Acer Predator Helios 16 laptop review: A quiet gaming laptop with many strengths

As the successor to the Predator Helios 300 , the Predator Helios 16 is Acer’s latest high-end gaming laptop with mid-range elements. Our review model has opted for an RTX 4060 , a mid-tier GPU, and costs around $1,700, with SKUs up to an RTX 4080 also available. Acer’s pure mid-range is represented by the Helios Neo 16 and the Nitro series with the latter serving to cover the entry-level segment.

By contrast, the Triton 16 is Acer’s ultra-thin gaming laptop. In addition, an Intel Core i7-13700HX (55-watt TDP), 16 GB of DDR5 RAM (two RAM banks) and a 1 TB SSD (PCIe 4. 0) are also put into action.

Although a mini-LED display is also available, our model comes with a regular LED-backlit IPS panel which, unexpectedly, has gone for a high-end feature set, as our review shows. Competition comes mainly in the form of Lenovo’s Legion Pro 5 but the Asus TUF Gaming A16 , Gigabyte’s Aorus 15X and Dell’s G15 are also battling it out for the title of best mid-range gaming laptop. Just like its predecessor , the Helios 16 comes in matte black and is mostly made of brushed aluminum alloy with only the base unit and display’s edge constructed from plastic in order to avoid the disadvantages associated with heat-conducting materials.

Accents, on an otherwise understated-looking exterior, come in the form of the sleek Predator logo on the display lid and bottom bezel as well as an LED-lit, backwards-facing cooling system. The smooth surfaces do a good job of attracting fingerprints while the fit and finish are flawless – no creaks here. The base unit is very stable while the lid can be twisted slightly but we were unable to produce image distortions, even after applying targeted pressure.

The hinges are secured very firmly, the lid hardly wobbles and can be opened with one hand to an angle of up to ~145°. Overall, the Predator Helios makes a very solid impression. The Acer Predator Helios is around 27 mm thick and weighs just short of 2.

6 kg. These vital statistics can be considered average for a gaming machine with such a potent cooling system. However, despite being the same height, at 2.

2 kg, the Asus TUF Gaming A16 is significantly lighter while the 19. 7 mm-thick Gigabyte Aorus 15X is considerably thinner in spite of having the same TGP. The Acer gaming laptop has numerous ports including 5x USB.

On the left, there is 1x USB-A 3. 1 (5 GBit/s), on the right, 2x USB-A 3. 2 (10 GBit/s) as well as 2x Thunderbolt 4 on the rear which includes DisplayPort 1.

4 and Power Delivery (100 watts). The laptop is also home to Gigabit ethernet, a microSD card reader, a 3. 5 mm audio jack, a Kensington lock, HDMI 2.

1 and the charging connector. Paired with our AV PRO microSD 128 GB V60 reference card, the microSD card reader is not necessarily slow but also not very fast and this is a pity considering the Helios 16’s price tag. However, the devices in our field of competitors (at least the ones equipped with a card reader), read and copy data similarly fast.

The Intel Killer AX1675i Wi-Fi 6E chip is responsible for wireless network transmission, operating at a top-class speed of up to 1. 6 GBit/s and is quicker than the installed Gigabit RJ45 port (Killer 2600) allows since it doesn’t support 2. 5 GBit/s In particular, the Legion Pro 5 16 and the TUF Gaming A16 lag some distance behind the Helios 16.

Bluetooth 5. 2 is on board. Under good lighting conditions, the 1080p webcam delivers very good images.

Confronted with a backlight (in this case, coming from a side window with no additional light sources), there is a drastic reduction in quality. Windows Hello is supported but a physical camera shutter is absent. Acer has included two additional light gray magnetic fan grills in order to replace the preinstalled dark gray ones.

More adventurous color accents would have been fun. Apart from that, there is only the 330-watt PSU. The manufacturer has not gone for environmentally friendly packaging.

The photos on the right apply to the Predator gaming package currently available on the German Acer store. It’s fairly easy to access the case internals after loosening ten Torx T5 screws. The swappable parts include the RAM (two banks), the M.

2 2280 SSD and the Wi-Fi chip. However, the screwed battery and the BIOS battery can also be easily replaced. In Germany, Acer provides a 24-month warranty.

With Acer Care Plus, this can be extended by up to five years. Acer has been using the same 6-row, chiclet keyboard with 15 x 15 mm keys since the 2020 model . Despite the generous key travel, the feedback doesn’t quite reach its potential: The pressure point is tangible and could be a little more defined but the typing noise is inconspicuous.

In the middle and on the right-hand side, the keyboard flexes significantly but is not annoying when typing, as long as you don’t hammer the keys. The mini-LED backlighting is new and offers main different settings. The individual-key RGB has four available settings and can get very bright.

The transitions are particularly smooth and clean while the mini-LEDs are also more energy efficient. We like the layout and, in particular, the normal-sized arrow keys at the cost of a smaller shift. While the logo button boots the Predator Sense app, it is possible to switch between the performance modes by using the button on the left-hand side above the keyboard.

Fingers glide beautifully and with very precise feedback over the 12. 6 x 8. 3 mm touchpad thanks to its Gorilla Glass coating.

Accordingly, multi-touch gestures and scrolling are done effortlessly. The integrated click buttons possess medium travel and satisfactory feedback. The review device with the model number PH16-71-731Q doesn’t come with the optionally available mini-LED display and its 1,024 dimming zones.

Nevertheless, we were surprised that the fast, 240 Hz, matte IPS, 2,560 x 1,600-pixel resolution panel (16:10) proudly covers 97 % of the DCI P3 color space. This means images, in games amongst other things, appear even more vivid. All the other key data also looks good: Brightness of just under 500 cd/m², high contrast of 1:419:1 and even illumination of 94 %.

In addition, PWM, which can lead to eye strain or headaches, is not used, The Acer Nitro 16 is the only competitor in our list of competing devices that manages a brightness of significantly over ~300 cd/m². The good gray-to-gray response times of 13. 6 ms and black-to-white of 6.

4 ms are similar to its peers whereby the Dell G15 5530 has its nose in front with a gray-to-gray time of only 3. 4 ms. Additionally, Nvidia G-Sync and Dolby Vision are also supported.

Since 100 % of sRGB, 97. 1 % of DCI P3 and 84. 7 % of AdobeRGB are covered, nothing stands in the way of photo and video editing, both of which rely on accurate colors.

No gaming laptop in our comparison field can even get close to these numbers with the exception of the sRGB color space. Out-of-the-box, the colors and gray scales are already calibrated and therefore do not exceed the DeltaE 3 limit, up to which the human eye can detect color deviations. Our calibration managed to further improve these values with no visible color cast.

Our calibrated color profile can be downloaded here . Outdoors, the screen is legible both in the shade and semi-shaded areas. In direct sunlight, even a matte display and 500 cd/m² don’t always help.

Typical for an IPS panel, the viewing angles are stable, from above, from below and also from the side. Our review configuration Acer Predator Helios 16 has an Intel Core i7-13700HX (8 P-cores + 8 E-cores), 16 GB of DDR5 4800 RAM, a 1 TB SSD drive (PCIe 4. 0) and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 with Max TGP (140 watts).

Other SKUs are available with a Core i9-13900HX (8 P-cores + 16 E-cores), an RTX 4070 or RTX 4080 . The review model’s target market is gamers who don’t need to play current games either at the highest frame rates or at the device’s native QHD resolution. Other graphic applications such as 4K video editing or 3D rendering are easily achievable with this model.

In Acer’s Control Center software, “PredatorSense”, four performance modes are available which can alternatively be selected via the button on the left-hand side above the keyboard. We carried out our performance-based benchmarks using the “Performance” mode. When unplugged from the mains, this was automatically switched to the “Balanced” mode.

The “Eco” mode, which is also available here, reduces the screen brightness and all forms of LED lighting are deactivated. The Helios 16 has to be charged to at least 40 % in order to control the performance modes. The table below highlights that very little power is lost in the “Balanced” mode with the fans remaining considerably quieter, in fact, almost pleasantly quiet.

In contrast, the “Turbo” mode is unbearably loud and is therefore only useful for long video rendering or something similar. The Intel Core i7-13700HX processor possesses 16 cores and 24 threads (8 P-cores + 8 E-cores) as well as a TDP of 55 watts. The turbo of 4.

5 GHz is not fully utilized and, in the first minute, the P-cores sit between 3 GHz and 3. 9 GHz and then fall to 1. 9 GHz (Turbo mode) and 1.

3 GHz (Performance mode), respectively. The multi-core performance corresponds to its competitors with the same CPU. The 8-core AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS found in the Acer Nitro 16 and the Asus TUF Gaming A16 is clearly outperformed.

As of the fifth Cinebench R15 run, the throttling sat at ~15 % and could be almost completely avoided by activating the loud “Turbo” mode. The optionally available Core i9-13900HX possesses twice the number of E-cores and is typically ~33 % faster in multi-core tasks. In battery mode, things look bleak since the measly 25-watt TDP limit means a drop in performance of almost 65 %.

In everyday tasks, the Acer laptop is exceptionally responsive. Surfing on the internet while playing a 4K YouTube video doesn’t even make the Intel-HX system break a sweat. This means, in the PCMark 10 benchmark, the Predator Helios sits in first place, closely followed by the Lenovo Legion Pro 5 16 .

Likewise, the web browsing performance, as illustrated by Mozilla Kraken 1. 1 und WebXPRT, is also on a very high level thanks to the strong single-core performance. The installed PCIe 4.

0 SSD Micron 3400 can hold 1 TB. The sequential read transfer rates of up to 6,100 MB/s are above-average. However, after a short time, drastic thermal-related throttling kicks in that reduces the speed to a third of its capacity.

Throttling is not present in the Micron 3400 found in either the Asus ROG Flow X16 or Lenovo Legion 7 but the same issue was reported in both the HP ZBook Fury 16 and ZBook Firefly 14 . The SK Hynix PC801 in the Legion Pro 5 16 can also sustain transfers of up to ~6000 MB/s while the small M. 2 2242 SSD found in the Dell G15 5530 is clearly at the bottom of the pack.

The Helios 16’s Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 is a mid-range chip with 8 GB of VRAM which has a maximum TGP of 140 watts (115 watts + 25 watts Dynamic Boost). However, the 2,570 MHz maximum clock speed is already reached at 100 watts. Only the FurMark stress test was able to coax ~140 watts from the GPU.

By contrast, when gaming, an RTX 4060 laptop GPU never draws more than ~100 W. Performance is correspondingly similar to other gaming laptops with an RTX 4060 such as the Legion Pro 5 16 and the Dell G15 5530 . The RTX 4070 in the Aorus 15X is also not far off.

The synthetic benchmark results are halved in battery mode. In Cyberpunk 2077 @QHD/Ultra, the Acer Predator Helios 16 was able to race to the front of our field of competitors, even slightly in front of the Legion Pro 5 16 ‘s RTX 4070 . However, in our performance rating, the competing devices are all bunched together with the Radeon RX 7600S found in the TUF Gaming A16 weakening slightly.

Switching to the dGPU-only mode results in a meagre 3 % performance gain. If this is combined with the turbo mode this increases to 6 %. With ray tracing activated, you still get 60fps in Cyberpunk 2077 1.

6 Ultra/FHD instead of 93. 2fps. With DLSS activated (balanced) – in this case without ray tracing – it’s 134.

2fps. Balanced performance mode drops the frame rate to 87. 4 which is more than acceptable considering the significantly quieter fans.

In battery mode, the frame rate drops by almost 70 % to 30fps. With “DLSS Max Performance”, it is possible to double the frame rates once more so that some new games play (and remain) relatively smoothly in battery mode. In idle use when surfing the internet and undertaking simple office tasks, the Predator Helios 16 is almost always pleasantly silent and, it goes without saying, in quiet mode or battery operation.

In terms of pure CPU load, 36. 6 dB(A) was reached but was also not very annoying. When gaming, the performance mode gets very loud at 49 dB(A) which is the average for gaming laptops.

In turbo mode, it gets unbearably loud without any real added value. By contrast, the balanced mode achieves almost pleasant background noise while very little performance is lost. Finally, the quiet mode is easy on the ears with drops of around 30 % in 3D applications.

However, charging our review model resulted in an a clearly audible whining noise. Acer’s gaming laptop remains astonishingly cool and, during gaming sessions, most of the surfaces don’t even reach 40 °C. The heat is only concentrated on the protruding cooling system on the rear where hot spots can reach 55 °C when gaming.

Only in the combined stress test, we measured a hot spot of 66 °C, although this doesn’t happen during everyday use. Users will mostly never come into contact with the rear bar but, when placed on the lap, occasional contact with the device will be unpleasant when gaming. In the stress test (FurMark + Prime95), after one minute, the P-cores clock rate dropped from 3.

6 GHz to only 0. 85 GHz, significantly below the base clock rate of 2. 1 GHz.

On activating the turbo mode and “max fans”, the clock rate only dropped after 3 minutes (to ~1. 1 GHz). The CPU heats up to 86 °C (and 83 °C, respectively) and continuously draws 100 watts.

The GPU more or less maintains its clock speed at 2,500 to 2,600 MHz, doesn’t get too warm (81 °C) and draws 115 watts. In the Witcher 3 stress test and in nearly all games, the RTX 4060 only requires 100 watts to reach its maximum clock speed. However, in models with an RTX 4080 that ought to look different.

In the pure GPU stress test (FurMark), the GPU continued to almost reach the maximum clock speed of around 2,430 MHz, drawing 129 watts and heating up to 76 °C. In turbo mode + max fans, up to 2,625 MHz is reached (slight overclocking), drawing 136 watts (a peak of 139 watts), while the GPU remains relatively cool at 71. 5 °C.

Even during the pure CPU stress, after one minute, the P-cores only clock in at 0. 92 GHz as it is limited to 100 watts, although the CPU only reaches 70 °C. The cooling system could clearly manage more.

If turbo mode + max fans are activated, it is still 1. 45 GHz at 115 watts and 73 °C. The ability to select the PL limits would have been sensible, especially when choosing an SKU with a Core i9-13900HX .

The downward-firing 2-watt stereo speakers produce balanced mids and highs but the bass is almost completely absent, while the maximum volume of 76. 1 dB(A) is rather average. The gaming laptops in our comparison field don’t do any better.

As an alternative, either the Asus ROG Strix G16 , Lenovo’s Legion Pro 7 offers better sound or you could use a headset or sound system via the audio jack or Bluetooth. At 20 watts, the idle power consumption is very high, even for an Intel HX system while the AMD HS systems deliver the best results among Acer’s competitors. 175 watts when gaming is relatively low, however, nearly all of the RTX 4060 laptops record this value since the GPU reaches its maximum clock speed at 100 watts.

240 watts to 276 watts are only reached in the everyday (and not typical) stress test with this being easily absorbed by the 330-watt PSU. With a brightness of 150 cd/m² while surfing the internet, and a variable refresh rate from 120 to 240 Hz, the Helios 16’s battery life measures a little over 5. 5 hours and is roughly the average for gaming laptops.

The AMD systems, the Acer Nitro 16 and Asus TUF Gaming A16 have much longer staying power at 9 and 12 hours, respectively. At only 3. 5 hours, the Legion Pro 5 16 brings up the rear.

After half an hour, the battery is once more charged to 50 % with 100 % taking around 1. 15 hours. It’s also possible to charge the laptop via USB-C, however, this is slower.

The Acer Predator Helios 16 gaming laptop has many strengths but also some smaller trade-offs. We were positively surprised by the fast, vivid-color, 240 Hz QHD display with 97 % DCI P3 and Dolby Vision meaning nothing stands in the way of doing creative work. Paired with the power of the Intel HX CPU and a similarly very powerful RTX 4060 , you get a mid-range gaming laptop with many high-end elements.

We were also impressed by the metal case despite the keyboard deck flexing a little. The keys themselves could do with more feedback, but, conversely, we liked the particularly vivid-color and energy-saving mini-LED key lighting. Nevertheless, the battery life is mediocre and will probably be even shorter when using the optionally available mini-LED display – especially when combined with the most powerful SKU ( Core i9-13900HX + RTX 4080 ).

High-level performance, a vivid 240 Hz QHD display and peace and quiet when gaming all sound like the ideal recipe for a gaming laptop and creative workstation. However, we have to accept some trade-offs. The powerful cooling system helps keep the internal temperatures low, ensuring quiet and stable performance, particularly in either the balanced or quiet modes.

What we missed was the individually customizable Power Limits in order to push the cooling system to its limits. The temperature-related SSD throttling appears to be a blemish on an otherwise positive overall picture with a seemingly excessive 25-watt CPU limitation in battery mode. With its review variant SKU, the laptop currently costs $1,900 and $1,750, respectively but it is occasionally also possible to purchase a cheaper model for around $1,450 with a slightly less colorful 165 Hz display.

However, it is often possible to find its main competitor, the Lenovo Legion Pro 5 16 for around $1,400 with the device offering nearly the same benefits. Differences can only be seen in the details such as the absence of Advanced Optimus, a better keyboard and a 165 Hz QHD display lacking DCI P3 coverage. Additionally, the Asus ROG Strix G16 is an interesting option, comes with an RTX 4060 and also costs around $1,800.

This investment will also get you better speakers, longer battery life, a keyboard with more pronounced feedback and faster display response times. The Acer Predator Helios 16 with the model number PH16-71-74UU (Core i7-13700HX, RTX 4060 and a 165 Hz display) currently costs $1,650 on Amazon . The mini-LED model, combined with a Core i9-13900HX and the RTX 4080, is currently out of stock.

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