Acer Predator Helios 300 (2022) Review

We gave Acer's Predator Helios 300 gaming laptop four stars and an Editors' Choice award in 2020 and again in 2021, but the third time isn't a charm. The Helios 300 is available in a wide array of 15.6-inch and 17.3-inch configurations starting at $1,199.99; this year's test unit is the least-expensive we've tried at $1,299.99, with a 15.6-inch, 144Hz screen rather than the previous 240Hz refresh rate. It more or less matches the excellent MSI Katana GF66, but has a smaller solid-state drive and costs $100 more.

A Family Resemblance 

Even more than the MSI, the Predator Helios 300 tested here (model PH315-54-760S) reminds us of the $1,100 Acer Nitro 5 we just reviewed. The Helios is priced slightly higher mainly because it has a 6GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 GPU versus a 4GB RTX 3050 Ti, and a multi-zone RGB keyboard versus a plain red backlit board. 

(Photo: Molly Flores)

But the two Acers share Intel's eight-core, 2.3GHz Core i7-11800H processor, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and a 144Hz, 1,920-by-1,080-pixel display. They even have the same ports in the same places, though the Predator adds a mini DisplayPort and its USB-C port supports Thunderbolt 4. 

Our Experts Have Tested 132 Products in the Laptops Category in the Past Year

Since 1982, PCMag has tested and rated thousands of products to help you make better buying decisions. (See how we test.)

For $1,199.99, the lowest-priced Helios 300 offers a six-core Core i7 CPU and Nvidia's previous-generation RTX 2060. The top of the line is $2,299.99 with a GeForce RTX 3080, 240Hz screen, 32GB of memory, and a 1TB SSD.

Handsome in black aluminum with a stylized, illuminated Predator logo on the lid, the Acer is advertised as weighing 5.5 pounds, but my scale pegged it at the same 4.8 pounds as the Nitro 5, whose size it matches exactly at 0.9 by 14.3 by 10 inches (HWD).  

(Photo: Molly Flores)

Fairly thick bezels surround the screen, which like the keyboard shows some flex under pressure. With neither a fingerprint reader nor a face recognition webcam, you'll have to type passwords instead of logging in with Windows Hello. The laptop's left side holds two USB 3.2 Type-A ports, Ethernet and audio jacks, and a security lock slot.

(Photo: Molly Flores)

A third USB-A port joins the Thunderbolt 4, mini DisplayPort, and HDMI ports on the right; the AC adapter plugs in at the rear.

(Photo: Molly Flores)

An RGB Light Show 

A special key launches the PredatorSense utility, which monitors system temperatures, offers multicolor animated patterns for the backlit keyboard, and lets you toggle settings such as the keyboard lighting timeout and a clashing startup sound. It also lets you choose among Quiet, Default, Extreme, and Turbo performance modes, the last two advertising CPU and GPU overclocking and Turbo increasing cooling fan noise to a deafening roar. We used Extreme for our benchmark tests, though we did try a few with Turbo and saw a 2% or 3% improvement in some tests (but no improvement in our game tests, which already maxed out the fans). 

(Photo: Molly Flores)

The keyboard features dedicated Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys as well as a numeric keypad, though they and other top-row keys like Escape and Delete are puny. It has a soft, shallow typing feel that isn't particularly responsive. A chrome-trimmed, buttonless touchpad glides and taps smoothly, though it's difficult to click except at the very bottom. 

The webcam has the usual blurry 720p resolution and no privacy shutter; it captures fairly colorful and well-lit images with noticeable noise or static. A speaker grille above the keyboard produces relatively soft, somewhat hollow sound. Bass is nonexistent, but you can make out overlapping tracks. DTS:X Ultra software offers an equalizer and presets for music, movies, voice, and gaming genres such as RPG and shooter.

Other preinstalled utilities range from PhotoDirector and PowerDirector to Dropbox, ExpressVPN, and Planet9 (Acer's gaming community) promos. Our test unit has Windows 10 Home, though Acer is now selling the system with Windows 11. 

(Photo: Molly Flores)

While the Nitro 5's 1080p screen was obviously bought in the bargain aisle, the Predator's is more impressive, with ample brightness and rich, well-saturated colors. Contrast is high and fine details are crisp; viewing angles are broad. White backgrounds are white instead of grayish.

Performance Testing: A Five-Way Core i7-11800H Gaming Melee 

For our benchmark charts, we compared the Predator to four other gaming laptops. We've already mentioned the Acer Nitro 5 and MSI Katana GF66, and the HP Victus 16 is in the same price ballpark. The XPG Xenia 15 KC has the same CPU as the others, but its GeForce RTX 3070, 1440p screen, and extra RAM and storage make it more costly. You can see their basic specs in the table below.

Productivity Tests 

The main benchmark of UL's PCMark 10 simulates a variety of real-world productivity and content-creation workflows to measure overall performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheeting, web browsing, and videoconferencing. We also run PCMark 10's Full System Drive test to assess the load time and throughput of a laptop's storage.

Three benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Primate Labs' Geekbench 5.4 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better). 

Our final productivity test is Puget Systems' PugetBench for Photoshop, which uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe's famous image editor to rate a PC's performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It's an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.

The Helios 300's results ranged from middle-of-the-pack to the front rank, winning a couple of our CPU tests. All five laptops were well over the 4,000-point threshold in PCMark 10 that indicates excellent productivity for the likes of Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. While not quite qualifying as a content-creation workstation, the Predator would be fine for occasional multimedia tasks. 

Graphics and Gaming Tests 

We test Windows PCs' graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark, Night Raid (more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). 

We also run two tests from the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which stresses both low-level routines like texturing and high-level, game-like image rendering. The 1440p Aztec Ruins and 1080p Car Chase tests, rendered offscreen to accommodate different display resolutions, exercise graphics and compute shaders using the OpenGL programming interface and hardware tessellation respectively. The more frames per second (fps), the better. 

Our next three tests involve real games—specifically, the built-in 1080p benchmarks from an AAA title (Assassin's Creed Valhalla), a fast-paced esports shooter (Rainbow Six Siege), and a sports racing sim (F1 2021). We run each benchmark twice, using different image quality presets for Valhalla and Rainbow and trying F1 with and without Nvidia's DLSS anti-aliasing technology.

The Predator's GeForce RTX 3070 is the strongest GPU here. While the XPG Xenia led in some benchmarks, it didn't dazzle us in real-world gaming—the three RTX 3060 laptops did very well, with the Predator winning the less demanding 3DMark Night Raid subtest and slugging it out with the HP Victus in the other events. The more economical Nitro 5 predictably brought up the rear. 

Battery and Display Tests 

We test laptops' battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off (and used the Predator's Default rather than Extreme power mode). 

We also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and software to measure a laptop screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).

The Helios 300's battery life is decent if unremarkable, but it has one of the top two or three screens, delivering good color range and the highest brightness of the group.

A Perennial Contender Doesn't Dominate This Time 

This year's edition of the Acer Predator Helios 300 delivers solid gaming performance and value, but doesn't quite show the sizzle we expect from an Editors' Choice gaming laptop.

(Photo: Molly Flores)

As we said, the MSI Katana GF66 looks awfully good with a larger solid-state drive for $100 less, but its price may be slightly higher outside Micro Center (the source of our test unit) and the Acer has a better display. That makes it a toss-up; competition among $1,100 to $1,300 gaming laptops is so intense you really want to look for new entries or discounts on a week-to-week basis.