Acer Predator Helios 300 Gaming Laptop, Intel i7-10750H, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 6GB, 15.6" Full HD 144Hz 3ms IPS Display, 16GB Dual-Channel DDR4, 512GB NVMe SSD, Wi-Fi 6, RGB Keyboard, PH315-53-72XD

In a nutshell, this laptop is absolutely fantastic, and is the considerable upgrade from my old gaming laptop - an MSI model - that I expected it to be.Let's start with the display. The screen is a standard, 15.6", 1920 x 1080 screen, with a 144 Hz panel (with a 3 ms response time). My previous MSI laptop had a 120 Hz panel, so I, personally, don't see TOO much of a difference in terms of smoothness and rendering, but I'm sure anyone coming from a more common 60 Hz refresh rate will be blown away. The screen is not overwhelmingly bright (like my MSI laptop was, and I actually had to go into its Dragon Center to lower the overall brightness, in addition to the more accessible brightness just to not be blinded), which is a good thing, but it's definitely more than bright enough for the job - I even feel the need to lower the brightness on occasion. (Like with my old laptop, this can be done using the Fn key and the left/right arrow keys.) The bezel is also very thin, accommodating the screen nicely.Moving on, the CPU is as advertised: a 10th-gen Intel Core i7-10750H processor, clocked at 2.60 GHz (when idle). I have had no problems with the CPU's performance thus far, and though it bears the same number of cores as my previous i7-8750H (both have six cores), I feel the performance (especially paired with the graphics card) is more than noticeable.The GPU is an RTX 2060, which features NVIDIA's new Turing architecture, and 6 GB of their next-generation GDDR6 memory (as opposed to the GTX 1060's GDDR5 memory). Though, yes, it runs hot when running heavier games that I enjoy, it has yet to overheat, and while the fans can be noisy when running hot, it's not overly loud, I'd say. Additionally, it comes with a Turbo button, which the manual says it is good for "instant overclocking." To be perfectly honest, I have to use the Turbo button, because I don't overclock my hardware for fear of breaking it, but that's just me; don't let my paranoid butt stop you from overclocking if you'd like.The Predator also comes with two 8-gig sticks of DDR4 RAM, running at a frequency of 2933 MHz, for a total of 16 gigs of DDR4. My old laptop also had 16 gigs of DDR4, but this RAM is actually a little faster (to my knowledge), so kudos!The laptop comes with a 512-gig NVMe M.2 drive, which I believe is the fastest type of SSD currently on the market. Unlike other SATA SSDs, NVMe M.2 drives connect directly to the motherboard, rather than through cables. This is where your OS and all of your files and games will be stored. It is lightning-fast, especially compared to my old laptop, whose OS was stored on the SSD; games and such were stored on the terabyte HDD. The only downside to this upgrade (for me personally) was losing that terabyte HDD, but the packaging comes with some equipment for installing a hard drive yourself should you want to another time. The laptop's touchpad area even boasts two slots for SSDs and a slot for an HDD - I have yet to open up my laptop, so I cannot prove nor disprove this.Speaking of the touchpad, I pretty much completely abandoned using touchpads years ago, and instead use external mice, so I have almost no opinion of it. But I will say this: it's quite soft, yet sturdy, so someone who's inclined to use a touchpad will probably have a pretty good time with it; I'm simply not one of those people.The Predator also comes with a unique PredatorSense Utility App, which I guess is like Acer's answer to MSI's Dragon Center. I haven't used the PredatorSense a whole lot, but it is useful for system temperature and cooling monitoring, changing the keyboard's RGB coloration, overclocking, and more.Speaking of the keyboard, I would say it's great, but not perfect. I'm not sure if it's me, but I've noticed a lot more "dropped" characters when I type on this keyboard (even while typing out this review!) than I did with my MSI's keyboard. I am aware I have a very soft touch, so again, it could be me (I also tend to type fast), but I feel like maybe the actuation doesn't respond quite as easily as my old laptop's keyboard did. Overall, though, I like it - it feels good to type with, the keys are nice and big, and BIG kudos to Acer for making the best out of a (relatively) bad situation with the keyboard: while the Pg Up, Pg Dn, and End keys are not dedicated (though the Home key is?), as they share functions, they are the priority when using these keys. What I mean is, the Pg Up key, for example, has a play/pause function, but it's only accessible via the Fn key (like how you can use the arrow keys to adjust the screen's brightness or volume on the fly), so simply pressing Pg Up activates the "Pg Up" function, not the play/pause function. My MSI keyboard, for whatever reason, did not do this, so playing certain games which utilize the Pg Up/Pg Dn/Home/End keys was an absolute pain. The Power Button is also a key, interestingly enough, and I feared accidentally shutting my computer down (or putting it to sleep) while using the numpad, but that has yet to happen.Finally, the Predator has other common "gaming laptop" features that I would come to expect in the year 2021, such as an HDMI port, three USB ports, an audio jack, an Ethernet port, a mini DisplayPort, and a USB-C port. It does not have a disc drive, which I have no issues with, as I haven't used an actual disc for anything in ages, but it also doesn't have an SD card reader, but that's a minor thing, as I used the SD card reader on my old laptop maybe twice. And frankly, I'd rather have the additional cooling.All in all, the Acer Predator Helios 300 is a fantastic gaming laptop choice!

This laptop is amazing. I was skeptical spending so much on a laptop but I am so glad that I did. Its fast and snappy. The bloatware is super minimal. Usually first thing I do when I get a new laptop is uninstall and reinstall windows to get rid of all the extra crap they throw in but I didnt feel that need on this laptop. The extra programs are actually all pretty useful.The keyboard has a really nice feel to it and the track pad has all the gestures you would expect. I pinched zoom while typing this review to make it easier to see at a distance. The screen quality overall is FANTASTIC. IPS monitors are simply the best. No TN monitor in the world can compare.Performance is great and overall temps stay down fairly well (see cons for more info). It got great performance on World of Warcraft and I actually felt like I could raid without being hindered by laptop performance since I usually play on my desktop.It was able to run Cyberpunk on mid/high settings at around 40 FPS with ray tracing. Which is a lot for cyberpunk. 3090's were only pulling like 76 fps and my 2070 Super was able to get about 55fps with slightly higher settings and ray tracing. So 40 for a laptop with a 2060 is more than decent. Cyberpunk is probably a bad game to compare though really but I havent played very many AAA games on it honestly. I mostly got it for Warcraft and whatever else I felt like installing from steam. So far I have not ran into any real limitations from anything.The RGB keyboard really stands out and is very nice. I have got several compliments on the keyboard alone from people who dont game or have laptops like this.The Top lid feels just solid enough. you can easily open the lid without holding down the bottom portion of the laptop.Pros:-Fantastic Screen-Great performance-Track pad feels amazing-100% silent when not gaming-Useful built in applications-Customizable Bios Splash screen that supports GIF's-Dedicated Predator button to open the Predator sense app-Light up Logo on the back-Free Predator logo soft zip case protector-Very good speakers and can easily push more volume than you will need-Very low light bleed through on the bottom of the monitor. Can only see it during completely black screens and its barely there.-Charger is designed to swivel on the back middle of the base of the laptop. Makes the charger feel very secure due to it being an L shaped connection but also makes you feel secure that you are not going to break the port moving it around. It also has a nice "snap" when you plug it in that lets you know its fully seated correctly. (Doesnt require you to press anything to release it)CONS-High temps the first week. I ordered new paste thinking I was going to need to put some custom paste on but before I even got it the temps seemed to even themselves out. Runs average 85c under load with a high of 91c and a resting temp between 48c and 62c-Fairly Loud while gaming high end games-No compartment openings on the bottom for easy ram and storage upgrades (can still be upgraded)-Could have used 1 more USB port. It had 3 USB ports plus 1 USB-C port.-No SD card slot. (I get it.. its a gaming PC but still. I would have liked it)-Arrow keys take up a portion of the right shift buttons normal length. I believe this was done to save space but the shorter shift button means for the first couple of weeks I was hitting the Up Arrow instead of the shift. I got used to it though and I mostly use the left shift more than the right and that shift feels fine.If you have any feelings like you think you may like this laptop.. Just get it. I have got 2 friends to get the same laptop already and they both love it. Neither have had any issues with it either. I also have not had a single crash or blue screen or the slightest hiccup in performance on anything. This is ACER engineering at its finest.