Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 - Review

With each review of any laptop, I find myself asking two questions, namely is it portable enough to be considered a laptop and does it offer enough power for the size that it has become. Both questions are more important today than ever, as laptops are once again growing in size, which tends to make them less portable, but the performance jump doesn’t always equate to the size of the machine. Acer were kind enough to send me their Predator Helios Neo 16 and I liked it, but it has some issues.

As with any hardware, the form factor is the first consideration, because if you can’t use it then nothing else matters and where to begin here. It needs to be said but the Predator Helios Neo 16 is a big machine, it comes in at 35cm wide, 28cm deep and almost 3cm tall and with that size comes a staggering 2.64kg of weight. The moment I picked the laptop out from the box, I was shocked at the size of it, it is a beast and while it has the power behind it, more on that in a bit, the size is a massive hurdle. When setting it up, I had it on my desk, so the size was not a real issue, but of course as a laptop, it is meant to travel. I took it to my lounge chair and settled it on my lap and it was too awkward to use there. I also took it to a table outside and while it was fine on the table, I can’t imagine carrying it around with me on the daily, due to the weigh and size of the machine, not to mention the power brick.

The screen is stunning

Ok, so the laptop is big, but it does come with an absurd number of inputs, well actually it is more of a return to form really. On the rear of the device, near the power port is a single full-size HDMI port and a pair of 3.2 Gen 2 USB-C ports and when I saw those in that position, I did worry for the sides. Thankfully they are pretty stacked, one side just offers a pair of 3.2 Gen 2 USB-A ports, but the other has the real offerings. On the left side of the machine you will find a single 3.2 Gen 1 USB-A, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a microSD card slot and, for the first time in a while, a full gigabit ethernet adapter. The number of inputs means that if you don’t go wireless on your accessories, you won’t need to buy a hub to connect them all, which is a rare thing for a laptop these days.

The true port ability of the machine

Leaving the ports behind, you will find a decent sized keyboard on top, with each key being RGB enabled. While I personally think RBG should be KIA, I will admit that when you turn the laptop on, seeing the keyboard pulse in blue on the left and then slowly make its way to the right, is a very fun touch. The keyboard itself has a fun typing experience, I was able to adapt to it quite easily and get some writing done, I do worry that it might be a little to spongy for some hardcore gamers, but for you and me, it will do the job fine. The only real complaint I have with the keyboard is the placement of the power button within it, sure it’s the top most right key, but it is still contained within. What happens quite often is on my normal keyboard, it is the lock key and I hit it quite often when doing work in Excel, or using the number pad in general. Using the keyboard on the Predator Helios Neo 16, I did press that power button a few times and it was not a great experience, having the machine go to sleep.

That leads me to talking about the screen, which was often the best indicator that I had hit the power button in error. The base resolution that it comes with is 2560 X 1600, with an impressive 240Hz refresh rate, across its 16inch display. It is one impressive screen and honestly, when I through a few games on it, I sort of forgot about the other issues that the laptop had. If that resolution seems weird to you, given it is not 4K, then you would not be alone, it did feel like an odd step to take, to deliver a stunning screen, but not offer 4K with it. Regardless, the screen is stunning and I was able to enjoy everything I saw on it, games and movies, without any real issue. The included Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 is not the most top of the line card around, it still delivered some wonderful performance in the games, which is a good time to talk about that.

One pretty lit keyboard

I of course had to use my normal go to game for checking out how it ran and as expected DOOM 2016 looked fantastic on the display. Another recent addition to the testing line up is Marvel’s Spider-Man, because swinging through New York City is always worth doing, plus the game needs to keep loading in elements. Both games looked amazing, they loaded up fairly quickly and were able to keep pace with what I was doing in them. The screen resolution did take a moment to adjust to on Spider-Man, but other than that, I had no issues with playing them, but there was an issue.

With the laptop running at full capacity playing those games, the machine did get a bit warm and one of my testing days saw the temp hit 39c outside, which is hot. I quickly found out that a hot day and a very warm laptop do not mix well and the result was having it on my lap was just as uncomfortable as you can get. When using the laptop on a desk, the heat from it was not as big of an issue, even on that warmer day, but the noise the fans make can sometimes cut through whatever game you are playing. When it was a cooler morning, I tested out the gaming again, both on my lap and on a desk and while the fans kicked in, the heat pushed out felt less irritating than on the hot day. These are not tests that I used any sort of equipment to complete, rather just my own observations, but as long as the day is not crazy hot, you should be ok to use the laptop.

There is sadly one major issue with the laptop, beyond its insane size and that is the battery. Acer have included a 90Wh battery, which if you just use the laptop for basic work, like some web browsing and writing, should last you around 7-8 hours, or it did for me, you can get a little more from it by turning off the RBG and dimming the screen. The problem is when playing a game like Spider-Man or Mirror’s Edge, which I also wanted to play again, the battery drains quite fast. This is not a matter of just putting the graphic settings down a bit, in all four tests that I did, the battery would last somewhere between 3 and 3.5 hours, which is manageable, if you only have that much time to game. The problem is that most people want longer sessions than that, so it is not ideal and while you can connect it with the charger, that defies the portability nature of the device. Also speaking of charger, the laptop is huge yes, but the charger is just about the same, ok so it about one third as long, but just as deep and even thicker. If laptop makers want to impress me going forward, they need to come up with ways of making those smaller, because right now, taking that and the laptop anywhere in a bag, is just not feasible.

Business in the front, air ventilation in the back

The Predator line from Acer has been going strong for a number of years now and while I am not reviewing every entry they release, when I do check in, I often find myself impressed. That is not the case here, there are somethings to like, but the cons are massive and need to be considered. The performance is not top of the line, but it will cover almost every game you throw at it and, should handle everything else you need it to do. The sheer number of ports adds a lot of plusses to the count, because usually it’s the smallest number possible, so this is a welcome change. The problem is that the size is just hard to deal with, its unusual screen dimensions mean that its too big for most backpacks and once you include that beast of a power brick, your options are even more limited. If this is going to be your main machine and live in your house, then yes, you should consider it, but if you travel a lot then I would double check if what it offers is enough. For me, I like the power, but the size and weight are just a little to heavy to shake off from making this an instant buy.

The Score

7.5

Review unit provided by Acer

The Pros

The screen is incredible, couple that with the decent GPU and you can enjoy some great gaming on the go

The number of ports is crazy, I thought we were long passed the days of multiple connection options, so this is a great return

The Cons

Both the screen size and number of ports to contribute to the machine being very large, which limits its ease of transport and with that massive power brick, makes it even less portable

The battery life will last you for a business days’ worth of use, as long as you limit the videos, but the moment you game, you are not going to see more than 4 hours of gaming, if that