For gamers looking for a powerhouse gaming laptop capable of playing the latest titles at a more approachable and palatable pricetag, Acer presents its Predator Helios 16 gaming laptop which packs a 13th gen Intel Core i7 (HX) processor and NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 4060 GPU. This combination enables us to deliver high frame rates at all the games tested with this Windows 11-powered notebook PC including Forza Horizon 4, Resident Evil 2, Gran Theft Auto 5, eFootball, Valorant, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6, Overwatch 2, and some casual Minecraft action. Moreover, within 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra benchmark test, the Predator Helios Neo 16 delivered a score of 5929 (legendary) which is in the op 50% of all gaming PCs that ran this benchmark, with a graphics score of 5730 delivered as well, along with a physics score of 31 207, and combined score of 3035.
First-rate performance is further bolstered by the WQXGA (2560×1600) IPS display offering refresh rates of up to 165 Hz plus a blistering 3 ms response time. You also get NVIDIA Advanced Optimus and G-SYNC to ensure the smoothest and most vivid visuals during fast-moving gameplay scenes. The accompanying sound by the onboard speakers is actually also impressive and you can even employ them instead of your gaming headset for a suitably loud and quality sound experience, even at the highest volumes and the cooling fans blasting away – with those actually not as distracting and loud as usual or expected. You also get up to 32 GB of dual-channel DDR5-4800 MHz RAM (as is the case with our review unit) and up to a 2 TB PCIe NVMe SSD in RAID to deliver lightning-fast load times in the most demanding games.
Beyond the specs and under the hood performance, the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 packs a practical design that also allows for a bit of fun as it features laser-etched encrypted codes on its abyssal-black anodized cover, inviting inquisitive PC gamers to take on the challenge of deciphering the message.
The large will also double up as a proper bicep curl dumbbell being quite hefty even without its chunky munky powerbrick but features a suitably large 90Wh Li-ion battery with extended performance within productivity apps, email, and web browsing, though demanding performance within games and for video editing sessions for instance, will dramatically cut the time you spend away from the wall socket. You get a nice selection of ports including three USC 3.0 ports, two USB-C ports, a 3.5mm audio jack, HDMI port, and microSD card reader.
All this comes at a starting pricetag of around R32 000 (Core i5-13500HX version with 16 GB RAM and paired with a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 8G-GDDR6) through local retailers such as Incredible Connection. For that money, you can also check out alternatives like the Lenovo Legion 5i 16-inch that sports an RTX 4060 8GB, 14th Gen i9 14900HX, and 32 GB RAM or ASUS’s TUF A16 FA607PI-91610G0W Laptop that packs a 16″ QHD+ display and is powered by AMD’s Ryzen 9 while coming with 16GB DDR5 RAM, a 1TB NVMe SSD and NVIDIA’s RTX 4070 8GB GPU.
