Hey everybody! Welcome to Fearless Gear Reviews the show that tells you the truth about a piece of equipment and not what the corporation wants me to say! Today we’re checking out the Acer Predator Helios 300 Laptop.
For those of you who are asking “why are you reviewing a laptop, this is a music show?”
Well, musicians tend to record a lot of music on laptops these days, and in my case I use mine not only for recording in the field but checking and tweaking mixes in various environments, video editing, and once in the blue moon (if I get a spare minute), I might actually play a video game on it.
Last spring I realized my trusty Asus gaming laptop, which I’ve had since 2012, was beginning to show its age! It’s getting a little clunky with the video editing especially after upgrading to Windows 10. That and the 15” screen really left something to be desired.
So, while I was at Thomann’s Gearhead University I notice my friends from the channel “German Music Reviews” were editing their videos on a 17” MSI laptop and that piqued my curiosity! On return to Canada, I hit up my good friends at PC Outfitters in Windsor Ontario with a request “ I need a 17” laptop with the primary function of video editing”
Now I’ve been going to these guys for roughly 20 years and they’re a great bunch of dudes and have never steered me wrong. If you’re in the Windsor area and you need a pc, go see them they’re awesome.
So they come back to me with a recommendation for the Acer Predator Helios 300. I purchased it on may 2nd and initially I was very happy with it- Bigger screen, much faster, and the overall experience was great, adobe premiere worked with no problem what so ever and it could shoot through those 4 way split screen renders those can be a real pig on CPU resources.
I was so impressed with it that I bought a second one for my wife who is a serious gamer. However about 6 weeks ago the problems started. Somehow the video driver got knocked out, there are two chips on the Acer one by Intel and one by Nvidia. I was editing away one day and noticed the video performance had slowed down significantly so I checked my Nvidia control panel to see what’s up and realized that the control panel had just fucking vanished.
The video editor was using the Intel chip which is pretty much useless for video! The whole damn card was gone! Windows just didn’t see it. Naturally the first thing I did was update the drivers, no luck, fuck this, it’s under warranty I’ll let them deal with it.
I take it back to the shop and the next day they say it’s ready, cool, head home fire it up – no function in the video card.
Fast forward to the week of November 5th I get a black screen and windows needs to be reinstalled and so do all my applications.
Now here’s the deal, reviews like this are patron supported and I want to make the best possible content for you guys I have 16 gear reviews coming for you over the next month or two. I’ve got to get those done and a whole lot more, instead Acer has decided I’m better off spending my time trying to get their shitty laptop working. So back to the fucking shop yet again.
I told them straight up, I don’t want to see this thing unless it working I’ve wasted enough time the conversation went like this:
Employee: well it’s a good machine.
Me: No, It’s not a good machine.
Employee: but Its a good machine.
Me: A good machine is one that works I don’t give a fuck what the specs are. If it doesn’t work then it’s worthless. My Asus from 2012 is a good machine I broke 3 of the power supplies for It and it weighs half a metric fuck ton but the machine itself works that something the predator doesn’t do.
So back to Acer my laptop goes, when will I see it again who the fuck knows, it might be days, it might be months why is this laptop such a useless fucking cunt.
If your thinking of getting an Acer Predator laptop DONT!
While the specs are great it’s a rampaging pile of dog shit and a complete waste of time and money. It’s unstable, unreliable, and it gets in the way of the user accomplishing work.
As a diehard PC user for the last 26 years, Acer has somehow managed to make the most compelling argument ever to switch to a Mac.
Again, thank you to my Patrons for making this video possible!
