Compared to last year’s model, Acer has scaled back and streamlined the design, removing the RGB light bars from the lid and shrinking the logo down to a small prismatic stamp. Instead of RGB, the lid now uses a mix of brushed aluminum across the majority of its surface and straight matte black on the upper third. It looks much more grown up and refined while still having that unmistakable bit of Predator edge.
It’s business in the front and party in the back. The keyboard is brighter than ever before and is one of the most vibrant I’ve seen on a gaming laptop. Its per-key RGB is driven by Mini LEDs that are brighter and more power-efficient than last year's model. It’s also completely programmable with custom lighting schemes if you crave more personalization.Despite being a 15.6-inch laptop, Acer has managed to squeeze an entire numpad onto the deck. It’s great if you plan to use the laptop for work and doubles as a macro pad for gaming. Adding those extra keys shifts everything a bit to the left and demands that every button be a bit smaller, but it’s not hard to get used to. The keys are tactile and have good travel at 1.8mm. It took me less than an hour to adapt.
Expanding the keyboard also gives the Helios room for dedicated buttons to launch its PredatorSense customization software and one-click overclock the GPU. A PredatorSense button is positioned just to the right of Backspace and puts power modes, fan options, and lighting presets at your fingertips. Above that are dedicated keys for Play/Pause, Next, and Previous Track. All the way on the left, above the function row, is a silver Turbo button that instantly overclocks the GPU and turns the fans on high.
The touchpad isn’t great. It’s oddly positioned, off-center from both the deck and the typing area, and feels an inch too narrow. My fingers glided easily over its glass surface, but the integrated buttons were finicky. Because of the positioning of the keyboard my thumb was often just too high on the pad to easily press.As you might have guessed from the expanded keyboard, the Helios isn’t exactly thin and light. It’s 14 inches wide, 11 inches deep, and just shy of a full inch thick. It also tips the scales at 5.73 pounds and includes a giant power adapter that is two pounds all on its own. It comes with a big 90 wHr battery, but you’ll still need to pack some kind of charger for more than a few hours of active use. Thankfully, it supports USB charging, so a high-wattage GaN charger will do the trick with a much smaller footprint.
Part of that limited battery life is because the hardware doesn’t exactly sip power, but the bigger element is its high performance screen. The Helios comes with an impressive 1440p (2K) IPS display. It’s bright and color rich. Games and movies looked great on it. Colors are enjoyably saturated and there’s enough brightness to make images pop. The 240Hz refresh rate is perfect for competitive shooters, reducing input lag and motion blur in one fell swoop.
The speakers are also surprisingly decent. They’re not mind blowing and still lack some bass, but they get loud and are crystal clear. They’re a good fit for binging Netflix, but don’t have the same positionality and presence to deliver a truly excellent gaming experience. They’re better than most laptop speakers but still won’t replace a dedicated gaming headset.
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