We have reviewed laptop’s from the Acer Predator series and pretty much all of them were excellent laptops. This is one of the few series in the market that delivers laptops that give you excellent gaming per dollar value. In this Acer Predator Helios 300 PH315-53-72XD review, we are going to take a look at a new gaming laptop from the same lineup.
This new gaming laptop comes with an affordable price for a gaming laptop. With a price tag of under $1200, this gaming laptop and compete with the likes of $2000 laptops.
The laptop comes with impressive hardware and can easily be called as a solid gaming machine. With mid-range and even some heavy gamers in mind, can this laptop bring excellent value to your hard-earned money? Let’s find that out on the full review below.
[amalinkspro type=”showcase” asin=”B08842D7JS” apilink=”https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08842D7JS?tag=laptopundernet-20&linkCode=osi&th=1&psc=1″ new-window=”true” addtocart=”false” nofollow=”true” sc-id=”4″ imgs=”LargeImage” link-imgs=”false” specs=”10th Generation Intel Core i7-10750H 6-Core Processor (Up to 5.0 GHz) with Windows 10 Home 64 Bit~~~Overclockable NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 with 6 GB of dedicated GDDR6 VRAM~~~15.6 Full HD (1920 x 1080) Widescreen LED-backlit IPS display (144Hz Refresh Rate, 3ms Overdrive Response Time, 300nit Brightness & 72% NTSC)~~~16 GB DDR4 2933MHz Dual-Channel Memory, 512GB NVMe SSD (2 x M.2 slots; 1 slot open for easy upgrades) & 1 – Available Hard Drive Bay~~~4-Zone RGB Backlit Keyboard | Wireless: Killer Double Shot Pro Wireless-AX 1650i 802. 11ax Wi-Fi 6; LAN: Killer Ethernet E2600 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN; DTS X: Ultra-Audio; 4th Gen All-Metal AeroBlade 3D Fan~~~Connectivity technology: Bluetooth~~~” btn-color=”#ff9900″ btn-text=”Buy on Amazon” alignment=”aligncenter” hide-prime=”0″ hide-image=”0″ hide-reviews=”0″ hide-price=”1″ hide-button=”0″ width=”750″]Acer Predator Helios 300 Gaming Laptop[/amalinkspro]
Content Overview
Design
The design of this Acer Predator Helios 300 PH315-53-72XD gaming laptop is very pleasing to the eyes. The laptop comes with black and blue accents that are quite refreshing to those who are used to the black and red color scheme. Play the lead comes with a nice logo that glows and also has a couple of LED strips that glow in blue. These blue accents can be found in the winds on the backside as well.
Though the laptop is made from plastic, the finish of the laptop is such that you will end up thinking it is a metal laptop. The brushed plastic finish gives it a nice premium look and matches the overall design language of the laptop.
The cooling system in this laptop has excellent, thanks to the 4th gen Aeroblade 3D fan. These fans are excellent in eliminating hot air and help in maintaining the temperature of the laptop below a certain level. With a cooling system like this, you can have a maximum sustained performance from the laptop when running a gaming marathon.
The laptop comes with the dimensions of 14.31 x 10.04 x 0.9 inches. For a gaming laptop, a weight of 5.07lbs isn’t huge. In fact, this is one of the lightest gaming laptops you can find in the 15.6″ giving category. If you are someone who travels a lot, then using this laptop as a mobile gaming solution is definitely not a bad idea.
The keyboard on this Acer Predator Helios 300 PH315-53-72XD gaming laptop is one of the best. The first impression of the keyboard is very nice and once you start using it you can’t help but fall in love with the keyboard. It is very comfortable to use and has all the right ergonomics to it.
The construction of the keyboard deserves a special mention. The keys are not cheap plastic but have a nice matte finish that helps you to hold onto the keys when typing. The design of the keyboard is excellent and you will not lose speed or accuracy even if you’re just starting on this keyboard.
The arrow keys are the regular sized ones and not small like you would find in so many laptops. The numeric pad on the right should also come in handy for those who work with numbers a lot. The WASD zone and arrow keys come with an extra glow so that you will know them even from a peripheral view.
The keyboard comes with four RGB zones that can be customized according to your style. One of the best things about this gaming laptop is that it goes above and beyond to give you customization options so that you can make a very unique gaming laptop with their proven gaming base.
The touchpad on this laptop is located very much to the left. We do not have any buttons on the touchpad and it is just a single slab of glass. For a gaming laptop, this touchpad might not be the right accomplice you’re looking for. When it comes to dealing with ornery everyday activities, this touchpad does a pretty good job. However, for gaming, you should get a dedicated gaming mouse for the best experience.
Display And Audio
The display on the Acer Predator Helios 300 PH315-53-72XD gaming laptop is a 15.6″ one that comes with full HD resolution. This display comes with a lot of features that are geared towards giving us. The display has a 144Hz refresh rate and a 3ms response time that are great for reducing the motion blur and ghosting effects during gaming.
When it comes to picture quality, this display does a fantastic job. The accuracy of colors is on point, thanks to the IPS panel underneath. The giving angles are also fantastic making this display an amazing one for both gaming as well as media consumption. You can also find some solace when it comes to photo editing and other color-sensitive works.
About the display, you have a 720p WebCam. This WebCam is a decent quality one and is just about right when it comes to making video calls. If you are in a brightly lit room, then the quality of video calls is pretty good. But when darkness sets in, the WebCam can get really bad very quickly.
The speakers on this laptop are average. The laptop can get pretty loud but at the highest volume, there is a bit of distortion which is undesirable. If you are serious about sound quality, then getting a pair of gaming headphones is recommended. When watching movies and other online content, you might find the sound to be okay but we cannot recommend the same when it comes to gaming.
Performance
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The processor that powers this Acer Predator Helios 300 PH315-53-72XD laptop is an Intel Core i7 10750H processor. This is a high end, a high-performance processor from the 10th generation of Intel chips. The processor comes with a base clock frequency of 2.6GHz and a maximum clock frequency of 5GHz. The processor comes with six physical cores and 12 threads and gets a CPU mark benchmark score of 12745 that confirms its high-performance status.
This processor is a huge improvement over the chip in the previous generation of the Acer Predator line-up. This Intel processor allows you to do a lot more on this laptop apart from gaming. You can run even heavy applications that need a lot of processing power without any hiccups.
Storage
The memory department on this Acer Predator Helios 300 PH315-53-72XD gaming laptop comes flush with 16 GB of dual-channel DDR4 memory. This memory is more than enough for most gamers and should help you multitask the hell out of this laptop. Running several applications side-by-side will never cause an issue and you can also use your browser with tons of tabs open.
The storage on this device is made up of 512 GB solid-state drive. This is quite fast when it comes to reading and writing speeds and also delivers excellent performance in launching games as well as other applications. The SSD also loads the operating system in record time which helps us in saving a few seconds every time you start your laptop.
Graphics Performance
The Acer Predator Helios 300 PH315-53-72XD gaming laptop comes with an Nvidia GeForce RTX2060 graphics card. This is an apartment range graphics card that is meant for gaming laptops that out affordable. This graphics card is based on the Turing architecture and comes with support for deep learning super sampling (DLSS) and real-time ray tracing (RTRT). The graphics card comes with 6 GB of dedicated video RAM which should be more than enough for most gamers looking for a budget device.
The graphics card does well when it comes to running most modern games. You will be able to run all of them in high settings without any issues. However, shifting the settings to ultra can bring down the performance.
For example, playing Horizon Zero Dawn in high settings gives your frame rate of 75 FPS. Playing the same game in ultra settings in full HD can you bring down the frame rate to about 45 FPS. Let’s take another game. Playing F1 in high settings gives us a frame rate of 130 FPS while playing the same game in ultra settings can you give us only 96 FPS. This pattern is consistent and you can observe this over several games.
Battery Life And Connectivity
This gaming laptop is not known for its battery life. Having said that, you will be able to get around 6 to 7 hours of battery life with simple tasks like web browsing, reading, media consumption, and other everyday stuff. When you start gaming, you cannot expect more than two hours of battery backup with this laptop so make sure you’re plugged in before you start your next gaming marathon.
The connectivity department on this laptop comes with a lot of options. You get one USB Type-C port that gives you data transfer speeds up to 10Gbps and also supports charging. You get one USB 3.2 type a port that helps with data transfer and also supports power-off charging. There are also 2USB 3.2 Type-A ports that are good for data transfer.
The laptop also comes with an HDMI 2.0 port that has support for HDCP. You also get a mini display port that serves its purpose. In addition to these essential ports, then I’m top also comes with Wi-Fi 6 built-in and also Bluetooth 5.0. Both these wireless standards are fantastic for everyday use and are much better compared to their predecessors.
Acer Predator Helios 300 PH315-53-72XD Review – Wrap Up
The Acer Predator Helios 300 PH315-53-72XD gaming laptop is an excellent device for the price. When you consider all the budget gaming laptops on the market, this is one of the most powerful ones you can get your hands on. There are places where Acer made some compromises but the overall performance of the laptop definitely overlaps it.
Features like 144Hz refresh rate, 3ms response time, and RTX 2060 graphics card, and an hexa core Intel processor makes this laptop a very good one not only for gaming but also for everyday use. If you are on the lookout for a budget gaming laptop that makes the least compromises and delivers a reliable gaming performance, then this one is it.