#Predator Helios 300 Special Edition Gaming Laptop

#BASETECHTAMIL

One of the more interesting laptop designs to come out of the Computex week was from Acer: its new Predator Helios 300 Special Edition was an eclectic mix of white and gold that made it stand out from the swathe of standard black and red looking gaming machines being announced and on the market. We had a recent chance to spend some time with the unit at an Acer UK event.

So to begin, the unit in front of me was a Core i5-8300H model with a 15.6-inch 1920x1080 IPS display with a GTX 1060 inside. The unit looks great, if you like white and gold, and it will be interesting to see how the white stands up to repeated use and cleaning. We were told that the chassis is made from some composite materials (which ones were not disclosed) which should reduce fingerprints and scratches incurred during normal use.

The keyboard is basically a full sized keyboard, using full size arrow keys which is a definite plus. The amount of key travel, compared to say the Huawei Matebook X Pro, was larger which is a plus for my use. It is easy to spot that the WASD keys have a ‘gold’ square on them. This is not a sticker, the keys themselves are colored this way. I feel like the key should be fully colored, rather than just a square (which sometimes looks off center), but I suppose it is easier to add the color after the fact. The key letters are actually cut aways from the keys as well. The function keys to adjust the brightness are in the arrow keys, with some of the F-key row for other functions. There are separate functions for music too. The downside of the keyboard though is the location of the power button – right next to the number pad.

With the Core i5-8300H and the GTX 1060, there’s going to be some heat with gaming, and Acer uses their dual fan system to help remove heat through the grated rear of the laptop. The fans can also reverse direction to help shift dust and blockages, and the way the system does this can be controlled through Acer’s installed applications

On the rear of the system, it looks like the 2.5-inch storage device and DRAM can be adjusted after purchase, due to two screwed down sections. In the device I was looking at, the system was using a 256GB Micron 1100 SSD, which is a mid-range SATA SSD, along with a Western Digital 1TB HDD.

HELIOS 300 SPECIAL EDITION

8^th Gen Intel^® Core™ i7¹ Processor

NVIDIA^® GeForce^® GTX 1060¹ Graphics

Aggressively Designed Metal Form Factor²

Dual AeroBlade™ 3D¹ Fans