Acer Predator Helios 500 17 AMD Review: Best Gaming Laptop

Review of Acer Predator Helios 500 17 AMD

In many respects, the Acer Predator Helios 500 is a powerful laptop. It’s expensive because it’s big and bulky, equipped with high-end features, and doesn’t come cheap. However, it could be excessive for the average person.

The Helios 500 is a high-performance laptop computer tailored to the needs of gamers. Therefore, it performs exceptionally well in its intended role. It has a modern screen that is among the best on laptops and features superb performance, an incredible keyboard, great thermal control, and a sleek design, although cheaper options offer the same or similar refresh rates.

Acer Predator Helios 500 17 amd

If you want to maximize your gaming experience by overclocking your graphics processor, this laptop is your best bet.

The Acer Predator Helios 500–17 AMD’s Design

AeroBlade 3D fans are installed in the black chassis of the Acer Predator Helios 500 17 AMD, which is accented with blue. It looks like a standard gaming laptop, apart from the blue accents.

The lid features an illuminated Predator emblem, and the thermal exhaust outlet at the rear may have been lifted straight from a high-end sports vehicle. The keyboard has an RGB backlight, there’s a bright strip down the front edge, a lit ring surrounds the touchpad, and there are extra LED strips along the sides and back, all of which may appear superfluous.

Laptop and Mobile App for Detecting Predators

The Helios 500 has an app called Predator Sense that gives users full control over the laptop’s actions. The laptop’s lid is made of aluminum, and the body is built of tough plastic. Since plastic is a slower heat conductor than aluminum, Acer benefits from increased control over where the internal temperature is dissipated.

Display

The 17.3-inch IPS panel display on the AMD Predator is top-notch thanks to the laptop’s rapid 144 Hz refresh rate and FreeSync technology from AMD, which eliminates screen tearing. The panel has a variable refresh rate of 60–144 Hz, so there shouldn’t be any tearing or stuttering at frame rates greater than 60 fps.

In comparison to the premium gaming average of 133%, the display only covers 114% of the sRGB color gamut, but it still does a good job. The average brightness of the screen is 303 nits, which is higher than the 276 nits of the G-Sync panel in the other Helios 500 model and the 280 nits that are typical for displays of this type.

The Helios 500 offers one of the greatest gaming laptop displays on the market thanks to its crystal-clear FHD resolution panel and near-perfect coverage of the DCI P3 color space. Even with room for development, this is now one of the best screens for laptop gaming.

Efficiency and Visuals

The AMD Ryzen 7–2700 in the Acer Predator Helios 500 17 AMD makes this laptop as powerful as a desktop computer. The standard clock speed of this eight-core, sixteen-thread processor is 3.7GHz, while its Turbo Boost clock speed can reach 4.3GHz. It has 16 GB of HBM2 RAM and AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 GPU.

The Predator Helios 500 is a desktop replacement laptop that excels at media creation, Photoshop, and gaming thanks to its powerful CPU and graphics card. A 256 GB PCI Express NVMe solid-state drive (SSD) and 16 GB of random-access memory (RAM) round out the specs, which are standard for a mid- to high-tier gaming laptop in 2019.

This Predator model from Acer is ready to dazzle with a powerful desktop-class CPU and GPU, unlike competing machines in its price range that often employ mobile Intel CPUs and Nvidia GTX graphics. The AMD-powered Helios can handle modern games, including virtual reality games, at high settings with no problem.

Typewriter with Trackpad

Blue borders surround the WASD and directional arrow keys on the Predator Helios 500 keyboard. You may assign any action — including automatic overclocking — to a row of dedicated hotkeys on the top deck, close to the hinges.

Acer Predator Helios 500 17 amd

Efficiency and Visuals

The AMD Ryzen 7–2700 in the Acer Predator Helios 500 17 AMD is a desktop-level CPU with eight cores, 16 threads, and a base frequency of 3.7GHz. It has a maximum boost frequency of 4.3GHz. It also boasts 16 GB of HBM2 memory and AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 graphics.

The Predator Helios 500 is a high-performance laptop that can handle demanding productivity tasks including media creation, Photoshop, and gaming. It has 16GB of RAM, which is standard for a midrange to high-end gaming laptop in 2019, and a 256GB PCI Express NVMe solid-state drive (SSD).

Both the CPU (AMD’s Ryzen 7 2700) and the GPU (AMD’s Radeon Vega 56) in this Acer Predator model are powerful enough to be considered desktop replacements. It’s faster than other smartphones in its price range, even those with mobile Intel CPUs and Nvidia GTX graphics. The Helios, powered by AMD, has little trouble running modern games in High detail.

Typewriter with Trackpad

The arrow and WASD keys on the keyboard light up blue, and the touchpad glows a hazy blue as well. You can assign any function, including automatic overclocking, to the row of dedicated hotkeys on the top row of the keyboard.

Despite being a membrane keyboard, the keys feel rather substantial when pressed. The actual keys beneath the touchpad are not too difficult to press, and the touchpad itself measures 2.3 by 4 inches.

Laptops of this size and power often have a short battery life, so you’ll want to play games when plugged in. You’ll need to have this laptop plugged in almost constantly, even if you only plan to use it for viewing movies, light productivity, or browsing the web. It only lasted 1 hour, 33 minutes under heavy use.

The right side of the laptop has a Kensington lock slot, two USB 3.0 Type-A ports, and connectors for headphones and a microphone. There is an Ethernet port and a USB 3.0 Type-A port on the left side, as well as two USB Type-C 3.1/Thunderbolt 3 connections. You can connect as many as three external displays to your laptop via its HDMI, DisplayPort, and USB Type-C video outputs located on the laptop’s rear.

Acer Predator Helios 500 17 amd

Judgment Reached

An excellent AMD-powered gaming laptop is the Acer Predator Helios 500 17 AMD. Powered by a 16-thread Ryzen 7 CPU, it has a significant advantage over its competitors in terms of multi-threaded productivity. Considering the computing grunt required for gameplay, it is also surprisingly quiet. The inclusion of AMD’s FreeSync technology elevates the quality of its already high-quality display. Hopefully, you were able to get some useful information about this gaming laptop from this article.