acer Predator Helios 700 PH717-71 17.3-inch Gaming Laptop - (Intel Core i7-9750H, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD and 1TB HDD, Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070, Full HD 144Hz Display, Windows 10, Black)

Model PH717-71-98 KW I9/2080 32GB DDR4 RAM Two western digital drives are in raid 0 at a 931.51 GB capacity and are solid state. These are your os drive. They describe themselves as 'Intel Levant' to the outside world. They are indeed fast. Drive D is a Seagate mechanical Data drive model ST1000LM049-2GH172 sata III 6Gb/sec 7200 rpm thing My 2019 Christmas pressie to myself. Very indulgent I know! This has been reviewed extensively elsewhere because of the combination of processor (i9 9980HK) alongside a RTX 2080 mobile. I'll just tell you what stands out to me (apart from the cost) It plays *anything* on steam with ease. Yes it can be used as a desktop replacement. It boots in a very short time after windows 10 is setup. The metal finned fans on overclock sound like a plane starting up, but the air is needed for the components. Of course you can turn on power saver and give it a rest occasionally. Dust is visible after a while where it gets taken in at a fast rate and needs cleaning. You can feel the air coming out in the room at a very high speed from both the sides and rear of this unit. This can distract from the internal audio volume so headphones are good for when it's on "turbo extreme" The power supply is rated at 16 amps!! DC into the unit , the cable is really thick. It can draw 330 watts from the mains socket like some PCs do. I like how it does not apologise for being so over the top. Screen is 144Hz ips Lcd/led backlit 1080p (not HDR) - I feel at the price point it could have had an oled panel and much bigger battery. The battery won't really work for anything near an hour for me so you have to stay connected to the mains if you want to play demanding games. None of it's minor shortcomings were a surprise as they allow for the money to go into other areas or components. And there are restrictions on the size of battery on a flight. Be great to be able to add extra capacity when on the ground though. Get an extended warranty or insure this, as Acer only hand out a year for a £3K -3.5K machine which is pretty tight of them. It's very heavy and could leave you very sore if dropped on a foot. It is only partially metal covered so the plastic at the rear would crack if dropped in a royal fashion. The lights are pretty but I feel the keys that pop off (WASD) may fail in the future. I'd be inclined to order a replacement keyboard for when things start to get worn. I've had 40+ days of amazing fun playing on this so far. I found myself forgetting about the computer because I'm totally into a game which is why I give this a very good above average 4/5 score. It does handle heat pretty well. If it wasn't so quick I might not have forgiven the 8 bit colour screen. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7 months from new both gpu and cpu fans suddenly stopped forcing the unit to reach temperatures of almost 100 c in minutes it was pretty scary - the unit has been discontinued by acer i'd imagine the fans failed at the same time because thier power supply did, but i've never seen such a dangerous situation on such an expensive device. Simply touching the unit caused burns. I would avoid this model and brand now- it is not worth having a fire. The amount of money to lose on 2 fan failiures overheating a 2080 and i9 and burning them out is over 1450 pounds plus labour(still waiting for my warranty repair) - things don't feel promising. Parts are being ordered but nothing done in weeks. Poor communication. Covid is mentioned a lot. I am left with the feeling that the cost of purchase was a really a 7 month rental. 2 months waiting for repair so far.