Acer - Predator Helios Neo 16" WQXGA 165Hz IPS Gaming Laptop - Intel i7-13700HX – GeForce RTX 4060 with 16GB DDR5 – 1TB SSD - Steel Gray

Literally the best of all worlds. My basic prerequisites were a top of the line processor and a good screen. Nothing else had this combination for this price point for a 16" screen. The intel i7-13700HX is perfect for my needs, was mainly looking for a higher core/thread count processor. I've seen better QHD screens. This feels more like a FHD. Refresh rate is well, normal for a 165hz. Cooling is excellent. Feels pretty lightweight compared to other laptops. Good array of ports. Speakers are mid, but its fine, they are loud enough. The charger is a brick. Overall pretty stacked for the price point. Good buy.

Pros: -One of the best specs for price out there -Powerful computer able to handle most modern games at 1440p. -Screen is big and very bright with very high resolution. -High end hx processor and decent gpu card. -sufficient cooling system Cons: -Noticed a little backlight bleeding after a few weeks of usage, not sure if the screen had it after receiving it. Didnt pay much attention to it - Built quality around the screen seems a bit cheap - Had to restart the computer twice using the power button because it froze, this could be a software issue or hardware, hard to tell.

This was a budget purchase that Best Buy put together last minute. I appreciate the store that helped me with this. Does everything as intended and I am grateful that this beat the offer for the same thing on Amazon. The predators battery wont last as long if you're gaming but the performance of what this laptop offers is fantastic for its intended purpose. School, and gaming... Especially for a budgeting engineering student.

I looked at a LOT of laptops before finally deciding on this one... all of the major brands, various CPU's and GPU's and screen resolutions, and I kept coming back to this one. So I bought it with the thought that Best Buy's return policy would allow me some time to test drive it... and I have to say, this laptop did NOT disappoint! In case you are wondering, I'll tell you up front... yes, you can upgrade the RAM - Last night I installed two Corsair Vengeance 16 GB 4800MHz DDR5 C40 SODIMM's for 32GB total (Best Buy SKU: 6516932) and I figured while I was in there, why not throw in a WD - BLACK SN850X 4TB Internal SSD PCIe Gen 4 x4 NVMe. (Best Buy SKU: 6512129) When I started out with the upgrade, I went into the BIOS and turned off the fast boot, then shut it down. I removed the bottom cover, swapped out the RAM and added the drive, and fired it up. The initial boot with the new RAM took longer than normal (about a minute) but once it was into Windows it was fine. I rebooted, went back into BIOS and turned Fast Boot back on, and now it's just like it was before the upgrade... just with more RAM and storage space. Now on with the description of the laptop. Unboxing it was like any other laptop... a box within a box, power brick (pretty huge with thick wiring) a laptop protective sleeve, and the laptop itself. The power brick puts out 330 watts... no wonder it's so big! If I have any complaints about it, the plug that goes into the laptop exits straight out the back, not a 90 degree plug like my previous Acer Nitro laptop. If I bend the cord after the strain relief, it still sticks out about 2.5" from the back of the chassis. That's not likely a big deal to most, but worth mentioning. I will say that I was disappointed with the laptop sleeve. After the first use, the zipper mechanism came off. Closer inspection shows that when they assembled the sleeve that they forgot to stitch the ends of the zipper to prevent you from zipping it too far in either direction. Oops! I knew that I was going with a new laptop bag so it didn't bother me all that much... but it's worth mentioning. Once into Windows and after all of the basic registration stuff that you have to do, I loaded up Steam, some benchmarks, and some games to see what this thing could do. I had a few moments when I was switching in/out of a game when the mouse would freeze up for a little bit... it acted like a hang, but then the screen flashed and it recovered. It turns out, that's when it's switching from the Intel graphics over to the GeForce 4060 GPU and back. It was pretty annoying, enough so that I was about to box it up and take it back to Best Buy when I did a quick on-line search and found that it wasn't specific to this laptop, but to quite a few others that perform the video switching. As I was contemplating what to do, a message popped up saying that it had some updates to perform... oh yeah! It's fresh out of the box... of COURSE it needs some updates! <facepalm> I let it run through the series of updates, reboots, and so forth. Since the updates, the mouse pause/system hang nonsense is gone. Sweet! This WQXGA 2560x1600 screen is crazy clear, full of color, BRIGHT and just a complete joy to look at when gaming, or just surfing the web. The track pad is good sized and responsive, the LED backlighting on the keyboard is adjustable (brightness and color) and syncing up colors with my mouse was simple/easy. The keyboard is well laid out and feels good on my fingers, and that ten key on the side is just icing on the cake. (It was a 'nice to have' option over some other laptops.) So far, I have played Cyberpunk 2077, CoD MW2, Diablo 4, Red Dead Redemption 2, Valheim, and some others... and I have to say that I'm pretty impressed! Autodetect sets most games at Ultra settings, and the framerates are right where I would expect for a laptop with these specifications. I ran the CoD MW2 benchmark with the graphics settings on Ultra, display set at 2560x1600 - 100% resolution, and it averaged 63 FPS. I've been playing Diablo 4 on Ultra settings without a hitch... it's just smooth like butter. Picture is attached for reference. UserBenchmark is a quick way to gauge how your PC stacks up against others out there. (Benchmarks are just that... so take it for what it's worth.) I included some screenshots from some of the test runs I did both before and after the RAM and SSD upgrades. I ran it on 3DMark Time Spy and it came back with an overall score of 11,438. Graphics score was 10,890, CPU was 16,011, with Graphics Test 1 at 72.55 fps, and Test 2 at 61.26 fps. The Physics Test came in at 53.79 fps. (Stock settings, no OC.) Link to the scores on 3DMark - /spy/39438500 As others have likely mentioned, the one thing that is a bit of an annoyance (but completely understandable) is the sound from the cooling fans when under load. When just surfing the web and doing simple tasks, it's nice and quiet... at my kitchen table, I measured 54dB with my SPL meter sitting less than a foot from the exhaust area. When you start gaming, the fans spool up and it makes a bit of noise. (Predator Sense can be put into Quiet, Balanced, Performance, or Turbo mode to adjust the performance and noise levels.) I have seen it between about 70 ~ 72dB taken from the same location. That's a 16 ~ 18dB increase. The fans are spinning at over 6,000 RPM, so it explains the noise. If you are using a decent set of headphones, then you'll likely never notice it... but if you have people nearby, they might give you the stink eye until they get used to it as background noise. I've owned this for about a month now, and I have been very happy with the decision to buy this laptop. It's fast, the screen is really great, and the hardware keeps up with the latest titles out there. I got lucky with a sale price on the laptop at thirteen fiddy, and then threw in a Razer Basilisk Ultimate mouse, Razer Goliathus Mobile Stealth Gaming Mouse Pad, and a Razer Nari Ultimate set of headphones which really rounds out the package. I grabbed the Swissdigital Design - Terabyte TSA-friendly Backpack with USB Charging port/RFID protection (Model: J16BT1 SKU: 6467494) to pack it all away and it has a TON of space... but this laptop is * just * barely * able to fit into the dedicated laptop sleeve. (My mistake for not looking closely at the specs, and then trying to shove a 16" laptop into a 15.6" slot.) But once I figured out how to position it, it drops into position and keeps it snug and in place.

I'm very happy with my Purchase. Screen looks gorgeous to me, very bright. Laptop runs anything I throw at it. Stays mostly cool. It can run warm if it's sitting on your lap and you are charging it and playing an intensive game but nothing the fans can't handle.

I was in the market for a gaming PC so I can play better VR games and this did not disappoint. I chose a laptop since I travel a lot and this runs every game I’ve thrown at it wonderfully. I was able to get it on sale for $1100 at Best Buy and it runs like a $2000 computer. The screen is fantastic as well if you want to play games right on the PC. I’ve been recommending it to other players who are in the market. I would also recommend purchasing an elevated, cooling platform for the computer with additional fans so that it does not overheat. Those are easy to find and not expensive.

I was looking for a PC to game with and everybody was telling me desktops were better than laptops. However, I wanted to be able to take my gaming system with me to certain places and thus, wanted a laptop. After researching and researching I found this laptop at a solid sale of about $750 off. I’ll say, best. purchase. Ever. It runs tons of games super well on medium settings. The cooling system has been great, as well as the overall control of things. People I’ve showed it to have said it’s definitely a gem and a great find as it is comparable to a desktop pc setup(on the lower to medium end, of course). It runs games like Risk of Rain 2, Craftopia, Kingdom Hearts, etc. better than my PS5(and my Xbox one in Craftopia’s case). Kingdom hearts is about even on both and Fortnite runs well on both but due to temperature issues, you’ll sometimes get frame skips so make sure to turn the fans to max speed while playing and to give it a break. The only thing is how massive the charger is (isn’t too much of an issue) and the fact that you only get great gameplay or performance out of it if it’s not plugged in(which seems inconvenient, but realistically you’re only going to be using it in places that it can be plugged in at and if you’re not, you’re probably not going to be doing things that require it to be such as office work, school, etc.). I’d also like to note that it has a very loud sound and animation that plays when you turn it on which can be cool sometimes, and annoying other times. Thankfully, however, you can turn this off in the laptop’s “PredatorSense” app(open it by clicking the monster-skull looking key on the keyboard). Overall I’d give it 5 stars and say I’m thankful to have it. It’s a great product that I’d highly recommend to anybody who needs a cheaper alternative to a desktop as well as people who’d like something portable but closer in power to a desktop and the case it came with has done great at protecting my laptop!

The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 excels as a gaming laptop, particularly for Valorant players. Its high-performance CPU and NVIDIA RTX graphics deliver seamless, high-quality gameplay. The 16-inch display impresses with its vivid colors and clarity. The design is sleek, and the cooling system is efficient for prolonged gaming. The keyboard offers a comfortable, responsive experience. While battery life is average, the overall features like PredatorSense software make it a top choice for serious gamers.