Acer Predator Helios 700 In-Depth Review – A transformer in disguise!
On April 11th, just one month after showcased the Acer Predator Helios 500, the Taiwanese manufacturer already announced its successor in New York: Predator Helios 700, an unusual laptop with a revolutionary design (HyperDrift keyboard, the world-famous MagForce Keys). Not 2 months later, we’re very pleased to exclusively cover the incredible performance of this… Predator King. And the icing on the cake -for us- is getting to cover our first gaming laptop equipped with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 laptop GPU (no, not the Max-Q version!)
A super-high-performance laptop with a fresh cooling system design. And while the screen design seems stuck in 2017-2018, with thick bezels, once we slide the keyboard out and reveal the illuminated glass showing the heat-pipes, and once the palm rest turns into a wrist pad, things take a radical turn, from a frog to a prince. Or, the Transformer Prime returns to its true form, shedding the mainstream design.Jaw-dropping design, amazing cooling
Performance - 9.5
Build quality and materials - 8
Display quality - 8.8
Design - 9.5
Keyboard - 9.8
Ergonomics - 8.5
Cooling System - 10
Noise - 6.7
Connectivity - 9.5
Battery - 6.8
8.7
Jaw-dropping design
I had a deja-vu at first glance. The same chassis as Helios 500: big, thick, heavy. It’s intimidating to see, like sitting next to a heavyweight K1 fighter. 42mm thick. The bottom alone is 3cm thick. That’s when a bulb lights up making you ponder: “What’s going on?” What moves this monster machine? But let’s not get carried away by the design and focus on what really had me gaping. A Transformer Prime disguised as a gaming laptop!
HyperDrift keyboard
Not so long ago, I pointed out the lack of innovation in the laptop market, and I’m excited to see exceptions, such as the secondary screen featured by the Omen X 2S. Well, Acer engineers managed to surprise me when I saw the new engineering marvel called HyperDrift Keyboard, for myself.
In addition to the SciFi-movie-like sound and memorable viewing experience, this unique approach by Acer engineers and designers has a whole different purpose than impressing with PR-aesthetic effects or marketing. Namely, the cooling. Because as you’ve become accustomed to these days, it’s not hard to stick in a 45W processor, such as the Intel Core i9-9980HK on this laptop, and even desktop Intel Core i9s from the likes of Alienware Area-51m, alongside video cards that are very close to their desktop counterparts. No, the challenge is to cool these components, and not just cool them, but to do so without making them sound like drones taking flight.
When the keypad is pulled toward the user, two large air intakes pop up. The airflow doubles, in order to cool down the GPU as well as the CPU.
Either way, the laptop’s bottom, as with any self-respecting powerful gaming laptop, features two large and generous intakes, through which cold air is pulled straight into the fans.
But the upper two intakes are more efficient, dense and bigger, flowing more air than the ones on the underside.
Between the two intakes, the designers thought it a shame not to show you the heatpipes through a window that you can illuminate as you wish.
Like the Predator Helios 500, four large exhausts ensure ideal operating temperatures, even under the heaviest loads. And no headphones are required! But we will be back with more details on noise / temperature later.
Ergonomics
Because of the laptop’s thickness, a wrist pad is recommended. And that’s what Acer engineers did! When the keyboard slides towards the user, about 10cm, or the exact depth of the palm rest, the palm rest and touchpad will extend beyond the edge of the laptop, and tilt at a 10 degree angle, touching the table’s surface, creating a ramp just good enough to serve as a wrist pad for ideal typing conditions.
Don’t worry about reliability, the three hinges connecting the palm rest to the keyboard are very solid. Though it’s worth mentioning that once the keyboard slides out, the depth of the laptop increases by 33%, so make sure to provide at least another 10cm of space behind the laptop for the hot air exhausts and space enough for the screen to tilt.
And while we’re discussing ergonomics, I congratulate the engineers on providing 150 degrees of available tilt!
What’s under the hood? Tech specs, hardware.
Intel Core i9-9980HK
We met the incredible i9-9980HK processor a while back when we reviewed the Omen X 2S.
An extremely capable CPU with 8 physical cores and 16 threads, with clocks between 2.4 – 5GHz. Its TDP is 45W, providing you don’t stress it too hard. That is, try not to fully load all 8 cores and 16 threads, or else. On one condition, of course: provide sufficient cooling, prevent throttling and make sure the CPU won’t clock down before it can really show its true colors.
GeForce RTX 2080 Laptop (150W!)
Well, I’ve encountered this GPU before and I was amazed not just by how it behaved at default settings, but especially after sliding the HyperDrift Keyboard out and enabling AutoOverclock.
But, since this is a world-first review, I’d like to steal 2 minutes of your time, to dig a little deeper into what the GeForce RTX 2080 Laptop represents and where this GPU falls between the RTX 2080 Desktop and Max-Q variants.
Check out the chart below: The Helio 700 model clocks (using the RTX 2080 Laptop version) are barely under the desktop model. Specifically, base clocks were dropped 9% and Boost clocks were dropped 7%. This translates into an average penalty of about 10% in games. In other words, the Laptop model manages to stay very close to its bigger brother, but its massive 150W power consumption recommends it for relatively bulky laptops such as the Helios 700.
For ultra-portable laptops, the more “Eco-friendly” Max-Q version is more suitable. But the performance hit compared to the Laptop model is over 20%, going on 30%. So less heat and power draw, but they’re pretty far away from the RTX 2080 Laptop found in the Helios 700.
SSDs, HDDs, and Memories!
The Helios 700 we tested is top-of-the-line spec, offering everything you could want: 2x WD SN720 ultra-fast 512GB SSDs in RAID 0, a generous 2TB Seagate Mobile HDD (2000LM007) and, the cherry on top, the full spec comes with 64GB of memory in 4 Kingston 2666 MHz DDR4 DIMMs.
So, in this configuration, I would first recommend the laptop to video editors, with gamers as a secondary audience.
Display: 17”, G-SYNC, 144Hz, IPS
We first saw the AUO319D (B173HAN03.1) panel made by AU Optronics in the recent Helios 500 and were impressed.
I prefer Full-HD or 2K on a 17″ screen instead of a 4K panel. And I think most gamers share my preference. In games, the IPS display is ideal. G-SYNC guarantees a smooth game without jerking, tearing or stuttering.
The AUO panel is quite modest for photo/video editing, as it doesn’t excel in either brightness, contrast or color space: 270cd/m2 brightness and contrast of 700:1.
The color gamut is average enough:
- 98% sRGB
- 67% NTSC
- 72% AdobeRGB
Brightness and color uniformity also falls into common parameters, nothing spectacular to see here.
The Keyboard – a real jewel and a big surprise: MagForce Keys!
MagForce Keys -: “Yes, yes, another pompous name”, I thought, as keyboard manufacturers usually use when describing proprietary technologies for the switches used.
I could not have been more wrong. Oh, how great my amazement and enthusiasm when I figured out how the WASD keys behave. Not only is the tactile feedback (or lack thereof) different from the rest of the keys, the way you press them down matters! Push lightly down and you’ll move slowly, press harder and you will go fast. In other words, actuation is done as soon as you press and the behavior of these switches is similar to an analog one.
I admit that this behavior raised some eyebrows when typing, as I ended up swallowing a few characters before getting used to the fact that you need to press the keys down fully for characters to register consistently. Otherwise, this is a potential game-changer for PC gaming, very interesting technology, and a welcome development path.
But let me address the rest of the keys, somewhat forgotten due to the MagForce Keys technology with which the WASD keys are endowed.
The tactile feedback, the long travel path, and especially the inner illumination of the keys were delightful, a real pleasure, even though this isn’t one of the fastest typing keyboards.
Performance. Temperatures. Overclocking. Noise!
3DMark TimeSpy: 10.192 points. BAM! Predator 700 just broke the 10K TimeSpy ceiling on a laptop. Or, the 20K ceiling in FireStrike. Yes, the new records left the competition behind by 10-20%, even 30% in some games! Most games, it kept up with my 8700K and RTX 2080 desktop system!
Obviously, the final results we’re going to use in comparisons are obtained with the keyboard slid out to squeeze all the performance from the machine.
The chart below shows how the system responds to extra airflow and the increased boost clocks of the GeForce RTX 2080 Laptop GPU. The results are there, but slightly disappointing. The only tests to take advantage of the extra airflow and higher clocks were Metro Exodus and 3DMark.
Temperatures were more than decent: in games, CPU temperatures varied between 60-70C in most situations, with brief spikes up to 70-80C, but no time spent at 90C or above, as i9 variants have behaved in the past.
This is the coolest i9 we’ve seen so far, and the GeForce RTX 2080 Laptop GPU did not exceed 70C.
So How did Acer accomplish this? Hmmm… well, it could be the five heatpipes… maybe the new Vapor Chamber introduced with this model, a technology with performance figures we keep bringing up on flagship laptops?
Unfortunately, only the top trim version features a vapor chamber – and that’s understandable, it’s not every day you see a 150W TDP GPU, no? In games, with the AutoOverclock turned on and the keyboard slid open, we found the RTX 2080 Laptop pulling almost 180W of power!
And thanks to NVIDIA GPU Boost 4.0 technology (which tunes performance based on temperature, voltage and power consumption) many games saw the GPU reach a 1920MHz clock speed.
By comparison, the Intel Core i9-9980HK CPU was very well behaved, drawing no more than 65W in the most demanding scenario (in Cinebench).
The AeroBlade fan noise on the Helios 700 is below that heard on the Helios 500, most likely due to the better airflow and more efficient cooling system. In long sessions fans get loud when spinning past 4000rpm, going over the 50dB barrier (and prompting a switch to headphones). But 90% of the time, the system remains in the average laptop noise range (40-45dB).
Connectivity: Thunderbolt 3 and VirtualLink (VR +), 2.5 Gigabit
Helios 700 offers an abundance of USB ports: USB-A 3.1, USB-A 2.0, 2x USB-C, one delivering Thunderbolt 3 and another bringing VR+. Yes, that VirtualLink dedicated to VR headsets. This port will deliver all video, audio, data (USB), power, all through one port. Very important for buyers of VR headsets over the next few years.
Additionally, we have the now classic HDMI 2.0, DP, LAN (the newest Killer E3000 model, 2.5 Gigabit-enabled). And last but not least, for those who want to bring their machine out to events such as a gaming competition or Comic Con, the Kensington Lock.
Battery
The 72Wh Panasonic battery is small for such a beast and we barely squeezed 2 hours of life from the machine, with 50% brightness and the keyboard lighting turned down, while surfing the Internet and writing this piece.
It could have been much better (see the 90Wh battery in Alienware Area-51m), but that’s that. I assume Acer engineers have excluded using the laptop on the battery. The AutoOverclock mode does not work on battery anyway (obviously).
Finale
A super-high-performance laptop with a fresh cooling system design. And while the screen design seems stuck in 2017-2018, with thick bezels, once we slide the keyboard out and reveal the illuminated glass showing the heatpipes, and once the palm rest turns into a wrist pad, things take a radical turn, from a frog to a prince. Or, the Transformer Prime returns to its true form, shedding the mainstream design.
We expect to see the machine soon, with a price of $2.699 in the US or 2.699EUR in the EU: If that includes VAT, that’s not a bad price. On the contrary, it’s aggressive, like the whole machine.