Acer Predator Helios 300 Spatial Labs Edition Review

With the Acer Predator Helios 300 Spatial Labs Edition (INR 2,86,999), Acer added the proverbial “one neat trick” to its gaming laptop formula: a glasses-free 3D display. While this muscle machine has the fundamentals of an ideal gaming laptop, including high-performance internals, Acer’s display aims to differentiate it from competitors such as the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 8 and the Razer Blade 18. However, as cool as it is to see some videos and games in 3D without glasses, the Predator Helios 300 Spatial Labs Edition needs a sharper edge to compete. 

We find it difficult to recommend the Acer Predator Helios 300 Spatial Labs Edition with the recent iteration of this laptop, the Predator Helios 3D 15, so close to release, as well as the appeal of its 3D screen.

Build and Configuration

The Acer Predator Helios 300 Spatial Labs Edition is a tank, and not just for the sake of being a gaming laptop. It packs a lot of hardware that requires both cooling and space, thanks to the high-performance hardware inside and the innovative display technology. The combination results in a machine that is larger and heavier than you might expect from a premium 15.6-inch laptop, even if it is a gaming laptop.

The Predator Helios 300 Spatial Labs Edition weighs 6.3 pounds, which makes it heavier than many of the machines we’ve recently tested, which include higher-performance 16-inch Legion Pro 7i Gen 8, and nearly as heavy as 18-inch models like the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18. To make matters worse, it’s also 1.1 inches thick, which is larger than Lenovo’s top-tier gaming laptop. It could have done better, but the special 3D display results in a lid that adds more than a quarter of the laptop’s overall thickness.

Camera System

The Acer Predator Helios 300 Spatial Labs Edition incorporates a special camera system for eye-tracking to properly present its 3D visuals, but this does not include the webcam. It’s a standard (and, for the price, dated) 720p affair suitable for video chats but not for professional streaming or serious presentations. The camera does not support Windows Hello facial recognition, and there is no fingerprint scanner, both of which are surprising at this price.

Connectivity

Though the Predator Helios 300 Spatial Labs Edition has a lot of ports, they aren’t as diverse or well-placed as I’d expect from a large high-end laptop. A headset jack, a USB-A (5Gbps) port, as well as an Ethernet jack with a spring-action jaw are located on the left side. Two more USB-A ports can be found on the right side. On the back edge, you’ll find a single USB-C (Thunderbolt 4) port, a full-size HDMI port, a mini DisplayPort, and a power adapter port. While many laptops with back-edge I/O include labels above the ports so you can tell which is which without having to twist or flip the laptop around, Acer did not, making it difficult to use the rear ports.

Performance

When it comes to actual use, the Acer Predator Helios 300 Spatial Labs Edition leaves little to be desired. For starters, the keyboard comes with slightly poppy keys with a bit more travel than most keyboards, providing a fairly pleasant typing experience. In Monkey Type, I can type up to 107 words per minute with 97% accuracy. But if I press on the corners, the keys’ deep travel and unclear bottom cause me to trip. The placement of the arrow keys also makes editing work more difficult.

Despite the fact that this is a larger laptop, Acer has chosen a touch pad that is relatively small. As a result, I frequently find myself clicking towards what I believe is the left side and getting right click by accident.

Display

The display is supposed to be the main attraction here, but I can’t think of anything positive to say about it. Acer made significant sacrifices in order to provide a glasses-free 3D experience. Acer omitted a high refresh rate as well as working HDR support, and a fine array of dots (presumably used to enable 3D) on the display surface degrades the clarity of what should have been an extremely sharp 2160p resolution on a 15.6-inch display.

Acer’s 3D display does work but at a high cost and with a meagre return. In the early 2010s, when 3D was experiencing a mild renaissance, I owned two glasses-free 3D phones. Although technology has advanced, it does not appear to be a decade’s worth of progress.

To make matters worse, the display outside of 3D isn’t particularly impressive. It’s not particularly bright, failing to exceed 340 nits in our testing, and its adaptive contrast feature, which I’ve seen elsewhere, is difficult for image colour and brightness consistency. If the screen displays dark content for an extended period of time, the overall brightness will be reduced. 

Graphics Test

We test Windows PC graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations using UL’s 3DMark Night Raid (low-intensity) and Time Spy (high-intensity) tests in order to determine how much power each system’s graphics hardware is capable of.

Additionally, we use GFXBench 5 to collect cross-platform data through two tests that put a strain on both high-level, game-like image rendering and low-level tasks like texturing. The 1080p Car Chase and 1440p Aztec Ruins tests put graphics and compute shaders to the test using hardware tessellation and OpenGL, respectively. These tests are rendered offscreen to support different display resolutions. The better, the higher the frames per second (fps).

Verdict

The Acer Predator Helios 300 Spatial Labs Edition offers a unique party trick with its glasses-free 3D display, but it trails competitors at every turn. Worse, the 3D requires a lot of changes, especially from the screen, such as brightness and frame rate, and still feels like little more than a novelty. You can do a lot better for more than 2.5Lacs. You can still do better for less than this, which makes it difficult to recommend this computer confidently. Start with a high-performance machine, such as the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 8, and you’ll save a lot of money.