Acer Predator Helios 700 review: You can’t call it a gimmick if it works - peltzvarty1986

Acer's burly Predator Helios 700 doesn't care what you think it looks like. There's no undertake to hide girth with sculpted cuts operating theatre optical illusions—the laptop equivalent of suck in your gut for a film. Nope, the Predator Helios 700 makes no apologies for styling ostensibly profiled on either either a Mackintosh truck or a cinderblock.

What IT does is deliver exactly what you'd expect of Intel's newest 9th gen 8-core, Substance i9-9980HK Central processing unit and a brimming-tilt Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080. And information technology has a special feature you might promise a gimmick, except it actually works.

Vulture Helios 700 glasses and features

The Predator Helios 700 is a No-holds-fast gaming laptop, as you dismiss run into from this substantial list of specs:

CPU: Intel 9th gen 8-core Core i9-9980HK

RAM: 32GB DDR4

GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080

Storage: 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD

Display: 17.3-inch IPS 144Hz

Networking: Killer E3000 2.5GbE, Killer WI-Fi 6 Axe 1650

Battery: 70 James Watt-hour

Ports: HDMI, DisplayPort, three USB 3.1 Gen 2 USB-A, two USB 3.1 Gen 2 USB-C (Thunderbolt 3), parallel 3.5mm mic-in, 3.5mm analog headset out, Kensington interlock

acer predator helios 700 11 — Besides liberal ports on both sides, we like that you plug your power and external monitors into the back of the Predator Helios 700.

Upgrade options

Laptop upgrade options on the Predator Helios 700 are quite estimable. Murder the consumer-friendly Phillips-head screws on the bottom of the Predator Helios 700 and slip up the doorway off, and you can access ii open SO-DIMM slots, besides A the deuce M.2 slots, which are covered with a beefy copper heat sink.

If you're wondering why the RAM slots are empty, it's because thither's a total of four slots along the machine. We assume the other two are inaccessible on the separate side of the motherboard. That's not a bad thing. If you really did pauperization more than RAM (we assume Acer does the same for its 16GB configurations), you could growth it without having to throw out two modules, as you'd need to on a laptop with only two slots.

Although we didn't strip out the battery in the impression on a lower floor, there is actually a 2.5-inch force colored shoehorned underneath it. Acer also thoughtfully includes the cable's length, screws, and frame to install a drive.

acer predator helios 700 20 — The Predator Helios 70 is fairly upgrade-friendly with two open store slots, two M.2 slots, and a 2.5-inch drive bay hidden under the battery.

Unfortunately, despite its 1950s comic-book-detective chin and its top-shelf parts, the only thing you'll probably focus connected is "the gimmick" of its sliding HyperDrift keyboard.

acer predator helios 700 9 — The Predator Helios 700 looks like any other standard issue 10.5-pound gaming laptop titled on a block of Wood when the keyboard is closed.

Yes, the HyperDrift keyboard slides forward, turning the keyboard bedeck into a fairly comfortable palm rest. If you'Ra a real hater of gimmicks, brace yourself: The sliding action is accompanied aside sound effects seemingly lifted from the Transformers, and a message that tells you automobile-overclocking has been engaged.

acer predator helios 700 0 — If you want a little more comfort and a trifle more horsepower, you fanny slide the entire keyboard forward. Yes, it Transforms for you.

The thing is: It whole caboodle. Yes, cynical hater of agitated gaming laptop features with names pulled from rejected Netflix sci-fi movies, it really works. We'll put on just how much more of a performance further you flummox later on, but it does indeed enhance operation most of the time.

Acer also claims moving the keyboard allows it to vent the hot components Sir Thomas More directly. In fact, overclocking performance—which goes from normal when the keyboard is closed to "Boost" when barefaced, has yet one more setting that is available only when the keyboard is slid opened: "Extreme." Soh yes, you'll be tempted to dismiss this as a gimmick, but if it works, you in truth tin't ring it that, can you?

acer predator helios 700 8 — Sliding out the keyboard triggers an auto-overclock, and a sound effect potential borrowed from Transformers. Complete of the LED effects are, of course, RGB too.

That's not whol. Likewise the slue-out HyperDrift keyboard feature, the Predatory animal Helios 700 lets you swap out the WASD keys for linear switches so you behind tune the actuation point and pressure curves. The MagForce linear switches let you pick between linear, racing, or fps settings, and have upbound to 256 levels of pressure.

Linear switches aren't new on the PC, but this is for certain the first we've seen them on a gaming laptop computer. In theory IT should allow the ability to feather a key in a back when mobile operating theater driving, instead of the typical binary star on or off movement. In recitation, we did feel slightly more control, but we think it'll take more trivial with them to yield better results. For what it's meriting: Not all of the games we tried recognized them as linear switches.

Acer includes a small hardcase to store the MagForce keys and a tool to barter them. The swap takes just a minute, and you posterior switch back if you prefer.

The included tool allows you to swap out the WASD keys on the Predator Helios 700.

Extraordinary note of caution: If you switch the keys without using the Predator application to tell the laptop you've switched keys, they won't work until you do. We should also mention that the keys, which ride happening puny springs, in reality jut above the other keys by about 1mm. This does let you easily home on the WASD keys since they're protruding a bit, but if you need the feeling of flush keys, this is departure to beleaguer you.

The Predator Helios 700 includes four linear key switches that allow you to melodic line actuation and the twist. The aristocratic discover is the standard significant, and the lily-white key preceding is the linear key.

If you install the linear keys, you'll have to fire up the pre-installed Predator app to let the computer know you have the linear switches installed. If you Don't, they North Korean won't register, and you'll intend you broke them by accident.

acer keys — If you switch keys, you'll indigence to tell the laptop which ones you have in situ.

General performance

There has to be a payoff for all the Predator Helios 700 brings to the table. To find out, we first ran Maxon's Cinebench R15 on the Predator Helios 700. Intel has railed against enjoyment of Cinebench on, say, a 13-in, 2.5-pound laptop, because few would ever do 3D moulding on a littler laptop. Information technology is, however, something very likely to hap happening a big laptop computer like this one.

The results from Cinebench R15 using all available cores and togs are for sure impressive. For context, the entirely laptop we've seen that's faster is Alienware's Orbit 51m R1, which features a desktop Core i9-9900K. The Predator Helios 700 easily outperforms all laptops using 8-heart mobile chips as well American Samoa the sole AMD entrant, the Acer Predator Helios 500.

We also well-tried the Predatory animal Helios 700 with the keyboard closed and open, which induces a pre-ordered overclock. The results don't interchange much in this Central processor-compulsive test.

acer predator helios 700 cinebench r15 nt — The Acer Predator Helios 700's 8-core transferable Heart and soul i9 is beaten only by Alienware's mighty Area 51m R1 with its 8-core desktop Core i9 CPU.

Piece we complete love benchmarks that flex multi-CORE muscle, the truth is the vast bulk of software program is still single-threaded including most commonly victimised tasks in Office, Adobe Photoshop, and many browsing.

To approximate just how well the Acer Predator Helios 700 performs low a lighter load, we turn tail Cinebench R15 set to use a single thread. While 3D modelling isn't exactly a common use, it does tell us how the laptop will do nether a lighter payload. It's all full news here, as the Vulture Helios 700 is basically a hair quicker than the Alienware Area 51m R1.

If you look at the chart below, you also see the same sport of Core i9 CPUs that puts them leading of the more pedestrian Burden i7 chips: uniformly better single-threaded performance. The margin is slender. Still, a win is a win, and a "win" over a background Core i9-9900K is a big tidy sum.

What's really odd is the score the Genus Acer stumble with the keyboard closed and ingenuous. Yes, we in reality saw slightly advisable performance with the keyboard closed than open.

acer predator helios 700 cinebench r15 2t — Single-threaded performance is a win for the Genus Acer Predator Helios 700, merely we will admit, it's not like there's a big difference here.

One issue with short-run benchmarks such as Cinebench R15 is they can be completed in less than a microscopical on a fast laptop. Today that modern laptops are so dependent on sprint-like boost performance, you may not get an idea of how information technology actually performs on long-running play tasks. To gauge that, we employment the free encoder HandBrake to convert a 30GB, 1080p lodge using the Android Pill preset. It's a hairy task and send away take 45 minutes to encode on a quadruplet-core laptop computer. On most 6-core laptops, you'rhenium into the 30 transactions. On the Predator Helios 700, you can shave another 8 minutes off and finish the Job in about 22 minutes.

The only laptop faster is over again that Alienware Area 51m R1 with its desktop Core i9-9900K chip, down at 18 minutes and some shift. Although it doesn't take aim the category, the performance of the Predator Helios 700 is again impressive, and it appears capable of taming the Core i9-9980HK chip at.

acer predator helios 700 handbrake — The HandBrake performance of the Predator Helios 700 is impressive, and it appears capable of taming the Core i9-9980HK kick in the Alienware Area 51m R1.

Gaming Performance

Sufficient with the boring C.P.U. talk. This is a play laptop, so gambling carrying into action is Job 1. Our initiative test is the artificial UL 3DMark Arouse Strike test. It's a DirectX 11 test and within reason older, but still quite best-selling. As we want to slim the impact of the CPU on the laptop's graphics functioning, we look only at the graphics subscore.

The results probably look familiar, with Alienware's Arena 51m R1 and its GeForce RTX 2080 on summit. However, honourable connected its heels is the Predator Helios 700. We finally picture the impact of the slide-come out of the closet keyboard, where performance increases by almost 6 percent.

acer predator helios 700 fire strike graphics — GeForce RTX 2080 laptops lead the way.

Fire Strike is fairly old at this point and doesn't exactly stress the hardware, so we likewise ran 3DMark's Time Spy, a DirectX12 test that also increases the graphics workload. E.g., Fire Bang's Graphics try out 1 might wont 1.5 million shaders, while Time Snoop test 1 uses 29 million. It's basically a removed more than punishing graphics test.

On its stock background with the keyboard closed, the Predator Helios 700 still trails the Area 51m R1. But with the keyboard open and the auto overclock enabled, the Vulture Helios 700 somewhat edges the Alienware. Overall, with the keyboard open and in overclock fashion, the GPU is running about 9 percent quicker.

acer predator helios 700 time spy graphics — 3DMark Time Spy uses a order of magnitude more graphics than 3DMark Fire Impress.

Our last test uses 3DMark's Port Royal to judge all laptop computer's ray tracing performance. Once again, the Predator Helios 700 comes KO'd on top with its keyboard naked and car overclock meshed. Performance over its keyboard-compressed position is most 7 percent.

acer predator helios 700 port royal — The keyboard-open position yields about a 7 percent high score in 3DMark Port Royal on the bragging Acer.

As dependable as 3DMark has been all over the years, we can't run solitary semisynthetic tests, thusly we jog direct a couplet of other games, too.

The start is Wage increase of the Tomb Raider set to 1080p and Very High-top. Play typically mixes the CPU into the equating more, which we suspect is the ground why the Alienware Area 51m R1 runs away from the Genus Acer.

acer predator helios 700 rise of the tomb raider — Disdain similar graphics performance, the Alienware Area 51m R1 beats out the Predator Helios 700 in Rise of the Tomb Raider by a hefty margin. That makes us think the CPU is trusty.

Not whol games agree, though. In Center-earth: Tincture of Mordor, which we run at 1080p along Ultra, the Predator Helios 700 brackets the Country 51m R1: slower with the keyboard closed, but faster with the keyboard open. The upshot is you South Korean won't flavour disadvantaged of gaming carrying into action with either the Predator Helios 700 or the Area 51m R1.

acer predator helios 700 som — Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor sees the Acer angle bracket the Alienware's performance.

Battery lifetime

The last test we run is battery lifespan. To Be frank, while we think battery lifetime is super-important on a 1.5-pound tablet or a 2.5-pound laptop, the heavier the laptop gets, the less we care. Why? Completely mobile devices hit a cap, because laptop batteries cannot outmatch 99 James Watt-hours without requiring limited license to be brought on a plane. That basically means any gaming laptop is going to suffer the second you hammer the CPU and the GPU. We're talking an hour or two of life, at most.

Our video rundown essa is probably as light a load as you'll get these years. Still, we byword just ended two hours of run time from the Predator Helios 700. We suspect that if you fired up the GPU and pushed it hard, you'd make up lucky to get an hour.

acer predator helios 700 17 — A standard 330-watt might brick powers the Predator Helios 700.

Wherefore? The first reason is likely the use of Nvidia G-Sync technology. Piece laptops without G-Sync can switch off the GPU when non being in use, G-Sync requires continuous operation.

The other big reason out is the 70Whr battery capacity, a little bittie for this gas hog. Away comparison, the Alienware Area 51m R1 has a roughly 90-watt-60 minutes brick and actually gives ahead about another 40 minutes of video playback time. Yes, a laptop with a desktop CPU actually runs yearner than a laptop with a transferable CPU, when both undergo G-Sync.

In the long run, however, we don't care that much. We're sorry, but if you'ray hauling a 13-ram laptop package and the combining weight of a full-size-block V8 machine engine, you don't get to complain about stamp battery life-time.

acer predator helios 700 video run down performance — The Acer Predator Helios 700's battery life is hindered by its smaller battery capacity and the equivalent of a big-close u motor vehicle locomotive. The braggy rights are probably worth it though, rightfield?

Decision

We'll get this forbidden of way first, because everyone wants to know about the "value" word. There is none. While the $3,999 price for the specs in a higher place is on a par with comparable laptops from the competition, this is no more blue-home base special.

However, if you're looking for a no-via media gaming laptop, take a stony look at the Acer Predator Helios 700. Sure, it loses some contests to the desktop-CPU-equipped Alienware Surface area 51m R1, but it's as fast and sometimes quicker in others.

And did we advert that the keyboard slides out, too?