Acer Predator Helios 16

A powerful RTX 4080 portable for a reasonable price

- JACOB RIDLEY

AS GAMING LAPTOPS with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 stuffed inside go, the Acer Predator Helios 16 isn't the fastest. But it does have redeeming qualities, and then some.

It's a 16-inch laptop, which means it joins the likes of the Alienware X16, Asus ROG Strix Scar 16, Asus Zephyrus M16, Lenovo Legion Pro 7i, and Razer Blade 16 in a very competitive market. Like those laptops, the Helios' 16-inch frame and slim bezels make for a better compromise between screen and chassis size than most 17-inch devices.

Speaking of that screen, it's absolutely lush. It's a mini-LED panel with 1,000 dimming zones for relatively precise lighting control, plus 240Hz refresh and 2,560 by 1,600 pixels in a 16:10 aspect ratio. Admittedly, Mini LED is no microLED OLED, it's not capable of perpixel lighting, but we'll take it over a traditional LED screen any day.

Anyway, the colours are rich, vibrant, and it doesn't struggle to deliver a punchy image like some cheaper laptops. Crank the brightness right the way up and the image is super impressive, both on the desktop and in games. Playing through Metro Exodus Enhanced, this display is so, so good at showing off areas with bright flames erupting out of the darkness, or rays of light breaking through windows or a hole in the roof.

But does it make up for the Helios's occasional performance deficits? The RTX 4080 and Intel Core i9-13900HX CPU are a mighty combo on paper, but game performance is a mixed bag versus other gaming laptops with similar spec sheets. Despite running its RTX 4080 at 175Wthe same as pretty much every other RTX 4080 laptop we've tested-it's still often the lowest performer benchmarks, if not second-last. That said, with an RTX 4080, you're never short of frames.