Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 Review

The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 is a very appealing game laptop. It’s a very affordable way to get a high-end game laptop experience. With the 13th Gen Intel Core i7-13700HX and the NVIDIA RTX 4050, you can play most new games at high settings without trouble. It is paired with a bright 165 Hz WUXGA IPS display, excellent build quality, a good keyboard, and surprisingly good battery life for a game laptop. At Rs.1,24,990, we wouldn’t call this a cheap or budget gaming laptop, but we’re sure you’re getting the most for your money.

Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 Specification

PROS

• A reasonable price
• What a great performance it provides
• Good planning for heat

CONS

• Weak material
• The laptop and power brick are heavy.

The new Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 is between Acer’s high-end Predator and low-cost Nitro lines. Acer typically chooses fewer features, a lower build quality, and entry-level game hardware for its Nitro line. On the other hand, the Predator line has all the bells and whistles, including great gear, screens, and build quality. With the new Predator Helios Neo 16, Acer hopes to fill the void with a laptop that doesn’t have all the bells and whistles but high-end tech at a price that most people can afford.

BUILD AND DESIGN

Building and plan first. The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 doesn’t shout “gamer” like the Nitro, but it looks like one. If used for serious work, gaming laptops may appeal to some. The matte black laptop has blue accents. The hat has a glossy Predator. It’s matte black and doesn’t light up. The lid hides a grid, markings, and strange numerals. Acer’s lid puzzle. You can contact Acer if you find it out. The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 is metal and plastic. Strong metal tops the casing. The casing is plastic elsewhere. Acer’s use of plastic and aluminium makes sense, and the build quality is good except for the screen’s bendiness. The display remains stable. Predator Helios Neo 16 chiclet keys resemble Nitro gaming PCs.

DISPLAY

The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 has screens with sizes of either 1920×1200 or 2560×1600. As you can see, these screens have a 16:10 aspect ratio, giving you more room to work with. The version we got had a 1920×1200, or WUXGA, display. Even though it’s the cheaper of the two screen choices, it still has a high brightness of around 400 nits, which is excellent; in our tests, the average was around 382 nits. Also, you get almost 100% coverage of the sRGB color space; we tested 99.6% and 83.22% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, which is excellent. So, the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 is also a pretty good laptop for making your video.

THERMALS

When considering this a game laptop, the Acer Predator Neo 16 does very well regarding thermals. The temperatures are low, and the noise level is below average. During the stress test, the CPU got as hot as 70 degrees Celsius, the hottest temperature we could measure. Acer’s AeroBlade 3D fans cool the Acer Predator Neo 16’s CPU and GPU, and they share six heat pipes. Even though the bottom of the laptop can get pretty warm, most surface temperatures stay around 25 degrees, like around the palm and keyboard. The WASD cluster gets up to 32 degrees Celsius, and the middle of the laptop reaches about 36 degrees Celsius.

PERFORMANCE

Now we’re ready for the show. As we said in the beginning, Acer didn’t skimp on the hardware for the Neo 16. It has the latest 13th Gen Intel Core i7-13700HX processor and NVIDIA RTX 4050 graphics card. Even though the RTX 4050 is the least powerful GPU in the new RTX 40 series, it’s no slouch. Regarding game speed, it’s about the same as the RTX 3060 Laptop GPU. Starting with the simulated GPU scores from 3DMark, we compare the 4050 to one of our best-performing 3060 laptops from last year, the Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 16IAH7, which also has a 12th-generation Core i7.

KEYBOARD

Given the price, the Predator Helios Neo 16 doesn’t have a fancy mechanical keyboard. But the keys on the computer are spaced out well and are easy to use. Acer even found space for a number pad, which is helpful for those who want it. As usual, I use keyhero.com to test how fast and accurately I type. I typed about 80 words per minute and got them right 95.55 percent of the time. With the Razer Blade 14, I could type 90 words per minute and get 94 percent correct. The Predator Helios Neo 16 comes with Acer’s PredatorSense app, which lets you set up the RGB lights.

AUDIO

The Predator Helios Neo 16 has DTS:X Ultra Audio and Acer TrueHarmony audio speakers. Acer says that the foam-coated paper cones in the speakers help TrueHarmony “maximize clarity” and “lower distortion” for a more realistic sound experience. In real life, the speakers, at best, sounded fine. “Cracker Island” by the Gorillaz had no noise and sounds that were hard to hear. The biggest problem was more blurring as I reached the 75 percent level. The sound didn’t change much when I played around with the settings in the Realtek Audio Console and the DTS:X Ultra apps.

VERDICT

With the 13th Gen Intel Core i7-13700HX and the NVIDIA RTX 4050, you can play most new games at high settings without trouble. In our benchmarks, both the CPU and GPU did very well. It also has a bright 165 Hz WUXGA IPS display, a great general build quality, a good keyboard, and surprisingly good battery life for a game laptop. At Rs.1,24,990, we wouldn’t call this a cheap or budget gaming laptop, but we’re sure you’re getting the most for your money.