Acer Brings Predator Helio & Nitro 5 to Evolving Indian Gamers

The latest series of gaming laptops from Acer can be overclocked, sleeker and relatively cheaper than before.

Acer Predator Helios 300 gaming notebook. 

(Photo: The Quint)

Overclocking used to be a complex, technical process that was privy to the geeks before. But with products like the Acer Predator Helios and Nitro 5, brands like Acer are showing that gaming doesn’t need to be a niche thing to do anymore.

The latest Acer gaming notebooks were globally announced earlier in 2017, and it has taken the brand more than 6 months to launch them in India. With the price starting at Rs 75,000 for the Nitro 5 and Rs 1.29 lakh for the Predator Helios 300, Acer is giving gamers in India more hardware to fiddle with.

This is where the overclocking happens.  (Photo: The Quint)

Even though we say that gaming space in India is evolving, there’s still a long way to go before notebooks in this category can be called mainstream. However, the change is quite visible.

Gaming laptops have moved beyond the Alienwares, which means you don’t have to spend anywhere close 1.5 lakh to get a performance-oriented hardware. The HP Omen, Asus ROG Series and now Acer’s Predator Helios are showing us the way.

In addition to that, you’re also looking at sleeker notebooks that don’t weigh you into submission, allowing you to carry them for purposes other than gaming.

You can still upgrade the hardware (storage and RAM to be precise) in these devices, which is sacrosanct for gamers in general.

Backlight keyboards on both Nitro 5 and Helios 300.  (Photo: The Quint)

In terms of power, you’re getting Intel Core i5 or i7 (7th generation) as options paired with 16 or 32 gigs of RAM, depending on your go-to-budget. We don’t know the battery support that the Helios or the Nitro 5 can cater to, but these are gaming notebooks, and we couldn’t care less.

Cooling part of the notebook taken care by the fans on the side.  (Photo: The Quint)

With so much power on board, you’d expect these laptops to become a hot furnace in no time. However, it’s good to see brands like Acer making sure the cooling aspect of these devices is well taken care of.

For gaming laptops, both Helios 300 and Nitro 5 don’t weigh a lot.  (Photo: The Quint)

You get backlight keyboard (with essential lighting on the main keys), onboard graphics card, multiple connectivity USB (2.0 and 3.0) ports, USB Type C makes an appearance too, and yes, Ethernet option as well.