acer Predator Helios 18 Gaming Laptop - 18" 2.5K 240Hz 500 nits Display, Intel i9-14900HX, GeForce RTX 4080, 32GB DDR5, 1TB SSD, Microsoft Office Lifetime, Windows 11 Pro, RGB Backlit KB, WiFi 7

This laptop is a fantastic budget gaming laptop. The SSD boots right up very quick load times, the GTX card is very capable for almost all gaming needs. I have been playing COD Warzone and it runs extremely smooth, the fans do get loud and after a while they REALLY start pushing hot air out the side to where you can feel it on your mouse hand if youre close enough, I think this is a good indicator of how well its cooling. The one issue that lots of reviewers mentioned and its very true, is that the battery life is abysmal, I can play COD for about an hour unplugged, even just sitting there on the homescreen it will only last maybe 3 hours. i get it with all these powerful features it does use a lot of power, but if you think youll have enough battery for a 4 hour flight this isnt it. BUT with how incredibly well it runs my games, i can forgive it i still give it 5 stars even with the terrible battery life because this is clearly a gaming laptop and it doesnt pretend to be anything else. The custom LED lighting for the keyboard is pretty slick, you can give it different light profiles for different games. The monitor is really impressive for a laptop, even high movement gaming looks fantastic with no perceptible lag. The wireless card is very fast i get about 85-90% wired speeds even with a few walls between the router. Overall im very impressed and I absolutely recommend this laptop for anyone looking for a great gaming rig. Also, its upgradable, it comes with a hard drive expansion kit, and everything can be taken out and upgraded for future proofing.

GAMING: Witcher 3 - I can comfortably (with turbo mode ON, otherwise GPU hit 90+ C) play on maximum/high settings, with the GPU (and CPU) being well within acceptable range. Very smooth game play (At least 60fps, although I don't know how to get an FPS counter in it [Steam FPS counter doesn't work in it]). OW/BL2/Other FPS - No turbo mode required, maximum settings, easily hits 144fps. TV/YOUTUBE/MUSIC: Screen is great, obviously. Sound is fine. WORK/SCHOOL: It is quite on idle, but a bit of noise with multiple tabs/Word docs. open - but with a professor talking or other students typing, was never a concern. But sometimes I did feel a bit obnoxious in the library. But only a bit. With earbuds in, can't hear any laptop fan noises (with turbo on, ofc, it's a different story). BUILD QUALITY AND KEYBOARD: I can hold and handle the laptop anyways I want - it's that solid. Feels premium to me. It does, as shown in Jarrod's video, get your grubby finger prints all over it, and plus the kind of gamery (still low key) logo on the front + the big vents, PLUS the bit of fan noise, it may not be for you if you're doing office work in a very quite environment, around other people. The KEYBOARD is fantastic! It is sturdy, with zero noticeable flex. I do a lot of typing, and coming from the great Mac keyboard, this keyboard is still GREAT. Dedicated turbo key is nice, when I use it (looking at you, Witcher 3). Keyboard/laptop does have some sharp edges and very infrequently do need to shift my wrists (but again, it's really not a problem). Trackpad is, like the videos show, sufficient, but not very good. BATTERY: I only game with it plugged in, and have not had any problems yet. When I take it with me to class, I get it to like 50% ish after a 2hr class, with multiple tabs (whatsapp, amazon, gmail, and of course word docs) open. To be very safe, I would say three hours of use without battery, but even that is probably on the lower end. CAMERA: It's fine, lol. Nothing special. Gets Zoom done fine. OVERALL: Great laptop for both gaming and work. Easily hits 144fps, great laptop (no flex), sturdy build, decent charge. But, like every gaming laptop, can be rather loud, has a bad trackpad, beefy charger, slightly gamery look. A lot of good competition out there now (Razorblade 15, new HP Omen 15, Lenovo Legion, etc), but the keyboard on the Helios 300 is the best, so it seems to me. Also, it has the most reviews so is the most reliable at the moment. Very satisfied with my purchase. You will be too.

EDIT 2/14/23: Still going strong today. I wonder if anyone is still looking at reviews for this? Regardless, I think I would happily buy a Helios again based on my experience with this one. EDIT 9/4/2021: Wanted to say that this is still going strong a year later. For the price, it was (still is) definitely an unbeatable computer. The newer Helios models have RTX instead of GTX like this one but this computer is more than enough for me. EDIT 6/9/2020: Little late on the update! The second machine I received has been fine. It can render videos quickly and has better battery life than I expected. EDIT 4/3/2020: I received the replacement and at least got through the setup with no problem. I’ll update this again in a month as my final statement on this product. If it has any issues at all, it’ll be getting returned and I’ll never buy Acer again. I can say that the screen is beautiful, the sound is great, and the keys have a lovely soft type to them. The real test will be in how it works though so I will be putting it through the real test this month with intensive video editing and gaming. Check back for an update! I got this, plugged it in to charge a while, then sat down to set it up. No problems as I went through the Windows 10 setup until... The screen went black. The port where the power source was plugged in wasn’t lighting up. Just a total brick. Completely puzzled! I wrote in to Amazon CS and a replacement is already on the way and I’ll be returning this one. I really hope this was just one stroke of bad luck because for the few moments I got to see the screen and type on the keyboard, it was a lovely experience. REALLY hoping for better luck with the replacement. It’s due to arrive Saturday. Predator came so highly recommended that I’m willing to give the replacement a chance because I was thrilled with the look but i can’t really use a paperweight that’s quite that expensive.

The value of this laptop can't be understated. There are no real weaknesses here. The only notable problems people may have with it are the fan noise while gaming and the lack of "silent" fan operation when not gaming. You won't notice the idle whirl of fans unless you are in a completely silent room with no music or headphones in play. Besides that, the gaming performance is top-notch. Handles all games on high with zero problems at 60+fps. The notoriously poorly-optimized Cyberpunk ran at medium-high for me with 60-70fps. Solid. The trackpad is good, well-positioned. The keyboard has good travel and is fairly quiet. I bought this primarily for the keyboard and screen, which most laptops are bottom-tier these days on both fronts. The numberpad is nice, I wish there was a way to fit the 0 key two-wide, but that's not important, just typist quirks. The screen is plenty bright for any indoor situation, does fine outside under indirect sun, thanks to the lack of glossy coating. The 144hz is nice for older games or some buttery-smooth indy sidescrollers. The weight of this laptop is obvious, but not unbearable. I like the fact that this laptop doesn't feel cheap. The plastic shell on the bottom is hard and strong. If I dropped this thing like a complete fool, I think it would survive 2-3 feet without a break--maybe a chip or dent. Overall, for me, this laptop is unbeatable in this price range. With the reviews of higher-end laptops, it sounds like you'd be wasting money for 5-10fps difference if you look at. Remember, there's only so much you can do within the power limits of a laptop.

This was purshased for gaming & other heavy cpu/gpu usage (video editing) There's been multiple AAA titles run, Grand Theft, Need for Speed, tons of emulators, etc.. ALL have been conquered without ANY issues or slowdown what so ever! The specs speak for themselves, but in the real world there isn't anything that this machine can't conquer for it's price range. The screen refresh rate 144hz spits at 4k. Wifi is at the ridiculous level. Got a cooling pad to help it stay cool, not really necessarily as the fans are a kin to a airplane turbine. Literally the best bang for your buck as far as performance. Now, the bad which isn't that bad, but being a 1000+ dollar laptop one would expect an extremely well made product; however, there is a fair bit of back light screen bleed as other have mentioned. Now after researching this heavily, it appears as the bezel is too tight. Additionally, the model that has RGB keyboard doesn't have a backlit mousepad (mousepad ring) or turbo button as suggested. Definitely not deal breakers but it is a bit misleading. Battery life is really not great, but what is one to expect with a high performing machine? You'll get about 4 hours doing regular internet browsing. Heavy usgae will deplete the battery in about 1.5 hours. Wish 4.8 stars was an option because it is a gem, but not absolutely perfect. Overall certainly worth the money.

This is a great laptop, I first ordered an ASUS Tuf and returned it due to it not starting up. After further research, I decided to spend the extra few hundred dollars on this laptop. Out of the box, downloaded games such as Call of Duty, Fortnite, Overwatch and Rainbow Six Siege and all work excellent. I bought a hard wire for the internet thinking I would need it to prevent lag for gaming, but have not once needed to connect the cable and the cable is still in its box....................ONE THING: I do want to point out is that this laptop will get HOT fast for gaming. It does have the turbo fan, which is much needed, and the turbo helps cool down the laptop, but the turbo feature is loud. I just recently ordered a fan pad and still waiting for that to come in. The only suggestion is if you order this laptop (GREAT LAPTOP AND FAST) I would suggest ordering a cooling pad also. This way you can have it cooled down maybe more quietly without having to run the Turbo fan on the laptop. I have no regrets ordering this laptop. VERY, VERY PLEASED with its performance and would recommend to anyone looking to game. I bought the 512Gb for the extra space. I hope this laptop lasts me a while cause it is AWESOME!!!

This has been a really great laptop, no issues with it, it runs top tier games at full graphics quality without a hitch and with other programs running in the background. The one tiny problem I did have was with the printing wearing away on a single key on the keyboard, and I contacted Acer support and asked them to send me a new keyboard and they did! Also in case you've had horror experiences with the battery replacement process on other gaming laptops, I checked before I bought this one and the battery is really easy to replace. The keyboard is designed in a way that I think will keep small particles from getting stuck under them, and the keys are easy to replace if you have the same problem I did with the printing wearing off. It's also really nice to have a keyboard with a full numpad on a laptop.

Overall, I'm super pleased with this laptop, and I am also really glad I went with the model that has the 16GB DDR4 RAM and the 512GB SSD storage space. The screen has great resolution, basically anything I've done on it is super fast, and for the price point, you're getting a lot of laptop. I'd heard that there were newer models of gaming laptops coming out later in Spring/Summer 2020, but with everything going on, I didn't want to wait, and I'm glad I found the Helios 300. Be wary of which version you are getting though, make sure you've done your research and you've grabbed the laptop with the specs you're wanting, otherwise you're going to have to upgrade this down the line. A solid plus to this computer is how up-gradable it is. There is an extra bay for a full sized SSD drive, so I certainly plan to get at least a 1TB drive to put in it. However, this does sacrifice the battery, and it certainly shows. This thing does not have much battery, and if you're using the neat RGB function on the keyboard, running the fans, and playing a game, the laptop is going to drain really fast. This isn't a major problem for me though, as I usually play plugged in, I just need the flexibility of moving around the house that a laptop can give over a desktop. One last thing, the 'turbo' fans on this thing are very, very loud. Not something I'd have on in the general living area of our house, but it does seem to keep the components cool!