Predator Helios Neo 16 Review – Work or play, this gaming laptop is ready to slay and win the day!

Revealed earlier this year at CES 2024, the refreshed Predator Helios Neo 16 not only upguns the hardware to current 2024 standards but also redesigns the chassis too with a more efficient layout. Ahead of its official launch in Malaysia in Feb 2024, we managed to get a production unit fresh from their foundries for field testing. Here’s our Predator Helios Neo 16 review where we see if their latest refreshed gaming laptop is worth your money.

Predator Helios Neo 16 Review – Build and Design

Acer has a diverse array of gaming laptops for all budgets and for gamers of all stripes ranging from the top of the line Predator series that features the absolute bleeding edge of hardware all the way to their affordable Nitro series line-up for gamers on a budget. The Predator Helios Neo series strides a comfortable middle ground between the two with a finely tuned blend of power and value.

Our Predator Helios Neo 16 review sample is their highest end global model, specifically model PHN16-72 which includes their top-tier 240Hz LCD display, a 14th Gen Intel Core i7-14700HX processor, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 graphics, 32GB DDR5 RAM and a 1TB SSD along with a slew of AI-powered and hardware cooling upgrades to ensure sustained high performance which we’ll delve into more detail later. 

It eschews some of the more ostentatious features of the higher end Predator Helios 16 such as swappable WASD keys, a higher end LED display, and per-key RGB lighting but is otherwise every bit a thoroughbred gaming machine. Units intended for Malaysia may have slightly different specifications but shouldn’t differ all too much from what we have for review.

Compared to the 2023 model, the revamped 2024 Predator Helios Neo 16 bears closer resemblance to the higher end Predator Helios 16 with a pronounced rear housing that juts out from the back of the laptop with rearward facing cooling vents for better cooling.

Bearing in mind its niche between the base Nitro series and higher end Predator series models, the Predator Helios Neo 16 is well appointed for what you pay for with a compact and sturdy design that features a metal top lid and a primarily polycarbonate chassis.

The top lid itself is done in the same matte black as the rest of the chassis and hosts the iconic RGB backlit Predator logo in the centre quadrant as well as a series of laser etched codes in two of its four corners that consist of a combination of a cipher as well alphanumeric codes that translate into ‘Helios Neo’ and ‘Join Predator Force’. There’s a tiny bit of flex in the top lid but construction is otherwise pleasantly sturdy both in the top lid itself and the chassis.

Flipping the laptop open is fortunately a one-handed affair with the hinges sliding smoothly open all the way to about a 145-degree angle in the off-chance you’re using the Helios Neo 16 on your lap and need a clearer view. The hinges are built like a tank without any wobble, staying in place when deployed.

The polycarbonate underside of our Predator Helios Neo 16 review unit is held in place by 9 torx screws space across the underside along with a set of ventilation grilles for the underside cooling fans and downward firing stereo speakers along with a set of rubber feet for elevation when placed on a flat surface. 

In terms of I/O, our  Predator Helios Neo 16 review unit comes with a comprehensive suite of ports with the least used ones located in the rear. The left side hosts a wired Ethernet port, a microSD card reader, a combo jack as well as a USB Type A 3.2 Gen1 port.

The right side features a pair of USB Type A 3.2 ports though only one is capable of offline charging of other peripherals like phones and whatnot. Connectivity is comprehensive as well with fast Intel Killer DoubleShot Pro WiFi 6E as well as Bluetooth 5.2. 

The rear of the laptop juts out slightly from the rear hinge with additional ventilation grilles and hosts a DC-IN port for the charger, a HDMI 2.1 port as well as a pair of USB Type-C Thunderbolt 4 ports. Plonking these important but rarely used ports in the rear makes the laptop ergonomically better especially for long term use.

With this combination of ports, you’re comfortably able to plug in an external mouse and keyboard along with two external monitors and still have ports left for the odd flash drive or two and external drives or whatnot. The provision of offline charging is a helpful thing to have on hand in an emergency though it’s not particularly fast and works best to recharge a phone or pair of wireless earbuds.

Where our Predator Helios Neo 16 review unit starts showing concessions to cost is when you flip open the lip. The laptop itself hosts a full sized membrane keyboard complete with a numeric keypad which has more modest 4-zone RGB lighting rather than the per-key RGB lighting of the higher end Predator laptops.

In keeping with its AI-equipped status, the keyboard also hosts a special Microsoft Copilot key to instantly summon the AI to tackle queries and whatnot. Another unusual addition is a physical Predator Sense shortcut key to directly change performance settings on the fly. 

You also get a slim bezel 16-inch IPS LED display with a tall 16:10 aspect ratio that also has a respectable 240Hz refresh rate and 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut which makes it a viable choice for content creators. Up top, the laptop has a small 720p camera for video calls though a 1080p camera would have been more desirable.

Overall, the Predator Helios Neo 16 strikes a comfortable middle ground and retains a healthy amount of gamer-centric bling with its RGB backlit Predator logo and 4-zone keyboard lighting though its matte black exterior and otherwise understated design makes it equally viable in a work setting.

As gaming laptops go, it’s fairly manportable at 2.6kg and still compact enough to stuff into most laptop backpacks though its 330W charging brick is still a hefty affair which still makes it a desktop replacement of sorts.

Predator Helios Neo 16 Review – Specifications

Our Predator Helios Neo 16 review unit is equipped to tackle even the most demanding games in the market today with several refinements in cooling for sustained performance. 

While it lacks the sheer brute power and hardware of the higher end Triton and Predator Helios series laptops, it is nevertheless very well equipped for a circa-US$1,700 gaming laptop and is able equipped to handle content creation duties too on account of its colour-calibration 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut display.

Powering the laptop is the latest 14th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-14700HX processor that has up to a 5.5GHz maximum clock speed and hosts 20 cores, of which 8 are performance P-cores and 12 are efficiency oriented E-cores with 28 threads.

The Intel® Core™ i7-14700HX processor also benefits from the Intel Application Optimisation (APO) tool that is able to allocate resources to selected applications in real time for better performance.

This is paired with 32GB DDR5 RAM inserted into two SO-DIMM slots. The RAM is not soldered in so you can upgrade it by swapping out the existing RAM and slotting up to two 32GB RAM sticks for up to 64GB RAM in total. On that note, there’s only one SSD slot taken up by the existing onboard 1TB PCie NVME M.2 SSD so upgrade options will require you to swap out the existing drive for a higher capacity SSD rather than slapping in another SSD which is irksome but not a deal breaker.

For pixel crunching duties, our Predator Helios Neo 16 review unit sports an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 laptop GPU with 8GB GDDR6 vRAM. Powered by the new Ada Lovelace architecture, the RTX 4070 GPU features DLSS 3 that leverages AI to improve image quality and add additional frames in selected games for smoother gameplay.

The laptop also has NVIDIA Optimus support, allowing it to selectively use either integrated graphics for less demanding tasks for better power efficiency and the graphics card when more demanding tasks like gaming are required.

Where it gains the edge over the competition especially in regards to cooling is that the laptop hosts a pair of underside 5th Gen 89-bladed Aeroblade 3D fans that offer improved air flow paired with integrated vector heat pipes to better vent heat away from the CPU and GPU through to the underside and rear ventilation grilles.

The 14th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-14700HX CPU also benefits from a new liquid metal thermal grease compound on the CPU that acts as a thermal interface layer to better conduct heat away from the chip.

On paper, the 5th Gen Aeroblade 3D fans are able to offer 10% improved airflow performance than its 4th Gen predecessor. Of note here is that our Predator Helios Neo 16 review sample’s GeForce RTX 4070 GPU is about to run at its full potential with a maximum of 140W total graphics power with 115W if the GPU is cranked to its fullest potential with 25W from Dynamic Boost via the CPU which lends it an edge over competing cheaper competing laptops that tend to throttle the card to lower wattage to optimise cooling while reducing its performance.

Here’s how our Predator Helios Neo 16 review unit stacks up on paper…

Price	US$1,699.99 (about RM8,067)
Display	16-inch IPS LED WQXGA ComfyView display, 2,560 x 1,600 pixels, 3ms, 240Hz refresh rate, 100% DCI-P3, NVIDIA G-Sync support, NVIDIA Advanced Optimus capable
Processor	Intel® Core™ i7-14700HX
OS	Windows 11 Home
Graphics	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 w/ 8GB GDDR6 VRAM, 140W TGP (115W+25W Dynamic Boost)
Memory	32GB DDR5 RAM / 1TB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD
Battery	90Wh 6-cell Li-Ion (6 hours, quoted) w/ 330W power brick
Size/Weight	357.78 x 278.74 x 24.9mm / 2.6kg

As it stands, this is a solid setup that can comfortably tackle any game currently in the market as of 2024 at native WQXGA resolution with a fair blend of value and performance seeing its sub US$1,700 price tag. 

Predator Helios Neo 16 Review – Literal game changer with PredatorSense 5.0

In keeping with their other gaming laptops, our Predator Helios Neo 16 review unit also features their PredatorSense 5.0 utility app enables users to monitor critical diagnostics like fan speed, temperature and most importantly, modify fan speed as well as CPU and GPU clock speeds via one of four preset settings with your choice of Quiet, Balanced, Performance and Turbo modes. 

One thing to note is that not all power and fan speed settings are available at all times and you only get the Turbo and Performance mode if the laptop is plugged in. If away from the mains, you’ll understandably only get Quiet and Balanced mode as the power drain is too high if you kick in the other two settings.

Another key feature is the ability to help manage long-term battery health with the ability to limit the charge to 80% so that the battery remains in better condition in the long term  The app also lets you modify the RGB lighting settings and perform diagnostics on the laptop. 

The PredatorSense 5.0 app also has two notable features that I found particularly useful, the first one being the ability to disable the terrifyingly loud jet engine boot up sound when firing up a Predator series laptop. I have lost count of the number of times when I have turned a Predator series laptop up in the wee hours of the morning and woke up the entire house just because of that banshee wail suddenly ringing throughout the house.

Predator Helios Neo 16 Review – Benchmarks and Performance

To assess its capabilities at its fullest potential, I subjected our Predator Helios Neo 16 review sample to our customary benchmarks plugged in and in Turbo mode to see it perform at full power.

3D Mark Time Spy Extreme	6,074
3D Mark Time Spy	12,838
3D Mark Solar Bay	55,367
3D Mark Port Royal	7,589
3D Mark Speed Way	2,994
3D Mark Fire Strike Extreme	7,135
3D Mark Fire Strike Ultra	14,431
3D Mark Fire Strike	28,441
Geekbench 6 Single Core	2,777
Geekbench 6 Multi Core	17,111
Geekbench 6 OpenCL	121,127
Geekbench 6 Vulkan	9,332
Cinebench R24 System Requirements	11,781
Cinebench R24 Multi Core	1,207
Cinebench R24 Single Core	122, 9.87x MP Ratio
PCMark 10 Work Extended	10,793
PCMark 8 Battery Life (Work)	3 hours 9 mins
Horizon Zero Dawn (2,560 x 1,600), Ultimate settings	111 fps avg
Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2,560 x 1,600), High	139 fps avg
Cyberpunk 2077 (2,560 x 1,600), High	80.16fps avg

Straight out of the box, the Predator Helios Neo 16 offers impressive single and multicore performance as well as excellent graphics performance across the board in Turbo mode. Acer’s upgrades in cooling, especially in their 5th Gen Aeroblade 3D fans as well as their liquid metal thermal grease compound on the CPU helped to keep overall temperatures low. 

Even after several hours of heavy benchmarks and gaming in Turbo mode, the GPU averaged 56°C while the CPU averaged 51°C. At full speed, the Aeroblade 3D fans kicked up a racket with an average of 48db with both the GPU and CPU fans spinning at a maximum of 4,285 and 4,761rpm respectively which is something that you’d really only hear in a quiet library while being inaudible in a bustling cafe.

In practical gaming scenarios, it was able to comfortably handle Cyberpunk 2077 at native 2,560 x 1,600 pixels resolution on High settings in a smooth fashion with an 80 fps average and managed to handle classic Horizon Zero Dawn on Ultimate settings with an impressive 111 fps average.

 

It also managed to run extended sessions of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 even with a veritable slew of Michael Bay explosions and enough zombies to fill four seasons worth of the Walking Dead onscreen without keeling over.

The display on our Predator Helios Neo 16 review sample did not disappoint and it served up vibrant hues with good dynamic range, allowing for dim movies like the Dark Knight Rises to look suitably spiffy while others like the brilliant hues in The Fifth Element look fantastically luscious onscreen. The tall 16:10 aspect ratio also made paperwork and web browsing easier onscreen as there was just more vertical screen real estate to view text. 

 

The downward firing speakers offer up decent volume but offer minimum sound staging and not much bass. It’s good enough for a quick gaming session or a Taylor Swift track but it may not be up to the task of listening to classical music or other subtle tracks.

From a productivity standpoint, the Predator Helios Neo 16 proves to be immensely capable not just because of its hardware but also on account of its full sized keyboard that proved to be comfortable for extended typing sessions.

The provision of a dedicated Predator Sensor button to swiftly change power settings and the AI Copilot shortcut all sweetened the pot and its provided 720P webcam was serviceable enough for video calls. 

Interestingly enough, understated looks, beefy hardware and large display also lend it wonderful utility for content creators and it has more than enough pixel crunching power to tackle the Adobe suite of apps including Premiere Pro and our test run of CapCut on it was a wonderfully smooth affair.

Much like other gaming laptops, our Predator Helios Neo 16 review unit has middling battery life from its 90Wh battery. With Balanced settings on, WiFi on and 50% screen brightness, it managed about four plus hours of web browsing and paperwork on Google docs with a few YouTube videos which was borne out by PCMark 8’s work battery life test where it averaged about 3 hours and 9 minutes.

Should you buy the Predator Helios Neo 16?

The Predator Helios Neo 16 is a finely tuned gaming laptop that blends performance and value in equal measure with a large 240Hz display, powerful hardware including the latest 14th GenIntel® Core™ i7-14700HX processor and NVIDIA RTX 40 series graphics in a sturdy chassis.

There’s a few quibbles of course with middling battery life and sound quality but it doesn’t detract from what is otherwise an excellent design that lets you tackle the latest triple-A games straight out of the box.

Predator Helios Neo 16 review sample courtesy of Acer Malaysia. For more details and to purchase, please visit their official page at https://www.acer.com/my-en/predator/laptops/helios/helios-neo-16