Announced earlier this year, the Acer Predator Helios 3D 15 SpatialLabs Edition was tucked into the gaming announcements, offering a 13th gen Intel Core processors and an RTX graphics card powering a stereoscopic glasses free 3D gaming experience from SpatialLabs. It’s now available in Australia and we got to check it out in person.

The Predator Helios 3D 15 SpatialLabs Edition – that’s a mouthful – offers a high-end spec for its almost $7,600 price tag. It packs a 13th gen Intel Core i9-13900HX processor with options up to an NVIDIA RTX4080 GPU, 32GB RAM and 2TB of solid state storage – and of course that stereoscopic glasses free 3D display.

The 15.6” IPS display offers full UHD resolution graphics, with the caveat that it drops to 1080p gaming at 60Hz for 3D, but it’s an experience that’s quite interesting and offers a new experience to games you’ve played and loved before.

I’ve been using the Acer Predator Helios 15 SpatialLabs Edition for three weeks and here’s how it went.

Design

The laptop is fairly large, unfortunately a little too large to fit into my backpack and at 2.98kg in weight, it’s more of a luggable than a fully fledged laptop. 

The laptop design is fairly standard with it’s black lid and Predator logo embedded discreetly in the top. Like a number of gaming laptops these days it includes the usual outcrop at the rear, which of course adds a lot of internal space for more components and cooling. There’s also additional cooling with vents at the side, on the base with large rubber feet to lift the laptop off the bench and on the keyboard deck.

As a gaming laptop it has a certain aesthetic, with an RGB light bar built-in to the rear and of course the keyboard has RGB lighting and can be configured to light up in a number of ways.

The large keyboard is of course backlit with RGB lighting and ncludes the numeric keypad on the side, with controls for both the laptop and media above it. The keyboard itself is quite nice for gaming, though has a little too much travel in the keys for long periods of writing. There’s also a quick control for your PredatorSense modes at the top of the keyboard deck which makes it easy to quickly change.

A large, responsive trackpad which supports all your favourite gestures is centred on the keyboard giving it an offset look overall. I did tend to use an external mouse for gaming, though the trackpad works well if you are really 

As a gaming focused laptop, the Predator Helios 15 3D SpatialLabs Edition includes a plethora of connectivity options with an RJ45 Ethernet jack, USB-A, microSD card reader and headphone jack on the left, dual USB-A ports on the right and dual USB-C/Thunderbolt 4 ports on the rear alongside a HDMI 2.1 port and the charging port. 

The 15.6” IPS display of course dominates the top of the unit, with a thick bar at the top and bottom, and thinner bezels at the sides. The top includes an array of eye tracking sensors for the SpatialLabs 3D effect. One of these cameras operates as a webcam at 720p resolution (which is about as good quality as you’d expect), and though no privacy shutter is included, there’s an LED which lights up to indicate when the camera is in use. 

The camera also isn’t compatible with Windows Hello biometric authentication, and there’s also no fingerprint reader – so you’ll need to type your password to login each time. 

Hardware 

Display & Audio

The large 15.6” display is fantastic. It’s large, bright and offers 4K resolution in 2D and immersive 3D with 2K resolution at 60Hz.

The lack of 90 or 120Hz refresh is a little disappointing, however it works really well at those resolutions and at that refresh rate. Games at 60FPS look great, and there’s very little issue with screen tearing and the scrolling in Windows is fine. 

The display is very bright, with the 100% brightness very easy to see in low-light, or even in the sometimes harsh glare of a brightly lit office. The display has a glossy finish, so does reflect a little, so it’s something to be aware of.

Audio wise, the Predator Helios 3D 15 has a good base with dual speakers located under the laptop with one either side offering a decent stereo experience. The laptop includes DTS support for both speakers, as well as headphones which you can plug into the combo audio/headphone jack or you can of course pair some Bluetooth headphones. 

The audio is good, with a decent midrange though can get a little distorted at higher volumes and lacks a bit of grunt in the bass. It would be improved with more, and larger speakers for a more full surround effect but the current setup is fairly decent. 

SpatialLabs 3D

The true party trick of the Acer Predator Helios 3D 15 SpatialLabs Edition is of course the Stereoscopic 3D display and quite frankly, it’s a very cool effect .

The SpatialLabs 3D tech uses the eye tracking camera array built-in above the display, as well as depth sensors alongside to track each eye of the user. The 3D Lens on the display uses ‘rendered image pair’ from Unreal Engine to split the image for each eye and then based on the users eye position, it then projects pixels of the left image and right image towards each eye. 

The SpatialLabs Experience Centre is where you begin, and you’ll need the SpatialLabs TrueGame app, or SpatialLabs Go widget to launch the 3D experience. The TrueGame app includes support for dozens of titles including StarWars: Fallen Order, Quake, Alan Wake Remastered, Days Gone and lots more. For those that aren’t listed you can try support with the SpatialLabs Go floating widget which you can click to engage 3D on any game in fullscreen mode. 

When activated, the Stereoscopic 3D effect is truly remarkable – though hard to capture for a review. It effectively cuts in depth of field, by picking layers in the rendered game and bringing it forward or back in your field of view using the stereoscopic projection. 

While the technology is impressive, there are a couple of  downsides. The eye-tracking camera tech can be confused if it detects someone looking over your shoulder which is great for privacy, but bad for demos. 

The other was the need to use the Spatial Labs launcher to get the 3D Effect going, though you can use the SpatialLabs Go widget to drop you into 3D mode for almost any game running in FullScreen. I say almost, as I couldn’t get it running with Sons of the Forest, but for the most part it’s pretty good. 

All this aside, the glasses-free stereoscopic 3D display is a neat addition to the Predator Helios 15, giving you a fresh take on your old favourites. I had a blast using it, and it was a fun feature to show off, though extended use can be a little hard on the eyes.

Performance

As you’d expect with an 13th gen Intel Core i9 processor, 32GB DDR5 RAM, 2TB of PCIe NVMe SSD storage and an NVIDIA RTX4080 powering the show, there’s very few performance issues. 

The Intel Core i9-12900HX processor, still includes the 24 cores (8 power/16 efficiency) of the desktop design, though specced at lower clock cycles with lower TDP.  It’s a decent performing CPU though, with a number of laptops opting to use it for its broad appeal.

The only note, as with any laptop, is that once under load – gaming, 3D rendering etc. – the fans will turn on and can be a little loud. You can tune performance in the PredatorSense app, though a little fan noise is a small price to pay for getting things done quickly.

For a gaming laptop you’ll get the most out of it being powered. The laptop can deliver some good gaming efforts, with 50-60fps on games like Sons of the Forest, Star Wars: Fallen Order and Cyberpunk 2077. It drops significantly when using the eco settings for battery, however you’ll only get between one to two hours on battery when gaming, so probably better off bringing your charger.

Of course we ran the Acer Predator Helios 3D 15 SpatialLabs Edition through the 3D Mark Time Spy and CPU Spy benchmarks and here’s how it did.

Battery and Charging

The size of the Predator Helios 15 3D means it packs a large 90Wh Li-ion battery, and comes with a 330W charging brick with a barrel style connector. 

The 330W charger is massive and heavy to lug about, though it charges the laptop extremely quickly. You can go from 0-almost 60% full in just half an hour or to almost 90% in an hour. 

In terms of battery life, the Predator Sense software will automatically drop you into Balanced Mode when you disconnect power. 

Balanced Mode sets the screen brightness to 40% and sets the fans and scales down CPU/GPU cycles appropriately. You can of course manually amp up to more powerful options, though you’ll drain power faster if you do.

Battery life is pretty average, with around 3-4 hours with the system in Balanced Mode doing simple web surfing, some video and general office work in Google Docs. If you want to spin up a game you can expect to go for around an hour before the battery gives in.  

Overall it’s a fairly impressive battery life. Despite the massive size, the 330W power brick will get you charged back up in a relatively small amount of time. 

Software

As you’d expect, the Predator Helios 15 is loaded with Windows 11, though you get the Pro version pre-installed. There’s no huge difference for most users, though the additional features can be handy if you need them.

There’s a smattering of pre-installed apps on the laptop including tools for controlling your hardware. There’s the NVIDIA GeForce Experience app for your GPU, DTS apps for your audio, Killer Wifi utility to ensure you have a great connection and of course some Acer apps.

McAfee LiveSafe is included with a 30-day trial. You will be constantly reminded of the trial end date in the lead up to it. If you need it, then hit the renew subscription, or if not, you can uninstall it in favour of your preferred antivirus. 

There’s the Acer Care Centre for keeping your laptop healthy and even getting in touch with support, as well as the Acer PredatorSense gaming control software . PredatorSense is one of the more handy utilities for monitoring your laptops performance, configuring and choosing performance profiles, changing your RGB lighting and more.

Then of course there’s the SpatialLabs software for controlling the Stereoscopic 3D display. It’s a decent app, though split into parts including the Experience Centre itself, the SpatialLabs Go app, a 3D Model Viewer and a Game Launcher

Should you buy it?

At $7,600, the Acer Predator Helios 3D 15 SpatialLabs Edition is a machine for the gaming enthusiast.

While the 3D display isn’t the only feature, it is a very cool addition to the already high-end gaming chops on this laptop. A display capable of a higher refresh rate would be appreciated, however it works well at 60fps. 

The laptop really doesn’t perform well on the go. It’s large size requires a larger bag, and the battery life isn’t going to see you through a day. The power brick is also bulky, though it does charge the laptop quickly. If you’re looking for a gaming station you can move between places though, it works well. 

As a gaming laptop it offers a lot of power and there’s pretty wide support for games on the 3D display, but if 3D gamingt has no attraction for you it’s a hard sell at that price. If your do want to experience glasses free gaming though, the Acer Predator Helios 3D 15 SpatialLabs Edition should definitely be on your list to check out.