 Solving traffic congestion and easily getting people to and from work in a way that's environmentally friendly sounds fantastic. Until you realize that I'm describing the segway. On the other hand, putting a bunch of mirrors on a mountain to bounce sunlight in the winter months sounds pretty dumb, but it's actually been fantastic for Rajukin in Norway where otherwise they wouldn't see real sunlight for 7 months. Which brings us to the Acer Predator Helios 700 which can do this. Which depending on how it performs is either boneheaded or absolutely brilliant and, spoilers, it works really well. Just like today's sponsor will work great for you, GlassWire. What is going in and out of your PC when you're connected to the internet? Find out with GlassWire and see if there are any suspicious apps badly behaving. Use offer code LINUS to get 25% off at the link below. This laptop right here, it's damn fast. We're talking an Intel i9, 9980HK 8-core processor, an Nvidia RTX 2080 along with 32GB of RAM and two 512GB SSDs in RAID 0. Meaning we've got the kind of power that can't be cooled by just some pinner heatsinks. To solve that cooling problem, Acer has equipped the Helios 700 with something of a party piece. This movable keyboard. Fortunately that sounds pretty easy to turn off. Moving the keyboard forward allows the fans to suck in fresh air from above. And according to Acer, this leads to a 13.9% increase in airflow compared to when the keyboard is docked in its original mode. This airflow combined with five heatpipes, which you can see through this pretty cool Gorilla Glass window, and some massive heatsinks on the side, mean the Helios 700 stays incredibly well cooled for a laptop. After looping 3DMark's time spy for half an hour, the GPU hits only 56 degrees Celsius. What? That's better than the vast majority of desktop GPUs. And with it regularly boosting between 17 and 1800MHz, the Helios 700 is the fastest gaming laptop we've ever tested. Beating out the Alienware Area 51M by about 5% in terms of frame rates. Now, as for the CPU, the cooling isn't quite as amazing. And by that I mean it regularly gets above 95 degrees, but that doesn't mean it's slow. Since it's still the second fastest CPU in a laptop just behind the Alienware Area 51M by, again, about 5%. Meaning in games, the Helios 700 and the Area 51M trade blows to try and see who's the fastest gaming laptop in the world. All of this means while gaming, you're going to have one hell of a good time on the Helios 700. With your frame rates easily exceeding the 144Hz of display, even when on high details. The display itself is pretty great. It's 1080p 144Hz IPS panel generally looks great in games. Even if the frames dip just a bit since it does have G-Sync support. But there is one problem. It's just too far away. With the keyboard undocked, I'm sitting a bit over two feet away from the display, which is great on a 27-inch monitor. But I just can't quite make it the details on a 17-inch one. Now, this isn't a deal breaker for me. Just don't forget your glasses before a gaming session. Or noise-canceling headphones. And maybe some earmuffs as well. Because while gaming or doing basically anything, the Helios 700 is just so freaking loud. It sounds like this almost all the time when you're installing a program, watching a video, or even just Windows updating in the background. And the problem isn't just that it's creating near 60 decibels of noise, similar to that of an air conditioner. But that high-pitched whine is just so bad. If you blindfolded me and stuck me beside this machine, I'd think you took me into an old house during a hurricane. Here it is against the Area 51M, a pretty loud machine on its own, right? So you can get an idea of just how incredibly distracting these fans are. Okay. Fortunately, the Helios 700 has some more things to try and win me over, though. For one, the trackpad is pretty awesome for a gaming laptop. It features Windows precision drivers and just does a good job. But the keyboard is where things get really interesting. So in this little case right here, we have replacement keys for WSAD and this handy-dandy keycap puller. But these are more than just fancy pieces of plastic. On the bottom, instead of the rubber dome, you'll find a spring, meaning instead of having a tactile bump, they go down smoothly and linearly. Now, this might seem kind of dumb. Why would you want just those keys to feel different? But down there is also a magnet that lets the computer know how far you have pressed the keys. Then it is able to relay that information to your game to give you full analog control of your character, similar to what you get using a controller. Now, in theory, I really like this, but in practice, I just don't really care. Only about half the games that I tried supported it, and even in those, I found it really hard to maintain a moderate key press. Not even to mention that while using these keys, your typing experience is just completely ruined. Not that it's that great in the first place. Like the keyboard, it's fine. With the rubber domes giving me some decent feedback, but like every Acer keyboard, I find the force required to press the keys is just a bit too high and they're a bit mushy. And I just I could just never get into it. On the Area 51M though, they're just so much smoother. Like, hmm. Where the Helios 700 does beat out the Area 51M though is in the speakers. The Helios has five of them plus a sub. And this makes for quite an impressive listening experience. Until you undock the keyboard and block the front speakers. It just muddles the sound. Taking the speakers from like a solid A to more of a B, and then the fans kick in and you're looking at more of like a B minus. So it's about the same as the Alienware when the keyboard's undocked. But on a more positive note, the construction is solid. If I had to choose between getting clocked over the head by this or a baseball bat, it would take a while for me to consider which one to use. But despite its over 10 pounds of heft, the Helios 700 only gets a 70 watt hour battery. That's less than an LG gram. You'll be lucky to stay away from the charger for two and a half hours. That's assuming that you're not gaming. Although, honestly, I think that's good enough from a machine this powerful. The sting of the thickness is also removed a bit by the excellent I.O. With Thunderbolt 3 and 2.5 gigabit ethernet being the real standouts here. The Helios 700 also has pretty decent upgrade ability. With the storage and two empty RAM slots accessible by just removing two screws. Although it does still fall behind the Area 51 M in that regard. It has the removable CPU and GPU. Now we need to talk about my least favorite part of this machine. The looks. When the keyboard is docked, the boxy design and massive bezels around the screen make this less like a futuristic gaming weapon. And more like a rice dough rugged laptop from 2014. I'm sorry about that Acer. And when undocking the keyboard around people in the office, it's been met with laughs just as often as amazement. Kind of like telling all your friends you got a supercar and then showing up in a gumpered Apollo instead of a Ferrari. Which brings us to the big question. For four grand, should you get a Helios 700? Probably not. I know at the start of the video I said that if something works, it's not dumb. And Acer's sliding keyboard does offer the best GPU thermals we've ever seen in a laptop. It's just also so incredibly loud and the screen's too far away. And it obstructs the speakers as well. For the same amount of money you can get a very similarly specced Alienware Area 51 M. That's a lot quieter, has a much better keyboard, and it's more upgradeable. But most importantly for me, when I use it I feel like a badass. And speaking of badass, this sponsor segue. The Mastrop Object 2 headphone amplifier, AKA the O2 amp, was designed and created based on over 500 members of the audio community's feedback. And it serves as the ideal baseline reference amplifier that can power anything from in-ear monitors to HD 800s. You can adjust the input, output, and power arrangements in two different gains, medium and standard, and the O2 delivers big, clear, and accurate sound. New users who sign up to the website are going to get $20 off this amp, and you guys can check that out at drop.com at the link in the video description. So thanks for watching guys. If this video sucked, like, we spent so much time on this set, how can you not like it? So just hit like, get subscribed, and check out where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description. Also down there is the link to our merch store which has... Okay, it doesn't have a Stormtrooper outfit. And our community forum which you should totally join.