Serious gamers have long preferred desktop gaming PCs over laptops because they were more powerful and more easily upgradeable.
But now that preference is beginning to change.
The latest gaming laptops to arrive on the market pack plenty of power for running even the most demanding games, making them a great choice for gamers who like to take their rigs with them when they travel.
A perfect case in point is the Predator Helios 300 Gaming Laptop (#ad) from Acer.
This laptop packs tons of speed and power, yet it’s about as affordable as a machine of this caliber can get. Here’s a quick look at the specs:
- 15.6″ Full HD (1920 x 1080) screen IPS w/ 144Hz Refresh
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 with 6 GB of dedicated GDDR5 VRAM
- 1 – HDMI 2.0 Port with HDCP support
- HD Webcam (1280 x 720) that supports High Dynamic Range (HDR)
- Two Built-in Stereo Speakers
- 8th Generation Intel Core i7-8750H processor
- 16GB DDR4 2666MHz RAM
- 256GB PCIe NVMe SSD
- Intel Wireless-AC 9560 802.11ac Gigabit Wi-Fi
- 1 Gigabit Ethernet LAN port
- 1 – USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type C port
- 1 – USB 3.0 Port (featuring Power-off Charging)
- 2 – USB 2.0 ports
- Secure Digital (SD) card reader
- 4-cell Li-Ion Battery (3220 mAh) with up to 7-hours Battery Life
- Weight: 5.1 pounds
- Windows 10 Home Edition
- 1 Year Parts & Labor Warranty
As you can see, there’s plenty to love in this machine.
The first thing I noticed about this beast of a laptop was how quickly it boots up. I’ve tested and used a lot of laptops in my day, and this one has the fastest boot time I’ve ever witnessed.
And once it’s up and running it keeps going at a break-neck pace. This thing was tested with four of the most demanding games on the market and it ran them all without even the slightest hesitation or hiccup.
In my opinion, the 16GB of RAM is adequate for most any gaming session, but for those wanting to max it out you can double the RAM to 32 Gigs.
There are a few areas where this machine is lacking, but none of them should be deal-breakers:
1 – While the 256GB SSD makes this machine super-fast, it’s a bit cramped compared to the many gaming laptops that come with both an SSD boot drive and a large internal hard drive for storing programs and tons of user-created files.
You can always add either an external USB hard drive (#ad) or an external USB SSD (#ad) to beef up the storage storage space, but it would have been nice to have all the mass storage contained within the laptop’s case.
2 – It also doesn’t have an internal optical drive, but that won’t be an issue for most people in this day and age. Again, you can always attach an external USB optical drive (#ad) if you really need one.
3 – Most laptops today are a lot lighter than this one, but at slightly less than 6 pounds it’s weight is actually pretty decent for a gaming laptop with these specs.
Again, none of these issues should be a deal breaker in my opinion, but I did feel the need to point them out.
Bottom line: This is a super-fast machine that should serve most any serious gamer well, but to make full use of all that power you’ll definitely want to augment the internal storage with a spacious external USB hard drive.
Click here (#ad) to read more about the Acer Predator Helios 300 Gaming Laptop at Amazon, including over 460 independent user reviews.
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