Customer Ratings & Reviews

Good with some compromises, amazing for up to intermediate gamers. This is my second one after I had to swap out my first one in less than 24 hours (thank you Best Buy Total otherwise I would have been stuck)—see Unfixable Cons below. I damaged the first one doing a simple unscrewing of the bottom plate. Pros: - Price – you can’t beat this price for the on-paper specs it has. You also get what you pay for, and there are weird limitations to the laptop’s power. More below. - Screen is stunning. Crystal clear, super crisp, vibrant color, looks better than Retina in my opinion. For 240 Hz, which is plenty for me, this OLED screen is flawless, uncompromised and best in class. - Size & aesthetics: it’s not stunningly lightweight, but not too heavy either. However, it is stupidly thin for a gaming laptop and very portable. Takes up slightly more room than the 16” Macbook Pro. This laptop is top notch looks with pretty lights and clean design, and it will turn heads. Some reviewers say the plastic on the back looks cheap. I simply disagree. This is a cool looking laptop. - Numpad and keyboard – I love how this 16” laptop packs in a comfortable-to-use numpad. The key layout is really excellent, too. All keys are a full size, no awkward half keys. Full arrow keys, too. - Performance – I’m running the GPU hungry game Black Myth: Wukong at well over 60 fps, even higher on my 1440p monitor. No tearing, no bottlenecking, super smooth, and gorgeous ray tracing. Though I describe many compromises below, Acer did NOT compromise on performance. It’s a beast performer on Turbo, and you will be able to run most games at ultra settings at HD resolutions at 1080p and 1440p. The 5070ti is capable of 4k performance, but I haven’t tested this. - HDMI and Thunderbolt display support. I recommend not using a dock for video and using HDMI to USB-C direct to the laptop for best results. Fixable cons / annoyances: - Boot startup noise – Sounds like a running circular saw crashing through your window. If you’re setting up your laptop for the first time, you’re going to hear it a lot, and if your computer restarts in the middle of the night in another room, it will wake you. Turn it off immediately in BIOS. - Bloatware – I recommend installing a clean copy of Windows, but be aware, you will need to backdoor the Intel RAID drivers during the installation. May be difficult for an intermediate Windows user. I opted to keep PredatorSense which is downloadable from Acer’s website, and actually has useful tools. Also, it comes with Windows 11 Home, so have a license ready if you require Pro. - Heat – This thing gets REALLY hot. I recommend the Razer laptop cooling pad RC21-02300. Keeps it just a little warm during gaming sessions, cold to the touch during regular use. - Hard drive replacement / expansion – don’t even think about upgrading the paltry 1 TB this comes with (I guess “you get what you pay for”). Your upgraded drive will have to be a secondary drive and will only be recognized by Windows (see cons for Linux note). I wanted to upgrade my main boot drive, and I had a painful time trying to backdoor the Intel drivers to make this work. Unfixable cons: - Modifying – This is the HARDEST laptop I’ve had to modify yet. This laptop does not have easy access panels for upgrading the SSD or memory. Ten torx screws hold down the bottom plate, one of them stripped with no effort, and I warped the aluminum cover because that was the only option I had to remove the stripped screw. You’ll need a special screwdriver which I luckily had and a pry tool. The hard drive and the RAM are underneath thermal tape that is stuck on there pretty good, so use caution when removing. The nvme expansion slot exists, but it’s covered by the RAM’s thermal tape. Be very careful when taking apart, modifying and upgrading this laptop. Not novice friendly. - No Linux – it is difficult to load Intel RAID drivers during a Windows Live USB installation. It is impossible with Linux. If you enjoy dual booting or maining Linux, you can’t do it with this laptop. Period. Alternative ways are running Linux on an external hard drive or running it through a virtual machine, but it is impossible to install and run on board. Comment if you know a way because I certainly don’t. - FINGERPRINT MAGNET!! Looks like I eat nothing but fried chicken with how easy I get prints on the body. - USB-C ports are only on the back of the unit. It’s awkward to reach around to find your USB-C port. I have a dock with front facing USB-C ports so I don’t mind. If I didn’t have that, this would be really annoying. - Battery is butt. You might get an hour on a full charge and with eco settings. Realistically, you’ll get 45-ish minutes with average use. This is largely due to the inability to change refresh rates on the laptop screen, so your battery will heavily power the GPU. No way you’re doing any gaming without this thing plugged in to power. Wattage is limited to the GPU and CPU on battery, and thus games will run at abysmal framerates. I don’t know who out there is getting 3 hours of life, but that’s completely absurd. As this is my second unit, both units battery life was just horrible, so I doubt I have a defective battery. - Speakers are the cheapest, tinniest laptop speakers I’ve ever heard since the 90s. All treble, zero bass, zero depth. You’ll need headphones or external speakers. The speakers do get nice and loud, but the louder it gets, the lousier the quality is. If quality onboard speakers are a must, pass this laptop up. You’ll hate these speakers. Recommended based on the performance, aesthetics, and screen alone. It’s a great laptop if you’re mostly working and gaming at home. Not recommended if you need the complete experience to be quality. I won’t return it, but I can’t say I’m blown away by my experience. 3/5

Let me be clear: THIS THING SLAPS. Tl;dr: if you plan to keep it plugged to a wall and don’t mind bad speakers, don’t look any further. There’s no better deal for an OLED panel, high refresh rate, i9, 5070Ti 12GBVRam and upgradable ram and storage. If you want a more detailed review see below. Let’s get the cons out of the way: -Speakers are bad, but a good headset/headphones can easily fix this. -Battery is awful right now, for some reason you can’t switch the refresh rate to anything that’s not 240Hz, which causes your battery to drain supeeer fast: 1 hour AAA gaming - 3 hours light use. BUT, this is probably something Acer will fix down the line with an update (or at least I hope so). Although, if you’re like me and only use it while plugged to the wall, then it’s really not an issue. -Fans can get pretty loud on TURBO mode lol, but quiet and balance are really nice. -This might be exclusive to my unit: there’s a noticeable hiss/high pitched noise that appears for a couple minutes before the fans start picking up during a heavy usage session. Might be able to fix it by opening it but haven’t done so. TIME FOR THE PROS BABYYYY: -16” 240HZ OLED BEAUTIFUL SCREEN? YESSSSSSIIIR -UPGRADEABLE RAM AND STORAGE IN 2025? YESSSSSIIIIRRR -MULTIZONE RGB KEYBOARD? YESSSSSSSIIIR -THIN BEZELS? YESSSIIIIIR -OVERALL THIN AND LIGHT LAPTOP? YOU GOT IIIITTTTT -DOESNT GET STEAMING HOT? YOUREEEECORRREEECT -PLAYS EVERYTHING YOU THROW AT IT? YESSSSIIIIIIIR -5070TI WITH 12 GB OF VRAM? FOR LESS THAN $2,000??? LEEEESGGGGGGOOOOOOOOOO -INTEL CORE ULTRA 9? YESSSSSIIIIIIR -SLEEK ELEGANT DESIGN BUT STILL GIVES YOU THE OPTION TO MAKE IT MORE GAMERY WITH RGB LIGHTS? YOU GOT IIIITTTT -FROM 2D INDIE GAMES AND BINGE WATCHING YOUTUBE TO PLAYING AAA GAMES AND EXPORTING 60 TRACK SONGS IN ABLETON: THIS. THING. ATE. -IF YOU SEE THIS ON SALE, YOU GOT TO BUY IT. THE VALUE IS TOO GOOD MY GUYS. Pro tip: If you want to further improve air flow, put a book underneath the back part of the laptop to allow for more air intake. I travel a lot for work, and for some reason hotels in the US always have a certain book in their rooms lol, so I use those.

The performance on this system is impressive, given its price point. Every competitor is priced an additional $400-$600 more, given similar specs and display. The performance on many of the new releases has been excellent. I've been running Borderlands 4, getting 70-80fps on high using the 2k resolution with the monitor. Battlefield 6 has impressive performance, which I haven't benchmarked yet. Almost every other game released in the last 2 years seems to run at ultra settings, with ray tracing and shadows set to high, yet still maintaining very high frame rates. I recommend this PC. The one thing I would be mindful of is the heat, which will hamper performance if you can't find something like a book to prop it up or use one of those fan devices to help. As long as there is good airflow, this will run like a dream. It doesn't have a super-long battery life either. If you're out and about without wall power, I get 3-4 hours just doing everyday tasks like running Excel, PowerPoint, ArcGIS Pro, and a few other programs. Anything demanding will kick your battery down to an hour. It's still the best PC I've owned.

Great Gaming Laptop - This thing flies, the CPU is a beast the GPU is amazing (throttled back - but a beast for this thin setup) - Throw a 2TB in there and it's great. 32GB is plenty of ram gaming, 12g on the vram is excellent. It gets hot, but it should... get a pad for this guy. Screen is gorgeous at 1600 240hz oled. Running Borderlands 4 no issues. (increase your shader cache!)

If you’re looking for a gaming laptop that leans more toward display quality + gaming performance (and you can live with trade-offs in noise, heat, and battery), the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI is a strong contender. Its OLED panel and raw gaming performance deliver great value for what you pay.

This is a great laptop for gaming, video editing and schoolwork/homework. It can handle hours of gaming, running multiple virtual machines or for doing homework for hours. The screen is OLED and its crystal clear, its light weight conpared to my older Helios 300 (2019) and the RTX 5070ti and ultra 9 cpu make it run smooth and fast. For the price it really is the best gaming laptop for your dollar, its worth every penny.

I’m amazed at the performance and how thin the laptop and is easy to carry around.Coupled with the beautiful oled display it makes it amazing to look at. The 12 gigs of vram is what really makes this laptop worth it I highly recommend.

I recently picked up this laptop and honestly it felt like a great deal for the price. It’s fast, handles games on high settings like a champ, and the RTX 5070 Ti is an absolute beast. I’ve had an overall great experience with performance whether it’s gaming or multitasking this thing handles it smoothly. That said, there are a few drawbacks worth mentioning. The build quality could be better. The chassis is plastic and feels like it wouldn’t survive even a small drop without cracking. I get it though, at this price point some compromises are expected. The biggest issue for me has been the touchpad and keyboard. The touchpad glitches out constantly. It becomes inaccurate or unresponsive to the point where it's almost unusable. It’s frustrating because everything else about the machine works so well. I didn’t get the warranty, big mistake on my part, so I’ll have to take it to a local shop and see if they can fix it. Battery life could also be better. You’re most likely going to get around an hour and a half to two hours unplugged with just light usage. If you’re gaming, expect maybe 45 minutes to an hour tops, and performance is greatly reduced while running on battery power. So would I recommend this laptop? Yes and no, It’s powerful, fast, and a solid choice for gaming. But be aware you might run into some hardware quirks. I’m not sure if my touchpad problem is a one-off or a common issue, but it’s worth keeping in mind. And definitely don’t skip the warranty.

Absolutely incredible performance and value for the price. zero regrets. I wanted something under $2k that had top of the line specs including the top of the line graphics card and processor and most recent RAM. got it all. AND an OLED screen? love it. gaming has always been a passion of mine, but never actually purchased a dedicated gaming computer. this blows away my expectations. I DO RECOMMEND you purchase a laptop cooling frame that has built in fans to help keep it cool and maximize performance. i bought a $50 one that tilts and it’s a must for maintaining peak performance.

Absolutely top of line. I've never owned a nicer laptop. I mean, this laptop puts some people's custom PC builds to shame. It's an absolute powerhouse. And it's pretty light and compact. It's really easy to travel with and it comes with this awesome case to put it in. Absolutely worth every dollar. And the price at my local Best Buy was actually really affordable. Also, my cat really loved to sit in the packaging.

I’m really impressed with this laptop. It’s fast, quiet, and handles everything I throw at it—from everyday work to gaming. The screen quality is sharp and bright, the keyboard feels great, and the overall build is solid. Setup was easy and it’s been running smoothly since day one. Definitely worth the purchase.

Display: The display is honestly one of the first things that stands out. The OLED panel looks beautiful and the 240Hz refresh rate makes everything feel very responsive. Colors look rich, details pop, and the overall viewing experience is great whether you are gaming, watching videos, or just browsing. CPU: Even though the processor is limited a bit because the laptop is slim, it still performs really well. Getting around 3100 in single core and 20k in multicore on Geekbench 6. GPU: The 115w 5070 Ti performs way better than you would expect for its power limit. Games run smoothly on the highest settings. For example, getting around 120fps in Black Myth Wukong on ultra with ray tracing and DLSS is impressive. It can handle modern games without struggling. Speakers: The speakers are not great for the price. They sound weak and lack depth. Using a custom profile in FX Sound helps a lot, but out of the box they are underwhelming. Battery: Battery life is on the weaker side. The main issue is that the display stays locked at 240Hz even when running on battery. The panel and the drivers support variable refresh rate, but Acer has disabled it. Because of that the battery drains quickly and you will probably end up keeping the charger close most of the time. Thermals: With a laptop cooler, turbo mode, and fans at full speed, the temperatures stay pretty controlled. While gaming on ultra settings, the CPU usually sits around 79°C and sometimes spikes up to around 88°. The GPU stays around 77°C. For a slim gaming laptop these temperatures are quite reasonable. Keyboard and Trackpad: The keyboard has a comfortable feel. It is not too soft and not too clicky. Typing and gaming both feel good. The trackpad is average. It works fine but there is nothing special about it. Software: The Acer Predator software still needs improvement. It can bug out at times. Sometimes the fans get stuck at max speed and the only way to fix it is restarting the laptop. Other times it refuses to change power modes because it thinks the laptop is on battery even though the charger is plugged in. Restarting usually fixes these problems but it does get annoying. Acer definitely needs to polish the app. My Take: This laptop gives great value for the price. The performance is strong, the display looks amazing, and it handles games really well. If you can live with the weak speakers and the need to keep the charger around, it is a solid choice that delivers a lot for what you pay.

I got this for my son at college who is a computer science major. His 2 in one laptop screen cracked so this is all he has right now to use in class. He likes it a lot. I told him we can get him another 2-in-1 but he said this is working fine for now. I was worried it would be too heavy for him to carry but he is fine carrying it in his school backpack bag.

Very pleased with this "thin and light" version of the Neo 16. It's about 19mm thick (0.75"). About the same as a Macbook Pro or a Zephyrus G16, although it does have an extra 1" sticking out the back behind the hinge. GPU performance is comparable to the Zephyrus, but CPU performance in the Neo 16S is about 50% higher, due to the 275HX CPU. Screen is beautiful, keyboard is a pleasure to type on, with no discernable flex under normal typing. Build quality is excellent. The case does attract fingerprints. The laptop has a 240Hz display, confirmed in Windows, even though both the inner box and the outer carton says 165Hz display. Note that the GPU and CPU are slightly power limited by Acer due to the cooling limitations imposed by the slim chassis. So this laptop will be about 10% slower than, say, a Strix or other full-sized laptop. But that's the same tradeoff you'd make with a Zephyrus. All tests were done in Turbo mode. Click on the links ahd hit Details to see average CPU and GPU temps, etc. 3dMark doesn't display the complete temp graphs from the runs online, but I have them if anyone has questions or wants me to post a graph from a particular test. Temperatures never got out of hand. CPU usually hovered around 100C during the most intense parts of the benchmarks and sometimes hit 103C, but that was rare. Intel allows the CPU to get as hot as 105C before it throttles. It hovers around 60C at idle. So that does eat into battery life. But battery life is comparable to other similarly powered laptops (with same CPU and GPU). CPU Profile: 1,217 - 13,831 https://www.3dmark.com/cpu/2735341 Storage Benchmark: 1,689 (on the stock m.2 drive, HFS001TEJ9X125N) https://www.3dmark.com/strg/213039 Fire Strike: 27,537 https://www.3dmark.com/fs/33557504 Fire Strike Extreme: 17,256 https://www.3dmark.com/fs/33557480 Fire Strike Ultra: 9,945 https://www.3dmark.com/fs/33557453 Solar Bay: 68,772 https://www.3dmark.com/sb/314443 Steel Nomad: 3,530 https://www.3dmark.com/sn/7301208 Time Spy: 15,330 https://www.3dmark.com/spy/57282397 Time Spy Extreme: 7799 https://www.3dmark.com/spy/57282268 Wild Life: 71,483 https://www.3dmark.com/wl/484286 Wild Life Extreme: 28,488 https://www.3dmark.com/wl/484285 PC Mark 10: 8,337 https://www.3dmark.com/pcm10b/2188674 I installed a WD Black SM850X 2TB SSD in the second m.2 slot. That's where I keep my Steam library. 3dMark Direct Storage results for that SSD in this laptop: 13.74 GB/s Direct Storage on 4.75 GB/s Direct Storage off

I need a portable gaming laptop, the price for what you get is phenomenally awesome, thank you ACER! Here are the Pros: 240 OLED not 165 (looks awesome!); Awesome CPU & GPU combo; 32GB RAM at 6400MHz; Slim profile with free sleeve bag; DTX Ultra speakers; Cool software with one touch settings; and the Price at this specs is unbeatable. Now the Cons: Heat- make sure you set the performance or gaming when gaming; 2nd M.2 needs slim heatsink for thermals or put thermal pads to aluminum back; very complicated included software- learning curve needed (just to turn off RGB keyboard, loading predator sound, and BIOS access) and USB-C charging not working- need to use bulky included charger. Overall this is the best laptop at $2K below!

I’ve used the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S daily for the past two weeks, and while it has some impressive features on paper, my experience has been underwhelming in key areas — especially when it comes to performance and software control. ⸻ What I Liked • Sleek, modern design: This is hands down the best part. The Helios Neo 16S looks futuristic, premium, and thin for a gaming laptop. It feels like something from 2025 — in a good way. • Surprisingly good cooling: Thermals are actually well-managed. Under stress, the laptop stays cool without overheating. Acer did a great job with the cooling system here. ⸻ What Let Me Down • Predator Sense is very limited: Compared to ASUS Armoury Crate or Lenovo Vantage, Acer’s Predator Sense feels outdated. There’s no GPU tuning, no manual overclocking, no advanced fan curve settings — nothing to help squeeze more performance out of the machine. • Locked-down GPU: I ran Steal Nomad benchmark multiple times and no matter what I tried (including external apps like MSI Afterburner), I couldn’t unlock better performance. It feels like the GPU (5070 Ti) is locked down by Acer’s firmware or software. • Performance issues: • I experienced small freezes and glitches, especially when closing games or connecting to my Samsung monitor — things like screen flickering and display kick-backs. • What really shocked me: my older Lenovo Legion with a 4060 performed better in RDR2. Smoother gameplay, higher FPS, and just a better experience overall — despite having lower specs on paper. ⸻ Tech Updates I Tried I fully updated the system: BIOS, GPU drivers, Windows, Predator Sense — everything. Still, the performance didn’t improve. It feels like the laptop’s full potential is being held back by Acer’s software limits, and that’s a shame given how good the hardware could be. ⸻ Conclusion The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S looks great and stays cool, but it feels like a sports car with the engine capped. The limitations in software control, locked-down GPU performance, and weird system bugs really took away from the experience. It promises flagship-level specs, but in actual gaming and benchmarking, it underdelivers. I wanted to love this laptop — and I still think the design and cooling are excellent — but the lack of tuning options and inconsistent performance are deal-breakers for me.

I was quite surprised by how good this laptop was. I usually think of bidget materials when it comes to acer laptops, but this one feels very premium. Im honestly amazes at the build quality. The laptoo is a bit wider than normal laptops so i doesnt fit in my bag but thats fine. The cooling is very good to. But to be safe i still got a laptop cooler. The laptoo being at 240hz always isnt a big deal for me, but thats something to keep in mind. It has a lot of ports and i appreciate the SD card slot being there still. The only thing that stopped this from being perfect is the software. I just wish they had something like armory crate and g helper. I would love to set wattage limits on the cpu and gpu and have custom profiles. The software for gaming mods is very barebones and you cant set your own fan curves. But these are not deal breakers. I was gonna purchase a laptop cooler regardless. For it being $1899 this is almost reasonably priced. Everything else is 600$ more. If this ever goes on sale for 1599 or 1699 get it. The software wont be perfect, but the build quality and hardware is incredible. 4.5 stars.

Awesome oled display! Locked refresh rate of 240hz but plays gta 5 and fallout 4 well enough although it jas affected some fallout 4 gameplay, it gets real hot even with a cooling pad after multiple hours of gaming. I also keep having windows error issues where ive had to reinstall twice, Probably wouldnt buy it again.

Light weight, mobile, power, comfortable, beautiful HDR OLED display. For less than two grand, its 100% worth the price. Though you should always bring a charger on you, gaming laptops battery don't last very long.

The only downside to this laptop is that you cannot change the refresh rate on the screen, but as someone who always has it plugged in, it is perfect for me. I use it everyday and have had no issues so far, the GPU can run any game no problem and the AI CPU is a very cool and new feature that I am still getting used to. The AI CPU has helped me a lot with online school and helps me get a better understanding of the topics I read. Overall I would definitely recommend this product to you as it is the best "bang for your buck" coming with a 5070ti and a H-275X.