Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 laptop review (2024)

Acer introduced the Predator Helios Neo a couple of years ago and it replaced its flagship “Helios 300” gaming laptop. While the toned-down appearance disappointed some, the more-sober looks, married with the similar internals, meant it was an attractive sleeper laptop that was still adept at gaming but could fit in an office. This updated 2024 version re-adds a bit of aggressive, gamer-friendly design but still aims to be discreet in an office. So, can the 2024 Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 appeal to everyone?

Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 Specs

Features, Ergonomics and Design

The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 is almost totally black, but there are some neat flourishes that off-set this. The stripe-type, RGB lid logo can look good enough to turn heads at a LAN but remains discreet enough to sit comfortably in an office without raising too many eyebrows.

Opening it up reveals the black-on-black keyboard which is RGB-lit across four zones and looks very stylish. Beyond all that, there are some translucent, quasi-industrial-gamer lettering and design on the rear which nudges the design into gaming territory a little more than office, but generally speaking, the new Neo looks very good in all environments.

The keyboard is a Scrabble-tile affair and the keys are large, well-weighted and very comfortable to type and game upon for extended periods. There’s an almost-full-sized number pad and full-sized arrow keys, which I always approve of. There are also loads of useful shortcuts. The trackpad is large, smooth accurate and its buttons are pleasingly quiet and actuate well.

The screen is a 16-inch, IPS model with a matte finish and a high, 2,560 x 1,600 resolution. It displays a crisp and clear Windows Desktop and colours are vibrant. The latter ensures multimedia looks good but there’s no HDR and there’s minor stepping in colourful transitions. Monochromatic transitions get a bit blocky but I’ve seen much worse. Designers will like that it supports 100 per cent of the tricky DCI-P3 colour space.

The 240Hz refresh rate marries with a quick pixel response time to render fast moving objects sharp and smooth. It’s also G-Sync certified so you won’t see image tearing aberrations. It offers very good motion performance for a laptop and only the most demanding competitive FPS players might grumble.

Above it is an impressive Full HD webcam that does a good job of fending-off grain in low light albeit at the expense of image softness. The microphone array is equally adept at capturing clear audio in a noisy environment meaning the Neo is good for web-conferencing and streaming. Just note that there’s no Windows Hello facial-login (or fingerprint) compatibility.

The twin speaker specs aren’t specified, but they get fairly loud and offer reasonable fidelity. However, there’s not a huge amount bass and audio can distort at the top end at high volume.

Still, these are minor issues and ultimately, the 2024 version of Acer’s Predator Helios Neo 16 is great to interact with.

Connectivity

There’s a generous complement of ports on the new Neo…

Inside there’s Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2. That will keep most users satisfied but I always like to see Wi-Fi 7 and Thunderbolt 4 on 14^th-Gen laptops like this.

Features, Ergonomics and Design Score: 3.3 / 5

Performance

Inside the 2024 Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 is a 14^th-Gen (Raptor Lake) 1.5 – 5.5GHZ Intel Core i7 14700HX processor with its eight Performance cores and 12 Efficiency cores which operate across 28 threads. It’s flanked by 32GB of DDR5-5600RAM and a fast 1TB NvMe hard drive plus an upper-mid-range Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU (with 8GB of GDDR6 RAM).

This all combined to score a very impressive 8,922 in the PCMark 10 benchmark which tests all-round computer performance. (Score: 4.6 / 5)

In the Cinebench CPU-rendering benchmarks, the Neo 16 scored 3,848 in the rapid R15 test and 21,653 in the longer R23 test. These scores are well above average and will please occasional renderers. (Score: 3.5 / 5)

The numbers, what do they mean? (They’re in-game loot coordinates.)

In the 3DMark gaming tests, the Neo 16 started off by scoring 7,563 (average 35fps) and 2,963 (average 29.6fps) in the tricky ray-tracing Port Royal and Speed Way tests (respectively). As such the Neo can play the latest-and-greatest games but you may need to drop the detail settings and resolutions to keep everything smooth.

In the lesser Time Spy and Fire Strike Extreme tests, which ape AAA-mainstream games, the Helios scored 12,868 (average 82.2fps) and 13,980 (average 65.3fps) respectively. It will have few problems playing these types of titles.

In the lesser 3DMark Night Raid test, which resembles casual and competitive games, the Neo 16 scored 67,606 which is an average of 713.7fps – so no problems here.

All in all, Acer’s 2024 Predator Helios Neo 16 is an impressively quick portable PC.

3D Performance Score: 3.4 / 5

I also ran UL’s Procyon benchmarks. We’re in early days with these but I’ll come back and analyse the scores later:

Procyon Microsoft Office Test: 7,251
Procyon Adobe Photoshop Test: DNF
Procyon Adobe Premier Test: 29,380
Procyon Microsoft Ai CPU Test: 124
Procyon Microsoft Ai GPU Test: 818

In terms of cooling, the 2024 Neo usually just emits a light whoosh that’s not too distracting and keeps everything ‘tepid and below’ rather than warm. When under load, the fan whoosh gets more robust – very loud when forced into Turbo mode – but it still keeps everything cool. In our 30-minute Cinebench stability test, performance only dropped 0.7% so there aren’t any thermal throttling issues.

Portability and Battery Life

The Helios Neo 16 weighs 2.64KG which is not light but lighter than similarly-spec’d rivals. The PSU and cables add a considerable 1.2KG, though. You’ll need to carry these around, too as the Neo 16’s battery life is [checks notes] appalling.

I had to run our PCMark 10 Modern Office Battery Life test several times because I thought I was doing something wrong but, even when forced to use the integrated, Intel GPU, the Neo 16 lasted a pitiful 2 hours and 48 minutes. Acer itself only promises a maximum of five hours – and vendors usually provide highly optimistic results by simply leaving the laptop turned on.

I’ve tested heaps of laptops with similar specs and I’d be disappointed with double this score in 2024. The more-powerful Aorus 16X lasted 9 hours – more than triple the time. The Acer is equipped with a huge 90Wh battery, too!

In terms of build quality, the Neo 16 is robust, though. The chassis is solid and there’s minimal flex when a twisting force is applied. Still, this positive facet can’t hide the following: Portability and Battery Life Score: 1 / 5

Price and Value

At the time of going to press, it’s still hard to find the new Helios Neo available to buy in Australia. I’ve been told that the RRP will be $3,999. That’s some way behind the Aorus 16X which beats it in every regard and remains our Number 2 all-round laptop.

Price: 2.1 / 5

Value: 3.3 / 5

Overall

I really wanted to like Acer’s 2024 Predator Helios Neo 16 more, but it’s hard to get away from that portability and battery life score – for it to reach market with what must be a flaw makes us worry about the rest of it. Hopefully, a firmware update can fix the issue but, until that happens, it really needs to appear in a massive sale to be worth considering. Right now, its predecessor is a better buy with better performance. Ugh.

Overall: 3.4 /5

Last Updated on August 5, 2024 by Nick Ross