Today we are going to show you one of the most anticipated and requested laptops – this year’s Predator Helios 300. More precisely – the model is called Acer Predator Helios 300 17″ 2019 (PH317-53) and its name symbolize the 17-inch size and the newest generation of Helios devices.
As you are going to see, later on, Acer has completely revamped the looks of the device. Instead of the red and black color scheme, the manufacturer has opted for a fresher blue and black one. It is reminiscent of both the Triton brand and also bears similarities with the Helios 700 and 500. In terms of hardware, it comes available with up to Core i7-9750H and RTX 2070, which is a pretty powerful combination, especially given the somewhat budget nature of the laptop.
You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/acer-predator-helios-300-17-2019-ph317-53/
Contents
Specs Sheet
Acer Predator Helios 300 17" (2019, PH317-53) technical specifications table
Not available
What’s in the box?
Predator Helios 300 comes with a pretty simple packaging – a charging brick, the laptop itself and some papers and manuals.
Design and construction
Made out of both plastic and aluminum, the Predator Helios 300 17 (2019, PH317-53) feels sturdy. For convenience, we’re going to call it Helios 300 17 2019 for the rest of the review. In terms of measurements, the Helios 17 2019 is 25mm thick (4mm less than its predecessor) and sits at 2.90 kg at the scale.
Its lid is made out of aluminum and it opens easily with a single hand – something expected from a device of this size. The lid itself is flatter than it was last year and it certainly feels more premium.
On the keyboard side, the device looks an awful lot like the Acer Predator Triton 500. It has an RGB backlight and the sides of it are left with white paint, which makes it easier to distinguish and more effective when the RGB is on. Key travel is decent and there is a nice click to it. Additionally, Acer has put the dedicated Turbo button that maxes out the fans on demand.
Further below there is the touchpad, which is not one of the biggest out there. However, it is accurate and responsive.
On the bottom side, there is a substantial ventilation area, while on the bottom two corners you can see the speaker cut-outs. We are glad to see that the cooling system underwent a revamp and now uses four heat sinks (two on the back and two on the sides) – more on that – later.
Ports
On the left side you can see the charging plug (the cable is getting in the way of the exhaust area), an RJ-45 connector, two USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) ports and an Audio combo jack, while on the right there is the HDMI connector, a Mini DisplayPort, another USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) and a USB Type-C with an always-on function.
Disassembly and upgrade options
Display quality
Acer Predator Helios 300 17 2019 is equipped with a Full HD IPS screen, model number AUO B173HAN04.2 (AUO429D). Its diagonal is 17.3″ (43.94 cm), and the resolution – 1920 х 1080. Additionally, the screen ratio is 16:9, the pixel density – 127 ppi, their pitch – 0.1995 x 0.1995 mm. The screen can be considered Retina when viewed from at least 69 cm (from this distance, the average human eye can’t see the individual pixels).
Its viewing angles are excellent. We have provided images at 45 degrees to evaluate quality.
The maximum measured brightness is pretty high – 318 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen and 316 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of only 4%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 7050K (average) – colder than the 6500K optimum for sRGB. The average color temperature through the grey scale before profiling is 7050K as well.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from uniformity perspective. The illustration below shows how matters are for operational brightness levels (approximately 140 nits) – in this particular case at 43% Brightness (White level = 140 cd/m2, Black level = 0.11 cd/m2).
Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color sensitive work (a maximum tolerance of 2.0 ). The contrast ratio is good – 1290:1 (1260:1 after profiling).
To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.
Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.
Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.
The yellow dotted line shows Acer Predator Helios 300 17 2019’s color gamut coverage.
Its display covers 92% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.
Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.
We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.
Below you can compare the scores of Acer Predator Helios 300 17 2019 with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).
The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.
The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.
Response time (Gaming capabilities)
We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.
We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 24 ms.
Health impact – PWM / Blue Light
PWM (Screen flickering)
Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.
Acer Predator Helios 300 17 2019’s display doesn’t flicker at any brightness level. This means the laptop is not going to present any additional strain to your eyes during long work periods.
Blue light emissions
Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.
Conclusions
Acer Predator Helios 300 17 2019 has a Full HD IPS panel, that provides comfortable viewing angles, great contrast ratio, and almost full sRGB color coverage. Additionally, the display doesn’t use PWM to adjust its brightness levels.
Buy our profiles
Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for Acer Predator Helios 300 17 2019 configurations with 17.3″ AUO B173 HAN04.2 (AUO0429D) (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS.
*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected]
Read more about the profiles HERE.
In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.
Office Work
Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.
Design and Gaming
This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.
Health-Guard
Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.
Sound
The laptop’s speakers produce a relatively loud sound. Its low tones have some deviations in clarity, while mids and highs are crisp.
Drivers
All of the drivers and utilities for the Predator Helios 300 is available here: https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/support-product/8051?b=1
Battery
Now, we conduct the battery tests with Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. Predator Helios 300 17 2019 is equipped with a rather small 59Wh battery pack. However, we were satisfied with the 7 hours of web browsing and even 20 minutes more of video playback.
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.
CPU options
Predator Helios 300 (PH317-53) is available with the latest 9th gen Intel Core i5-9300H and the Core i7-9750H – a quad-core and a hexa-core processor, respectively.
Results are from the Cinebench 20 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)
GPU options
On the GPU side, the top specs machine comes equipped with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q, whereas currently, you can get it with the GTX 1660 Ti, as well.
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Acer Predator Helios 300 (PH317-53) GPU variants
Here you can see an approximate comparison between the GPUs that can be found in the Acer Predator Helios 300 (PH317-53) models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which Acer Predator Helios 300 (PH317-53) model is the best bang for your buck.
Note: The chart shows the cheapest different GPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / GPU.
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Gaming tests
We tested the laptop with NVIDIA’s 441.87 WHQL drivers.
| Far Cry 5 | Full HD, Normal (Check settings) | Full HD, High (Check settings) | Full HD, Ultra (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q | 112 fps | 103 fps | 79 fps |
| Rise of the Tomb Raider (2016) | Full HD, Medium (Check settings) | Full HD, Very High (Check settings) | Full HD, MAX (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q | 130 fps | 72 fps | 49 fps |
| Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands | Full HD, High (Check settings) | Full HD, Very High (Check settings) | Full HD, Ultra (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q | 88 fps | 78 fps | 50 fps |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018) | Full HD, Medium (Check settings) | Full HD, High (Check settings) | Full HD, Highest (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q | 94 fps | 88 fps | 57 fps |
Temperatures and comfort
Max CPU load
In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.
Average core frequency (base frequency + X); CPU temp.
| Core i7-9750H (45W TDP) | 0:02 – 0:10 sec | 0:15 – 0:30 sec | 10:00 – 15:00 min |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acer Predator Helios 300 17 (2019) | 3.09 GHz (B+19%)@ 55°C | 3.10 GHz (B+19%)@ 59°C | 2.99 GHz (B+15%)@ 66°C |
| Dell XPS 15 7590 | 3.25 GHz (B+25%)@ 98°C | 3.00 GHz (B+12%)@ 99°C | 2.69 GHz (B+3%)@ 92°C |
| Dell Inspiron 15 7590 | 2.91 GHz (B+12%)@ 97°C | 2.52 GHz @ 97°C | 2.41 GHz @ 97°C |
| HP Pavilion Gaming 15 2019 | 3.57 GHz (B+37%)@ 81°C | 2.88 GHz (B+11%)@ 73°C | 2.66 GHz (B+2%)@ 73°C |
| Lenovo Legion Y7000 (2019) | 3.34 GHz (B+28%)@ 72°C | 3.15 GHz (B+21%)@ 82°C | 2.99 GHz (B+15%)@ 79°C |
| Lenovo Legion Y540 | 2.78 GHz (B+7%)@ 74°C | 3.08 GHz (B+18%)@ 90°C | 2.87 GHz (B+10%)@ 79°C |
| ASUS ROG G731 | 3.38 GHz (B+30%)@ 87°C | 3.43 GHz (B+32%)@ 94°C | 2.63 GHz @ 73°C |
| ASUS ROG G531 | 3.41 GHz (B+31%)@ 95°C | 3.23 GHz (B+24%)@ 95°C | 2.72 GHz (B+5%)@ 79°C |
What we see here is a great potential from the cooling solution. We can only praise the sub 60C in the beginning and the 68C in the end of the test. This means that Acer has left enough headroom for the GPU.
Real life gaming
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q | GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 2 min) | GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 30 min) | GPU frequency/ Core temp (Turbo mode) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acer Predator Helios 300 17 (2019) | 1364 MHz @ 66°C | 1351 MHz @ 78°C | 1529 MHz @ 71°C |
| Lenovo Legion Y740 17″ | 1269 MHz @ 76°C | 1236 MHz @ 80°C | – |
While after 30 minutes of gaming, the temperature on the GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q is quite high, we still observe more than 100 MHz higher clock speed in comparison to the Legion Y740 (17). However, when you turn the Turbo mode On, things change dramatically. It took less than a minute for the temperature to get 7C lower and the frequency to rise with nearly 200 MHz.
Gaming comfort
We measured the hottest spot on the outside before we turned the laptop into an air sucking beast, and it was the scorching hot 56C.
Verdict
All-in-all Helios 300 17 2019 is a nice upgrade over the last year’s model. Aside from the obvious visual overhaul, the laptop now features the latest and greatest from Intel in the form of Core i5-9300H and Core i7-9750H as well as up to NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q. Something that speaks enough of the overall thermal performance of the machine.
Speaking of which, it still features two fans, however, they are not placed right next to each other, but they are actually staying on the two ends of the laptop. This, paired with the more adequate heat pipe distribution and the higher amount of heat sinks results in a way better thermal efficiency.
Additionally, we found the battery life to be acceptable with around 6 hours and a half of web browsing and video playback. Especially given the 17-inch decently bright screen. By the way, the display of this laptop produces a very punchy picture with a high contrast ratio and comfortable viewing angles. On top of that, it doesn’t use PWM to adjust its brightness levels which makes it less harmful for your eyes.
We should note that the Helios 300 17 2019 is by no means a light notebook – it weighs almost 3 kilos (2.90 kg to be precise) but it feels a lot more sturdy, well built and portable than the Dell G7 17 7790 per se. Moreover, it has a better keyboard with a longer travel and a more tactile feel. Its keys are also larger and it features a “Turbo” button that will max out the fans to increase the cooling capacity, hence – the performance of your laptop.
When we opened the laptop up we saw two M.2 NVMe slots that are capable of doing RAID 0 for you. As a possible downside – we would enjoy seeing a Thunderbolt connection on the laptop, as well as an SD card reader.
Pros
- Sturdy build quality
- Doesn’t use PWM to adjust its brightness levels AUO B173HAN04.2 (AUO429D)
- Covers 92% of sRGB AUO B173HAN04.2 (AUO429D)
- Uniform in terms of brightness across its entire area and doesn’t use PWM
- Up to Core i7-9750H and RTX 2070 Max-Q
- Supports RAID 0
Cons
- No Thunderbolt support
- No SD card reader
- Fans get really loud under load
You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/acer-predator-helios-300-17-2019-ph317-53/
Brilliant review. i would definitely recommend to my Gaming clients.
No picture of cooling does not measure the temperatures under load
24 ms response time on a 144hz screen?! Ghosting galore! Wow no thanks, anything above 9 ms is not worth it for gaming, think about it, 144 fps frametime is 6.9 ms, 60 fps frametime is 16 ms, and the colors on this display take 24 ms to shift colors, even at 60 fps the display response time will never be in sync with the GPU’s frametimes, you will never get a frame to display accurate colors and have minimal ghosting or blur.
They have a non 144hz model of this monitor, which this review was likely based on. The 144hz monitor version (ph317-53-7777) is 3ms response time, like the other 144hz monitors in the same line.
Not sure about your benchmark fps numbers here; OwnOrDisown benchmarked the 1660 Ti version with higher performance. The values shown here are not what I would expect from an rtx 2070
AFAIK it gets a 2070 max-q, not a “full” laptop 2070. That one is reserved for the Helios 700. Just for fun, go compare it to today’s review of the 15″ Helios 300, with a 1660 Ti.
Acer’s promotional website even lists the max-q as the top end of the offerings, but weirdly, on the models page, it only says “2070”.
Best Gaming in the World !!!!
Hello! Nice review. I have one question: what about the Intel HD Graphics 630 – is it activated and ready to use? In Helios 500 it was also in specification, but it appears tahat Acer deactivated it peermanently and it was not possible to use Intel HD 630. So in that case it shouldnt be in specs… All it is about the power consumption during for example web surfing – no need to use GTX. Thx in advance for an answer. /Pio
I have used and rated it as a great gaming laptop
This is a 2070 Max Q, not a 2070 Laptop GPU
and those FPS figures are fairly poor for a laptop at this price point