Keyboard - Acer Predator Helios 300 (2020 version I think)

falintothesun

I just bought this laptop off Amazon and it's great for just about everything, except the keyboard really seems to suck. Is there something wrong with my laptop, or is that a flaw in this laptop in general? (Or am I just really picky? ) 

To be clear, I haven't had a key not work at all, but the keys seem to either take quite the keypress and/or mostly a keypress in just the right spot to register that I've pressed them. As such, I'm constantly making typos or messing up on entering my passwords and such. I have an old Lenovo laptop that I got for $300 that has a better typing experience than this. 

I tested it to be sure I wasn't losing my mind, and for example, I can press the bottom-right corner (basically 15-25% of the key) on any single key and it won't register. (One finger, pressing only that key.) I did that on my regular cheap used desktop keyboard and it worked fine and registered every press. If I move my finger a little bit more onto the key, it presses about 80-90% of the time, but still not consistently like you'd expect it to work. I have a huge issue with the keys in the Q-P row and Z-? row but even sometimes mis-click on some of the home row keys.

Am I the only one? Did I get a defective copy? Does everyone just hate the keyboard but put up with it because it's pretty and the rest of the laptop is amazing? The keyboard is really my only complaint so far. Windows Update is on and the system is updated with standard updates but I haven't tried anything particular because I'm not sure exactly what would account for a keypress working only part of the time. Any help is appreciated!

Bishop2701

I have the same model and my keyboard sucks as well!  Some letters constantly repeat 3 to 4 times when pressed.  I have tried all of the tricks that I know of and no change!

busu3

Send it to acer and get your keyboard replaced if your laptop is under warranty. Such thing shouldn't happen.

falintothesun

busu3 said:

Send it to acer and get your keyboard replaced if your laptop is under warranty. Such thing shouldn't happen.

Even Tom's Hardware reviewed this laptop as did Jarrod's Tech on Youtube and they both said something similar about the keyboard. Is this model just prone to fault or are there just lots of faulty models out there like a 70/30 split? I even called Acer's tech support and they said the same but at the same time it's not like it doesn't work either. I'm worried I'd go through all the hassle to send it in and they'd just send it back and say nothing is wrong.

falintothesun

Bishop2701 said:

I have the same model and my keyboard sucks as well!  Some letters constantly repeat 3 to 4 times when pressed.  I have tried all of the tricks that I know of and no change!

I haven't had them repeat yet. What all have you tried and how long have you had it? I'm very on the fence over whether it's bad enough to send it back or if I should just assume the keyboard is awful on this model and live with it. It'd be fantastic hooked up to a docking station LOL.

busu3

falintothesun said:

busu3 said:

Send it to acer and get your keyboard replaced if your laptop is under warranty. Such thing shouldn't happen.

Even Tom's Hardware reviewed this laptop as did Jarrod's Tech on Youtube and they both said something similar about the keyboard. Is this model just prone to fault or are there just lots of faulty models out there like a 70/30 split? I even called Acer's tech support and they said the same but at the same time it's not like it doesn't work either. I'm worried I'd go through all the hassle to send it in and they'd just send it back and say nothing is wrong.

U have to send it to them otherwise there wont be any fix for it since it sounds like a hardware issue. Can you connect an external keyboard and see if the problem is still there?

falintothesun

I tried that last night. I connected a wireless keyboard and it worked fine so yeah, it would seem like it's physically the issue instead of a driver or something.

But is there a true purpose if I send it to them and there turns out to be nothing wrong (as in, it's just built with a horrible keyboard as other people have noted in different reviews)? Or if I take the time to send it back to Amazon and there is no problem? I'm also concerned if I were to send it back to Amazon and say "It's defective" they'd just say "No, it's not" because clearly the keyboard DOES work. It just doesn't work well like it should. I don't know what they'd fix in it and I don't see an actual Acer certified repair shop I could take it to for it to be looked at before going to a bigger step of taking it back.

I'm not trying to be a pain I just don't want to go through all the hassle to revert it to factory settings, send it back, and then have them tell me "It's fine, this is how it's built, nothing is physically wrong." and then send it back again for me to redo everything and still have the crappy keyboard anyways. I'm worried that's what would happen and I would go through a huge time and hassle for nothing.

busu3

The pressure issue is ok since it may be how the keyboard is designed but since u sad there is a big problem with 2 full rows of the keyboard i dont think its a good idea to keep it with you. U can send a video to amazon as proof. Can you state the issue you are facing with the 2 rows?

NYCMC

I have a different and older Acer laptop with specific keys not working unless you press and wait etc...usually it was r, s, l, o, k, backspace and several numbers. I scoured the internet as well as engage with the experts here. Tried it all including reinstalling Windows.  I finally fixed it myself and using the laptop now with 0 issues.  I'm not saying you are experiencing the same type of problem but when I was researching a solution this appeared to be a common problem across many models.  Anyway, I'm posting a link to my fix.  Good luck

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/973079#Comment_973079

NateIsTaken

I have a Helios 300 2019 model, so this does not really apply to mine, but based off my experiences and common sense it seems like this should be covered under warranty? I understand that time being wasted is a fear of yours but it seems like this would really dampen productivity. Again, I do not have the 2020 model but the keyboard on mine is wonderful. I don't think that they would implement a straight-up worse keyboard on the next one, (although Apple and the butterfly keyboards may prove that wrong) so I think that this may be a widespread defect.

falintothesun

NateIsTaken said:

I have a Helios 300 2019 model, so this does not really apply to mine, but based off my experiences and common sense it seems like this should be covered under warranty? I understand that time being wasted is a fear of yours but it seems like this would really dampen productivity. Again, I do not have the 2020 model but the keyboard on mine is wonderful. I don't think that they would implement a straight-up worse keyboard on the next one, (although Apple and the butterfly keyboards may prove that wrong) so I think that this may be a widespread defect

Oddly enough that seems to be the case. I have seen all sorts of reports of how wonderful the 2019 model is and it got all sorts of recommendations and I didn't see anyone saying "oh the keyboard is trash". In this version however, I've seen at least 2 popular reviewers (and multiple people make general mentions) that the keyboard is awful or at the very best, "OK" or "usable". But I wonder if it is as you said, the keyboard is OK on some of them but there are many defective units floating around. I bought a new wireless desktop keyboard so I could switch it between my laptop and so far that's working even though it doesn't get at the root issue lol.

falintothesun

NYCMC said:

I have a different and older Acer laptop with specific keys not working unless you press and wait etc...usually it was r, s, l, o, k, backspace and several numbers. I scoured the internet as well as engage with the experts here. Tried it all including reinstalling Windows.  I finally fixed it myself and using the laptop now with 0 issues.  I'm not saying you are experiencing the same type of problem but when I was researching a solution this appeared to be a common problem across many models.  Anyway, I'm posting a link to my fix.  Good luck

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/973079#Comment_973079

That's helpful to know, and I've actually seen a lot of people mention the ribbon cable being an issue and I wonder if that's all it is. ! I was thinking about trying to check out a video on how to access it on this model and see if that makes it better before I go through any more trouble. Thanks so much for the link too. 

It's a shame too because I had an old Acer Aspire desktop that I loved and then the laptop seems to be a different story (though, I still mostly love it).

falintothesun

busu3 said:

The pressure issue is ok since it may be how the keyboard is designed but since u sad there is a big problem with 2 full rows of the keyboard i dont think its a good idea to keep it with you. U can send a video to amazon as proof. Can you state the issue you are facing with the 2 rows?

I may have explained it wrong. It's not that I have an issue with two of the rows, it's that I have an issue with all of the keys (main ones anyway), it just manifests more in the rows that aren't home-row since I'm not directly positioned over them.

Basically, I can touch a corner, 15-25% of any given letter or number and it doesn't register that I've pressed it at all unless I press hard enough on a corner that it sort of forces the middle down also. This is not the case for my old laptop, my keyboard at work, my old keyboard at home, my new wireless keyboard, none of them. On all those, if I press the corner of a key it registers a key press. On here, if I don't have my fingers positioned directly or almost directly over a key it won't register that I've pressed it.

The reason I mentioned the top and bottom rows is because my fingers are not hitting dead center on the keys when I'm typing thus it misses a lot of keystrokes.

busu3

faintothesun said:

busu3 said:

The pressure issue is ok since it may be how the keyboard is designed but since u sad there is a big problem with 2 full rows of the keyboard i dont think its a good idea to keep it with you. U can send a video to amazon as proof. Can you state the issue you are facing with the 2 rows?

I may have explained it wrong. It's not that I have an issue with two of the rows, it's that I have an issue with all of the keys (main ones anyway), it just manifests more in the rows that aren't home-row since I'm not directly positioned over them.

Basically, I can touch a corner, 15-25% of any given letter or number and it doesn't register that I've pressed it at all unless I press hard enough on a corner that it sort of forces the middle down also. This is not the case for my old laptop, my keyboard at work, my old keyboard at home, my new wireless keyboard, none of them. On all those, if I press the corner of a key it registers a key press. On here, if I don't have my fingers positioned directly or almost directly over a key it won't register that I've pressed it.

The reason I mentioned the top and bottom rows is because my fingers are not hitting dead center on the keys when I'm typing thus it misses a lot of keystrokes.

Then it may be a design defect of the keyboard. Below the keys there will be rubber buttons. If these buttons are too small, then they cant be pressed fully downwards(when pressing on the corners) so they will bend to one side while being pressed thus not registering the keystroke. But still you should contact either amazon or acer(CC) since this is just a plausible explanation but there may be something much worse going on with the keyboard. Just ask amazon or acer to type something long and when they see the keystrokes not registering they will know..

ashubisht

Did anyone got the solution. Or a hack? I just replaced my keyboard, and even new keyboard have same issue. It seems you have to press keys exactly on center else it will miss keys. It seems I have to slow down my typing speed, adjust to new keyboard and press each keys really hard to type what I actually want to type. Not a very good experience. Of trying more than dozens of laptop, this one has the worst keys.