Customer Ratings & Reviews

Screen is black when i turn it on . First day thought it just needed to be updated but still not working

One of the worst laptops ever. Even acer customer support is bad.

It seems to be ok still trying to learn it but so far its ok

I have to admit, I am not a “hard-core” gamer, but I do like playing some games. My favorites are driving simulators like Forza, and I have recently been playing some of the Star Wars FPS games. I have an older HP Spectre 360 that works well, but now that it’s about five years old, I was looking for an upgrade. That’s when I found this Acer Predator. Its specs checked all the boxes – the latest Intel i9 processor, the latest GeForce graphics card, an NVMe interface with a 1TB SSD. I also thought that the 16-inch screen would make it a bit more portable than a larger 17-inch. Out of the box, I found this machine very impressive. It’s thinner than I expected for such a beefy computer. I love all the ports! It has 3 USB-A ports on the sides, and two USB-C Thunderbolt ports on the back. I really like that the power cord plugs into the back of the laptop, making it easier to place on a table without having cords in the way of the mouse or other devices. Of course no gaming machine would be complete without a dedicated Gigabit Ethernet port like this one has. An HDMI port as well as a headphone jack and a micro-SD slot round out the connection options. I really can’t think of anything missing in there. Another thing I noticed when removing it from the box is that this thing is beefy. Heavy, that is. It has some heft to it, and using a plastic case, that’s all in the battery and cooling system. Not only that, the power adapter is good sized piece on its own. In fact, by itself it weighs more than my entire HP Spectre laptop. Of course I didn’t buy this computer to schlep through airports on business trips, so I was not so concerned with weight, but it is a factor when I want to carry it around the house. Besides the specs, there are many things I really like about this machine. First of all, it’s fast! Just everyday usage is incredibly fast. It plows through opening MS-Office apps and other business software like no computer I’ve ever used. The screen is a good size, too. I like the 16:10 ratio as it seems to have much more real estate than a typical 16:9. The keyboard is excellent! Not just its tactile feedback for gaming, but regular typing is a pleasure. Most of the time when I get a new laptop, it takes me a while to get used to the minute differences of its layout, key travel, and feedback, but this one was totally natural. I almost prefer it to my desktop keyboard. The mousepad is typical of modern Synaptics devices. It’s nothing special and works well. I have found a few things that I don’t like so much about this machine. First of all, the screen does not have a very wide viewing angle. In fact, anything other than a dead-on aligned view produces subtle changes in color and brightness with images near the edges. It’s not so noticeable with darker screen content, but very bright images can make things very annoying. Another issue is that there seem to be a few issues with the most demanding game animations. I was playing “Star Wars: Jedi – Survivor” and a few times I experienced a lag in some of the busier, fast-moving screens. It’s not a huge distraction, but I did notice it. I have not tweaked any settings, other than using the top keyboard button to put it in “Turbo” mode, but maybe there’s something that will help. Still, I was expecting flawless. My biggest complaint is battery life. It’s just too short. Just browsing the web and watching videos kills the battery in less than 3 hours, even in “eco” mode. I was unable to get much more than an hour of game play out of the battery. That’s not such an issue, because for the best experience, it needs to be in “Performance” or “Turbo” mode and those are unavailable on battery power. 99% of the time I will be using this laptop for gaming, it will be plugged into its charger, but I was expecting something a bit better in battery life, especially given its weight. Speaking of charging, I did find that it will recharge using a USB-C power supply through the Thunderbolt ports. I connected a 100w charger that I have for another laptop, and though it takes a while, it will give me a charge in a pinch. Note that without using the Overall, I am not disappointed. I like this laptop and love its power! I intend to blow away the stock installation of Windows 11 Home and replace it with a Pro license, thus being able to join it to my domain and also getting rid of any bloatware (e.g. McAfee). It looks like all the specialized drivers and gaming software are available on the Acer website, so it should go smoothly.

My first impressions of the laptop is that it is a heavy but well balanced machine. Then I powered it on and it gave me a heart attack with the loudest start up chime I have ever heard on a laptop. Thank goodness the Bios includes an off button for the audio portion of the startup chime. Animations I don’t mind, but audio heart attacks upon each boot - no thank you! What’s a bit odd to see is that the monitor hinge is not attached at the rear of the chassis, it’s offset by an inch which leaves a plastic advertising strip where anyone sitting across from you while you are using the laptop can see the computer is a Helios NEO 16. Speaking of advertising, Acer includes 5 large stickers on the inside chassis advertising the technical specs of the device so come prepared to do some sticker removal upon unboxing. I don’t mind the Intel chipset sticker but two stickers for Nvidia, one sticker for the monitor specs and another much larger sticker to tell me how amazing the internal fans and audio system is a bit much. The rear 1-inch strip is where the power, dual USB-C, and HDMI 2.1 port live on the device. The inclusion of 2.5GB Ethernet built into the left side chassis is great and the plastic hinge that folds down when a cable is inserted is a creative way to keep the port free of debris when not in use. I was surprised when I unboxed the laptop to find that Acer included a laptop sleeve to carry this thing around in. With so many openings though I can see the value in using the sleeve before shoving this thing in a backpack where its bound to get dirty quickly. While the primary audience for this laptop is gaming, it annoys me that the included webcam is not compatible with Windows Hello. The video hardware produces nice images. As to upgradability there are ten T8 screws holding the base of the chassis together. Removing the ten screws and a bit of effort with a prying tool reveals the motherboard. I’m sad to write that as I was opening up the unit the metal coil that keeps the tension in the plastic ethernet port came flying off so now my ethernet port droops open all the time which makes me sad. As to the motherboard expansion capabilities there’s a second PCIe NVMe M.2 slot if you wish to add an additional hard drive. The notebook maxes out at 32GB of RAM using the dual DDR5 slots that are hidden beneath a heat shield toward the center of the motherboard.

The first thing you'll want to know before getting too far on this laptop is to find the BIOS key. It's F2! The laptop boots with a POST screen Animation which is kinda neat, but it comes with a loud and annoying revving fan soundbite that I desperately needed to turn off after the first time I heard it. Power on, hit F2 a bunch of times until you get into the BIOS, hit F1, Go to "Main" on the left hand side, then disable "POST Animation & Sound", hit F10, and select "Save & Exit". With that out of the way, let's get into the review. First off, this Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 is pretty large. It's a 16" screen, but it's at 1920 x 1200 so you're getting a 16:10 ratio which means the screen is a little more square than most laptops. Plus the screen sits about an inch from the rear of the laptop. All of this adds size to this laptop and might make finding a travel bag a little more difficult. I was pleased that Acer thought to include a sleeve for the laptop. It's a nice zippered sleeve, with no extra pockets and makes no accommodation for the very large power supply. Also in the box came your typical regulatory papers, setup guide and some stickers. Along the left side, there is a drop-jaw network port, a USB-A port, microSD slot and a headphone jack. Along the right hand side, you get two more USB-A Ports and indicator lights. Along the rear is the power input (barrel connector), HDMI port and two USB-C ports. Also on the rear are two large ports for thermal management. When looking at the rear, the extended portion has a clear top over some embossing. I was half expecting some lighting. It does have a little bit of morse code that spells out "Predator". The only other lighting is on the back of the monitor with 6 vertical bars that represent the Acer Predator logo. There is a button on the bezel of the keyboard, and I immediately thought it might be the power button like it was an old Dell Lattitude style laptop, but it isn't, it's the Mode button to flip between gaming and normal operation modes. The power button is just above the numpad. The keyboard is nice and the keys don't feel like they are shrunk. The numpad has slightly smaller keys, but I like that the arrow keys are slightly larger than the rest of the keys. The keyboard is RGB backlit. Setup went pretty smooth and I immediately jumped into one of my games. I was seeing consistently about 20 more frames/sec than my older desktop setup. This variant of the Predator Helios Neo 16 starts with a 14th Generation Intel Core i9. It has 8 performance cores (with hyperthreading) and 16 efficient cores, giving you a total of 32 threads. Memory is what I would consider minimal for this setup. 16 GB of DDR5. Storage is 1 TB on NVMe. GPU is the star of this show with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 paired with a nice and bright screen (400 nits) and capable of running 165 Hz while gaming. While the GPU isn't the top of the line, it certainly shines and helps to keep the overall costs reasonable. By comparison, my desktop is running a 12th Gen i7 against a GeForce RTX 3060. Gaming on this beast of a laptop is smooth. Audio is a little weak, so you'll want to game on a good set of headphones to help reduce the sound of the fans. Thermal management seemed like it was keeping up nicely with the demand. Battery life, especially while gaming, should be expected to be low. Acer provides a very beefy power brick pushing out 330 Watts. Out of curiosity, I popped off the bottom cover just to see about upgradeability. The Predator Helios Neo sports a second M.2 2280 slot for additional NVMe storage. And under an aluminum cover I could see the two RAM slots with the existing 8 GB sticks installed. According to the specs, you can upgrade to two 16 GB sticks giving you a max of 32 GB. Overall, this Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 deftly achieves gaming on a laptop with its 4060 GPU paired with an i9 processor and a 165 Hz 16 inch screen. I appreciate that it does so at a reasonable cost. That being said, I wouldn't expect to run this solely on battery while gaming. Plug in and use the variety of ports to immerse yourself in your game and this Helio Neo will definitely deliver a stunning experience.

Great graphics are the highlight of the Acer - Predator Helios Neo 16" WUXGA IPS Gaming Laptop. The large 16" screen provides deep colors and quick response times, perfect for first person shooters or driving 200mph around a race track. Graphics were very smooth even during spin movements. Best Buy has provided this to me free of charge in exchange for my honest evaluation. This laptop is not frail in feel. It's a solid piece of hardware. So many laptops are built lightweight and have the feeling of easy breakability. Not so with this one. Everything about it (weight, case, keyboard) feels solid, almost ruggedized. It came with Windows 11 installed and ready to go. Set up was quick and painless with games downloading at the speed normally seen with big desktop computers, even over wi-fi. Upon startup, there are lots of sounds and the backlit keyboard flashes as it goes through the boot process. The packaging is solid and it was easy to unpack. The power brick is quite large, measuring 3.5" X 7.5" X 1.25", and delivers a whopping 330W! The only drawback I encountered is a smaller righthand shift key (nitpicky, I know). I would highly recommend the Acer - Predator Helios 16" WUXGA IPS Gaming Laptop.

I bought 3 gaming laptops (MSI THIN15,HP OMEN, this) and this is by far the best. Best bang for your bucks and perfect all around fir me

I’m planning on buying the item but I just don’t know the refresh rate may I know it?

Excellent laptop has very good performance........

Very pleased with the performance of the Acer Predator Helios NEO 16.

thanks laptop, and device nice top very price) thanks Acer Predator, allow nice try!!!)

I don't know why they call this laptop "black." It is this ugly sort of muddy blue color. My knock on blackish laptops is they get dirty very fast. I prefer dark gray like the Lenovo's.

I bought it and it came with a factory problem. The pc turned on 1 time, it was everything ok, and then I moved back to my home country and I tried to use it again (a week later) and it doesnt turn on, not even with the battery connected. I tried to reach Acer for the 1 year warranty, but it says I can fix only in the country that a bought it in. Terrible experience.

Hey everyone, I urge you not to purchase any gaming Acer Predator laptops, or any laptops for that matter. I've owned mine for just under a year, and it struggles to run Fortnite on performance mode, barely handles Minecraft, and is incredibly loud. Save yourself the trouble and invest in the cheapest NZXT computer instead of this disappointment.

Wouldn't buy again. All I ever played on mine was World of Warcraft, not a demanding game at all. After 2 years the motherboard completely fried. Geek squad said there was nothing I could do about it, and I might as well just buy a new laptop.