Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 review: Gaming laptop goes all-in on speed

Price When Reviewed

$1,699.99

Best Prices Today: Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 (2024)

Acer’s Predator laptops are recognized for his or her high-end configurations, however the Predator Helios Neo fashions discover a number of areas to carry again with a purpose to mix excessive efficiency with stronger worth. The 2024 Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 goals to do this with a middling design that doesn’t exude class or boast of a flowery invoice of supplies, but it surely nonetheless manages to pack in elements prepared for gaming. 

Looking for extra choices? Check out PCWorld’s roundup of the best gaming laptops.

Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 (2024): Specs and options

The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 comes at a base value of $1,449. At that tier, it presents a 1920×1200 show with a 165Hz refresh price, an Intel Core i7-14650HX, 16GB of reminiscence, an RTX 4060, and 1TB of storage. Curiously, for a similar value, there’s additionally a config that upgrades the CPU to an Intel Core i9-14900HX processor, which needs to be an apparent decide to snag. 32GB of reminiscence, 2TB of storage, an RTX 4070, and the 2560 x 1600 show examined right here. The take a look at configuration right here (the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 PHN16-72-75NK / PHN16-72-73Q5), prices $1,699 and comes with an Intel Core i7-14700HX, 32GB of reminiscence, an RTX 4070, and the boosted show with a 2560×1600, 240Hz panel that shines brighter and has a wider shade gamut.

• CPU: Intel Core i7-14700HX
• Memory: 32GB DDR5-5600
• Graphics/GPU: Nvidia RTX 4070 (140-watt TGP)
• Display: 16-inch WQXGA (2560×1600), 240Hz IPS, G-Sync
• Storage: 1TB PCIe Gen4 SSD. 1x empty M.2 PCIe 4.0 x4 slot
• Webcam: 1080p
• Connectivity: 2x Thunderbolt 4, 2x USB-C 3.2 Gen 2, 1xUSB-A 3.2 Gen 1, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x Ethernet, 1x microSD card reader, 1x 3.5mm combo audio. 1x Kensington lock slot
• Networking: WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3
• Battery capability: 90 watt-hours
• Dimensions: 14.08 x 11.02 x 1.28 inches
• Weight: 5.8 kilos (8.4 kilos with charging brick)
• MSRP: $1,699 as-tested ($1,449 base)

Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 (2024): Design and construct high quality

IDG / Mark Knapp

The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 is a 5.8-pound beast of a machine, although it’s not as chunky as you may anticipate from a 16-inch gaming machine. It measures slightly over an inch thick, although the meaty rubber toes it stands on add a stunning quantity of additional thickness. Side-to-side, it’s additionally not unreasonable, with little or no extraneous house on both fringe of the display screen or keyboard. Still, front-to-back, it’s bigger with the jutting out rear that’s develop into frequent on highly effective gaming laptops.

The dimension is smart with all of the {hardware} Acer is packing in right here. High efficiency CPUs and high-wattage GPUs want extra steel to sink their warmth into, and that’s what’s stuffed inside right here. The system additionally squeezes in a 90Wh battery to maintain the system up and working away from the beefy 330-watt energy brick — a 2.6-pound accent that may single-handedly make you need to keep away from prolonged, on-the-go use.

As the system is just about stuffed to the gills, it finally ends up feeling virtually rock stable though it’s virtually all plastic. The keyboard deck flexes ever so barely, however comes nowhere close to fear. The high teck and sides really feel like a clean polycarbonate whereas the underside of the laptop computer seems like a rougher ABS. Only the show lid has gotten the steel remedy, serving to the display screen keep away from a lot bending. 

The high of the laptop computer can also be the place Acer determined to place most of its vogue. There’s a metallic Predator brand embedded into the lid and some markings emblazoned elsewhere on the lid. This “coding” on the lid varies from mannequin to mannequin, and is probably not current on US fashions. The rear exhaust ports even have a transparent plastic cowl on the highest that exhibits via to “Helios,” “Neo,” and “16” etched alongside its size.

Turning again to the underside of the laptop computer, the bottom is held on by a number of screws. These present entry to user-upgradeable RAM and storage slots. It’s slightly unlucky there’s no easy-access panel for these elements, however they shouldn’t want common swapping anyway.

Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 (2024): Keyboard, trackpad

IDG / Mark Knapp

Acer’s keyboard is equal elements good and irritating. For a laptop computer keyboard, the 2mm of journey is good to see, and the membrane beneath every swap offers a pleasant, stable pop. I used to be rapidly capable of rise up to hurry, typing at 120 words-per-minute with respectable accuracy. They have a little bit of mush to among the corners, making them not essentially the most constant, however they’ll get the job executed.

The structure of the keys is a nuisance although. Acer has wedged full-size arrow keys between the principle keyboard and the quantity pad. This sees the Up Arrow reduce into the house of the Right Shift key, and the Right Arrow reduce into the 0 key’s house. If you frequently use both of those keys, be ready to unintentionally hit arrow keys and completely throw off no matter you’re doing frequently. The comparatively flat keycaps additionally make it slightly simple to lose observe of their heart and find yourself on the unsuitable keys every so often.

The keyboard can also be one space the place Acer trimmed price, providing 4-zone RGB lighting as an alternative of per-key. This isn’t a giant draw back, however extra shade management may have truly helped right here as it will have supplied an choice to focus on the arrow keys to keep away from unintentionally hitting them as a lot.

Acer has supplied a reasonably sizable trackpad on the Predator Helios Neo, taking good benefit of the house accessible under the keyboard. There’s nonetheless room for it to have gone larger — additional width may need helped keep away from having to succeed in throughout their physique for right-handed customers, because it’s barely left of the laptop computer’s centerline — but it surely’s nonetheless lots for even four-finger gestures. Depressing the trackpad leads to a satisfying, heavy click on, although it’s tougher to press the upper up you go. My fingers glide easily alongside the trackpad, and it registers my touches precisely whereas additionally offering efficient palm rejection. Mouse motion with the trackpad leaves slightly to be desired, lagging barely behind quicker actions, ensuring issues (like scribbling a signature) troublesome.

Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 (2024): Display, audio

IDG / Mark Knapp

You can get a reasonably spectacular show on the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16. The base mannequin’s 1920×1200 panel is probably not as succesful, however the 2560×1600 panel has quite a bit to supply. Its quick 240Hz refresh price is backed by fast sufficient pixel response time that movement blur and ghosting are saved minimal. There are faint trails behind fast-paced objects, however not sufficient to majorly influence gameplay. The show can also be fairly vivid, hitting between 470 and 490 nits at its peak relying on the on-screen content material. That brightness combines with an anti-glare end that makes it simple to see in most environments.

The show is joyously sharp with the pairing of decision and panel dimension. And that sharpness is maintained by an honest distinction ratio. More importantly, the panel can attain 100 % protection of the DCI-P3 shade house and ship it precisely. There is a few dependence on the output supply although. I famous the built-in graphics hitting 100 % of DCI-P3 however providing inaccurate colours out of the field whereas the Nvidia GPU fell to 99 % protection of the DCI-P3 however had distinctive shade accuracy, with a mean dE of simply 0.66. This distinction in capabilities might be problematic for any creators utilizing their pc on the go, the place it’s extra prone to lean on built-in graphics for energy financial savings.

The audio system on the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 aren’t so spectacular. Using the included DTS:X Ultra software program, they’ll get pretty loud, sufficient to be heard over the whining followers whereas gaming, however they’ve an disagreeable high quality to them at max worth, with missing again and overemphasized mids and treble. The audio system additionally sound a bit boxed in, which creates a little bit of reverberation that lowers the standard of the sound. With the DTS optimizations disabled, the audio system go from OK to particularly skinny, just like the life has been sucked out of them.

Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 (2024): Webcam, microphone, biometrics

Video high quality is modest coming from the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16’s 1080p webcam. In vivid circumstances, it seems to be moderately sharp and will definitely do for video conferencing. The microphones don’t again it up very properly, capturing somewhat faint audio. On the plus facet, the mics do job eliminating background noise.

Acer hasn’t included any biometrics for safety on the gadget, so that you’ll be counting on a pin or password. Facial recognition nonetheless isn’t commonplace, but it surely’s coming to extra gadgets, and that goes for fingerprint scanners even moreso. That lack is a giant of a letdown on this extra premium system. 

Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 (2024): Connectivity

IDG / Mark Knapp

The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 covers its bases for connectivity fairly properly. A pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports alongside the rear go together with an HDMI 2.1 port and a DC barrel connector. This is a fairly sensible association that may see the laptop computer utilized in a desktop setup largely rely solely on these rear ports for connectivity given how a lot the Thunderbolt 4 ports can deal with. 

Acer packs in much more on the edges. There are three USB-A ports, two on the correct (3.2 Gen 2) and one on the left (3.2 Gen 1). A microSD card slot additionally sits on the left facet together with a 3.5mm audio jack and an RJ-45 Ethernet port. A Kensington lock slot can also be inbuilt. 

Wireless connectivity can also be a powerful level with Wi-Fi 6E offering loads of bandwidth and stability. I noticed no points and loads of pace downloading giant sport recordsdata for benchmarking. 

With Killer Wi-Fi and Killer Ethernet, the system offers a wise hand-off system (referred to as Killer DoubleShot Pro) that may shift site visitors between Wi-Fi and Ethernet, placing precedence site visitors on whichever is working higher, and shifting lower-priority site visitors to the opposite connection. Bluetooth connections to a pair of headphones supplied fast and secure, even in a busy RF surroundings. 

Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 (2024): Performance

Given the {hardware} it has packed inside, it needs to be no shock that the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 presents some spectacular efficiency outcomes. Between its core-packed processor and high-wattage RTX 4070, it has plenty of muscle to energy via most workloads that may be thrown at it, and that pans out with excessive PCMark 10 outcomes. The excessive rating of the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 additionally tells a narrative of the importance of ample reminiscence, quick storage, and enough cooling. The Razer Blade 16 (2024), which prices practically twice as a lot at $3,299, ought to have been geared up to beat Acer right here with its higher-tier Core i9 processor, but it surely truly lagged behind in all of PCMark 10’s subcategories. Its thinner design doubtless had an element to play, with warmth throttling efficiency. 

Acer additionally has improved efficiency over final yr’s mannequin, although a portion of that may be attributed to the higher-tier GPU on this evaluate unit. But the CPU has additionally supplied notable enhancements, simply outpacing the 2023 mannequin’s Intel Core i7-13700HX in single- and multi-core leads to Cinebench R15 and Cinebench R20. These focus completely on the CPU, so serve to focus on these variations. These outcomes once more spotlight the significance of cooling, with the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 managing neck-in-neck efficiency towards the Razer Blade 16 (2024)’s Intel Core i9-14900HX.

The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 repeats itself with quick encoding pace in Handbrake, changing a big 4K video file in slightly below 10 minutes. This not solely sees it exceed the speeds of the Razer Blade 16 but once more but in addition exhibits the advantages 14th Gen over 13th Gen, as Acer lands a win towards the Lenovo Legion Pro 7 Gen 8’s Intel Core i9-13900HX, which has extra cores and got here out forward in Cinebench however couldn’t sustain in Handbrake the place the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16’s increased clock speeds doubtless helped it prevail. 

Given the efficiency the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 already confirmed within the CPU division, it’s no shock to see that it might proceed to take advantage of its internals in terms of gaming. Naturally, it beat the RTX 4060 in its predecessor for our Time Spy benchmark, but it surely even outpaced the RTX 4070 GPUs within the three different rivals right here. That additionally proved true in 3DMark’s Port Royal benchmark, the place the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 led the pack with a rating of 7,730. 

Those artificial benchmark outcomes carried over to real-world gaming situations. Running the benchmarks in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and Metro Exodus, the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 solely as soon as failed to supply the quickest body charges, lagging simply 1 FPS behind the Lenovo Legion Pro 7 Gen 8 — a really distinctive laptop computer from 2023 that may doubtless proceed to be compelling choice via 2024.

The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 proves itself a worthy gaming machine with the chops it must push excessive body charges or excessive graphical settings. Even pumping out ray-traced visuals, it excels, coming near a clean 60fps in Metro Exodus, which has some very demanding visible results. It’s all of the extra outstanding that the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 achieves all these efficiency leads whereas additionally being cheaper than its competitors right here (excluding the 2023 Acer mannequin).

Speed comes at the price of warmth and, in flip, noise on this machine. To get essentially the most efficiency out of it, you’ll want to make use of Turbo mode, which kicks the fan into excessive gear always. They merely scream at this degree, whether or not beneath load or not. The sound of the air shifting out of the vents isn’t so dangerous, however there’s a shrill whine on high of that which is grating to hearken to for lengthy. 

Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 (2024): Battery life

For all its ups in efficiency, the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 wasn’t destined to be an important gadget when it got here to effectivity. Few gaming laptops are, and even with its 90Wh battery, the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 solely lasted slightly over 4 hours in our take a look at.

This lagged behind all the rivals. Local video playback can also be a reasonably optimum situation for longevity, as my real-world use for workplace work noticed the system lasting nearer to only 2.5 hours. It’s potential there’s room to eke out extra battery life by making sensible optimizations, akin to decreasing the show decision and refresh price, and making certain the discrete GPU is totally disabled as an alternative of leaving it as much as Acer’s Predator Sense or Nvidia Optimus to make the correct name. But these steps could be a little tedious and take away among the perks of the machine. 

Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 (2024): Conclusion

The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 isn’t a really glamorous machine, with a hefty design that’s solely additional weighed down by all of the plastic in its development. But what lurks beneath all that’s some splendidly viable {hardware} for gaming. Acer has nailed the purposeful points of the design, with an efficient cooling system and ample energy supply to the elements serving to the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 beat equally configured rivals at nearly each flip. All of that pace is piped out of a show that’s greater than ok to sport on, and with loads of ports, it’s a system that’s able to plop down right into a desktop setup whenever you need a larger display screen.’

High efficiency at all times comes at a value, and the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 isn’t any price range laptop computer, but it surely’s an inexpensive value for the {hardware} packed in. That pace can run via the battery in a rush although, and may kick up a racket from the followers. But when you’re trying to get essentially the most efficiency on your cash, the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 has quite a bit to supply.