ACER PREDATOR HELIOS 500 REVIEW PORTABLE
ACER PREDATOR HELIOS 500 REVIEW SOFTWARE
ACER PREDATOR HELIOS 500 REVIEW PLUS

These include HDMI and DisplayPort inputs on the rear of the laptop next to the power connector, a full-sized Ethernet port, a total of four USB ports (including three USB3 ports one USB-C) and one Thunderbolt 3 port, plus dedicated headphone and microphone jacks. They also come with exactly the same ports and connections, too. That's pretty generous as these things go, and it's by far one of the better laptop keyboards I've used in some time.

ACER PREDATOR HELIOS 500 REVIEW SOFTWARE

These can be configured in Acer's Predator Sense software for things like one-click overclocking of your GPU, macro controls, or launching certain apps or games to name just a few options, and the adjacent P button lets you switch between three different profiles, giving you a total of 15 programmable controls altogether. Still, it's full-sized, so you get a proper number pad over on the right hand side of the keyboard, and Acer have also included five programmable buttons above the main Fn keys. I was able to get up to my regular typing speed in absolutely no time at all when I first started using it, and the sensible font Acer's picked out for it isn't overly 'gamery' either (although that's a pretty small consolation when the rest of the laptop definitely is very gamery). The RGB keyboard is, of course, identical across both Helios 500 laptops, and offers loads of travel and lovely tactile feedback.

I also measured a higher contrast ratio on the Nvidia Helios 500 (1342:1 as opposed to 969:1 on the AMD), but once again, there wasn't really much in it when I looked at them side by side. The Nvidia Helios also had a superior black level compared to its AMD sibling, coming in a fraction deeper at 0.24cd/m2 versus the AMD's 0.29cd/m2 - the latter of which, I should note is still excellent, but the closer it can get to 0.00cd/m2 (true black), the better. You probably won't need anywhere near either of these figures for general, everyday use, to be honest - the AMD screen felt perfectly fine on 75% brightness, for example - but having that extra bit of leeway can be useful if you ever end up taking it outside, or work near a particularly bright, sunlit window, for example. That said, the Nvidia Helios 500 did, in fact, have a higher overall brightness level, peaking at 316cd/m2 compared to the AMD Helios 500's 287cd/m2. Not a huge difference, all told - and one I certainly wasn't able to pick apart when looking at the same images on them side by side - but I was surprised it wasn't the other way around, to be honest, given how strict Nvidia tend to be when it comes to the quality of every single G-Sync panel. The AMD one is actually a smidge more accurate than the Nvidia model, covering 87% of the sRGB colour gamut as opposed to 85%. In terms of image quality, however, they're far from identical. Each one also has a 1920x1080 resolution and a 144Hz refresh rate, and they each support their own variable refresh rate tech (G-Sync on the Nvidia model and FreeSync on the AMD one) for super-smooth gaming and minimal screen tearing.

ACER PREDATOR HELIOS 500 REVIEW PORTABLE

Both are 17.3in behemoths in terms of size and overall weight, and are very much intended as desktop replacement laptops rather than something svelte and portable like the Asus ROG Zephyrus S. Which one will triumph? Let's find out.įirst, let's look at what each laptop has in common.

After all, both laptops are roughly the same price in the US right now ( $1898 for the Nvidia one and $1829 for the AMD), while the AMD version in the UK is around £300 cheaper, going for £1499 as opposed to £1769 for the Nvidia jobber. The former has one of AMD's Radeon RX Vega 56 chips while the latter comes with a full-fat GTX 1070.īut rather than review each one individually, I thought I'd do something a bit different this time and get both models in and pit them against each other to see which one you should actually buy.

Case in point: Acer's Predator Helios 500 laptop, which is available in both AMD and Nvidia graphics flavours. That's mostly because AMD haven't really bothered with gaming laptops for the last couple of years, but that's slowly starting to change. Take a look at the specs of any of today's gaming laptops and there's a 99.9% chance it's got an Intel CPU and Nvidia graphics chip inside it.

Acer predator helios 500 review