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00:00This here is Acer's Helios 500. It's kind of like the bigger brother to the Helios 300.
00:05And it's a device that almost replaces the Predator 17 and the Predator 17X from last year.
00:11So those were really popular gaming devices. This is kind of like the successor to it.
00:15It looks quite different though. Instead of the black and red, it's predominantly blue.
00:19And I like the look of it. The design is obviously very gamer-oriented.
00:23It's got angular trim pieces, and the whole design language does feel appropriate for the Predator nametag.
00:28So the build quality feels good. It is plastic. There's no aluminum on the top or the bottom or anywhere on the exterior.
00:33But it feels well-built. In comparison to other gaming laptops of this caliber,
00:38with like 17-inch gaming laptops that often have aluminum around it,
00:42the big advantage is price. Obviously by using polycarbonate or just other plastic materials,
00:47they're able to keep the cost down. But also weight.
00:49This is a lighter laptop than something like the Alienware device.
00:52It's not as tanky as an Alienware. Like if I threw both of them off the stairs,
00:56this would probably crack before an Alienware did. But it's still a really solid machine.
01:00In terms of the ports, it's got plenty of I.O., display outputs on the back, and USB ports on the sides.
01:06There's three USB-A's and then two USB-C's. Both of them support Thunderbolt 3.
01:10Now to access the inside, it's not super difficult. There's actually a hatch on the bottom.
01:14It's got two screws, and that's it. The rest of the back panel does come off, but it's a little bit more work.
01:19Now inside you get access to the Wi-Fi card. This one's the Killer 1550.
01:22It's an Intel-based card. It's a fast one. I like it.
01:25You also have four RAM slots. There's only two easily accessed.
01:28You can remove everything to get to the other two, but you have two easy to access ones.
01:32You get three drive bays, two of them NVMe, one of them SATA.
01:35The battery in here isn't small, but it's a pretty serious laptop.
01:38I'm only getting around three hours of battery life.
01:40That's with screen at 250 nits, and that's not playing games. That's just like regular use.
01:44If you're playing games, expect 45 minutes to an hour of battery life, but that's just what it is.
01:49That's what gaming laptops are like.
01:51Okay, the screen is really nice.
01:53This is a 144Hz panel made by AUO.
01:56It honestly looks really similar in image quality to the 15-inch 144Hz screen
02:00that we see in a lot of the high-end gaming laptops right now, but this screen also has G-Sync.
02:04So not only is it bigger, it's a 17.3-inch screen, but it also has G-Sync,
02:08and it looks really nice when you're playing games.
02:11The unfortunate thing is that because of G-Sync, you don't have access to NVIDIA Optimus,
02:15so you don't have the power savings from that. You have a really short battery life.
02:19The brightness is good, and the color accuracy is respectable. It's a very nice screen.
02:23The keyboard is pretty comfortable.
02:25It's a big laptop, so the whole typing surface is elevated a little bit,
02:29but once you get used to it, it's a nice keyboard.
02:32The layout is spacious, the keystrokes are nice, and it also has programmable macro keys up top.
02:37I like the trackpad. It's a glass surface, Windows Precision drivers,
02:41blue lighting on the perimeter, and hardware buttons below it.
02:44These buttons have quite a bit of travel when you press it, but it's a good trackpad.
02:47Now, the performance on this device is excellent. We're talking just straight-up excellent.
02:52Now, this unit has an overclockable i9, and that's a chip that can get pretty hot,
02:55but the thermals on this device are really well done.
02:58Five heat pipes, big fans, big heatsinks, and blue heatsinks for extra bonus points.
03:03It's a great thermal design.
03:05The fans are quiet on idle, but they can get loud, especially if you spin them up fast.
03:09You'll want to use headphones when you're playing games.
03:11The GPU is an overclockable GTX 1070, and again, pushes out really good performance.
03:16This is a GPU that I think will last several years in terms of gaming life at 1080p.
03:20It's just a really good combination.
03:22The speakers are located on the bottom, but they sound really good, despite that imperfect location.
03:27They get loud, but still a clean sound, and there's a sub on the bottom.
03:30It's nothing crazy, but it gives it a little bass, or just some body to the audio.
03:34So, my overall thoughts on this bad boy.
03:36It is a powerful laptop, and I think that the 6-core CPU and the GTX 1070 are going to last quite a while.
03:42The components that they have in here are smart.
03:44It's overclockable, very well-cooled, and upgradability is good.
03:47It's easy to access, a little bulky and heavy.
03:50I mean, it's a 17-inch gaming laptop, right?
03:52So, if frequent transportation is a thing for you, then I would consider something thinner and or lighter.
03:57But if you don't need crazy portability, this is a pretty cool pickup.
04:00It's powerful, it's well-cooled, overclockable GPU, overclockable CPU.
04:04They did a lot of stuff right on this thing.
04:06Now, there's another variant to this that's going to come in AMD, like Ryzen and Vega for the CPU and GPU.
04:13And that's pretty promising, I'm excited for that.
04:16I don't know if I'll do a full review on it, because it's going to be very similar to this.
04:19But I'll probably post something on Twitter or maybe Instagram to kind of compare the two.
04:23But that's basically it.
04:24Okay, hope you guys enjoyed this video.
04:25Thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it.
04:27See you guys next time.