB Radeon RX 5600M that’s in line with the 6GB GeForce RTX 2060 in the Lenovo Legion 5i. Meanwhile, the Asus ROG Zephyrus M15 goes part for part with the Predator Helios 300. Let's get testing.
Storage, Media, and CPU Tests
The Predator Helios 300 started with a trailing score in PCMark 10, our general system assessment that simulates real-world productivity and content-creation workflows. It's still fast, though, hitting above our internal 4,000-point mark for high-performance PCs. The beefier CPUs in the Dell and MSI units doubtless contributed to their top spots. That aside, the Predator Helios 300's fast storage drive helped it do just fine in PCMark 8.
Next up is a pair of CPU-crunching tests: Cinebench R15 stresses all available processor cores and threads while rendering a complex image, while in our Handbrake test, we transcode a 12-minute 4K video down to 1080p.
The Predator Helios 300's Core i7-10750H scored low in Cinebench R15, where it should have scored at least 1,300 points like the Asus. It was also slightly behind in Handbrake. Either way, the AMD-chipped Dell and MSI units were leagues ahead. Intel's closest comparison to the Ryzen 7 4800H is its Core i7-10875H, found only in much pricier gaming notebooks like the Aorus 15G.
The Predator Helios 300 fortunately redeemed itself in our photo editing test. We use an early 2018 release of Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud to apply 10 complex filters and effects to a standard JPEG image, timing each operation and adding up the totals. This test is not as CPU-focused as Cinebench or Handbrake, bringing the performance of the storage subsystem, memory, and GPU into play.
Graphics Tests
We use two benchmark suites to gauge the gaming performance potential of a PC. In the first, UL's 3DMark, we run two DirectX 11-driven subtests, the mainstream Sky Diver and Fire Strike, which is more suited to gaming rigs. Our other graphics benchmark is Unigine Corp.'s Superposition, which uses a different rendering engine to produce a complex 3D scene.
Now the Predator Helios 300 is coming into its own. It swept the others in both tests, most notably the Asus which uses the same basic 8GB GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q.
This streak continued in our real-world gaming tests. We use the built-in 1080p benchmarks in Far Cry 5 (at its Normal and Ultra presets) and Rise of the Tomb Raider (at its Medium and Very High presets). Far Cry 5 uses DirectX 11, while we flip Rise of the Tomb Raider to DirectX 12.
The Predator Helios 300 dominated, averaging up to 10fps better than the Asus which continued to perform more like the Lenovo and its 6GB GeForce RTX 2060.
Battery Rundown Test
For our last benchmark, we measure a laptop's unplugged runtime while playing a locally stored video with screen brightness at 50 percent and audio volume at 100 percent. We use the notebook's energy-saving rather than balanced or other power profile, turn off Wi-Fi, and even disable keyboard backlighting to squeeze as much life as possible out of the system.
Though the Predator Helios 300 didn't outlast the others, hitting the six-hour mark is an accomplishment for a 15-inch gaming notebook. It's long enough to venture away from the plug without constantly watching your battery percentage. Acer deserves a shout-out for massively improving the battery life from the 3 hours, 19 minutes we measured from the 2019 model.
One-Button Overclocking
Built-in overclocking is a minor selling point for the Predator Helios 300, accomplished simply by pressing the Turbo button above the keyboard or using the Predator app.
The app doesn't tell you how far it pushes the GPU's clocks, but the overclocking makes a difference; my overall 3DMark Fire Strike score increased by about 3 percent from 17,035 to 17,527 points. I'll take that for pressing a button, even if it's not likely to make a noticeable in-game difference.
The side effect of overclocking is slightly increased fan noise. Regardless, I found the fan noise to be tolerable at full tilt, being no louder or quieter than other gaming notebooks in this class. It's audible across a living room, but the volume of sound isn't such that it would intrude on conversations.
Our Flir One Pro showed the Predator’s chassis stayed cool enough where you'd typically place your fingers while gaming, but the center of the keyboard can reach over 120 degrees F. (This was taken after 30 minutes of gaming.) That's too hot to touch for more than a few seconds.
The underside of the laptop also got toasty, though that is less critical since this laptop should always be used on a solid surface, i.e., not your lap, for intense use. (The same would hold true for any gaming laptop.)
The internal component temperatures were well-controlled according to my GPU-Z logs; the Core i7-10750H stayed below 80 degrees C and the 8GB GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q rarely topped 75 degrees C. It's not uncommon to see more than 85 degrees C for the CPU or GPU in a gaming laptop. The Predator's slightly thicker than average chassis no doubt helps its thermal performance.
Upping the Midrange Standard
Acer's 2020 Predator Helios 300 continues to do what this line has always done well, offering an upscale metal chassis and features in the face of mostly plastic competition. This time around it's better than ever, offering a super-smooth 240Hz display and dominating the gaming performance charts for notebooks we've tested in this class.
Other praiseworthy points for this Predator include one-button overclocking and support for three storage drives. It doesn't have class-leading battery life, but the six-hour-plus time we recorded is almost double what the 2019 version produced, and we ended up bestowing that model with an Editors' Choice anyway. Subtler badging for this latest iteration helps it earn our top honors for midrange 15-inch gaming notebooks once again.
The 2020 edition of Acer's Predator Helios 300 is more compelling than ever thanks to its subtler badging and nearly doubled battery life.
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