The Acer Predator Helios 300 SpatialLab Edition laptop delivers a surprisingly immersive 3D gaming experience compared to previous 3D laptops, and Acer has optimized over 100 games. But it's on the pricey side at over $3,000 and it doesn't have the latest specs.
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00:00 I'm the first to admit that 3D gaming on laptops, and 3D laptops altogether, have been a gimmick
00:05 for many years.
00:06 But there's a demo here at CES 2023 from Acer that has changed my mind.
00:11 Let's take a look.
00:18 This is the Acer Predator Helios 300 Spatial Labs Edition.
00:22 And what's really special about this laptop is that it's bringing 3D back to laptops when
00:27 it comes to gaming.
00:28 Acer has already done this when it comes to creator laptops, but the technology in their
00:33 eyes was so good that they wanted to bring it to gamers as well.
00:36 What's happening as I'm playing is that these cameras that are above the display are focusing
00:41 on my eyes and are using facial recognition and are recognizing my eyes in order to create
00:46 that sweet spot.
00:47 It's actually drawing the image of the game onto both of my eyes as I'm playing to give
00:53 me that 3D-like experience.
00:55 At first I thought it was a little bit of a gimmick, just as we've seen before with
00:58 some of these 3D laptops.
01:01 But as I'm playing the game and walking around and looking at the environment, and you can
01:05 see that I have the 2D version right here, it is actually night and day.
01:10 It's like I'm wearing 3D glasses, but I don't need them, which is definitely the point here.
01:16 So at $3,099, this is definitely on the premium side.
01:20 And it doesn't have the latest specs because this system is from last year.
01:25 You're getting a 3080 chip, for example, and a 12th Gen Intel Core i9 processor.
01:32 But what's changed is the software, and it's definitely getting better over time, especially
01:36 as Acer optimizes more games for its platform.
01:39 So I would say that this is a promising first step back into 3D gaming for Acer and possibly
01:45 for the industry itself.
01:47 Overall, the Spatial Labs edition of The Predator Helios from Acer shows a lot of promise in
01:53 terms of getting back into 3D gaming.
01:55 And if you don't want a full laptop, there is a separate 3D display that's available
02:01 that you can connect to your existing gaming laptop.
02:04 We're looking forward to testing out the laptop itself in 3D mode, as well as the external
02:08 display to tell you whether or not 3D gaming is here for real or not.
02:12 This is Mark Spoonhauer with Tom's Guide.
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