Acer Helios Neo 18 – big body, big fun –

In the past few years, many manufacturers have tried to create gaming laptops based on the motto “gaming anywhere, anytime”. RTX 4080 graphics chips were crammed into boxes that could only accommodate an integrated GPU two generations earlier, and the appearance of the sleekest gamer irons rivals that of ultrabooks. A machine that runs Cyberpunk at 100 fps won’t bother you anymore. All the more so for your wallet.

But what if you also want comfort? No matter how cool these machines are, they are ergonomically compromise solutions. The keyboard is squashed, the touchpad is tiny, the keyboard often gets hot under our hands, and 14″ is not necessarily the size that is comfortable for Counter-Strike in the long run. Of course, if we only have time to play a short game during our lunch break, then it will do, but we wouldn’t want to grind through a whole weekend on a thin&light.

You don’t need RGB everywhere

Let’s start with the case, which basically follows the design of last year’s Helios 18. The gamer exterior has not been pushed too far, from the outside only the illuminated predator logo shows that the game is definitely not for nothing. On the Helios machines, we can also customize the RGB colors of the rear lightbar behind the hinge, one of the cost-cutting solutions here was to remove the lights from here, but the Plexiglas-covered design is still impressive.

The cover can also be opened with one finger, although it requires much more force than in the case of ultrabooks, but it is understandable that the hinges were pulled tighter, since they have to hold a huge panel. The metal-covered display does not bend or creak, and even after sudden movements, there is only a very minimal ripple. The keyboard deck is also characterized by the same massive design, the cover only bends under very heavy load.

It is a great pleasure for me that the stickering colleague did not exaggerate, he managed to affix both the Intel and Nvidia labels in a cultured manner. Massive air intakes have been added to the bottom, sides and back, the latter has the already well-known plastic grille, but this time the design cannot be changed, as on some Helios machines.

The confusion of abundance

The huge chest is home to a touchpad the size of which I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, so I didn’t even manage to right-click on it the first couple of dozen times, because when I thought I was already on the edge, I was still caressing the middle. The keyboard also has plenty of space for everything, Enter is full-sized, there are media buttons, the key travel is sufficiently long, and it’s a pleasure to use while playing games and typing. At first, it might be scary that the power button is an integral part of the numpad, but during use, if you press next to it, nothing happens. The extra button is, of course, the mode switch, with which we can switch the machine to Turbo mode if we need more power.

In terms of ports, we get everything we could need, and even a little more. On the right are two USB 3.2 Gen 2 and a Kensington lock, on the left is a third USB 3.2, but this is only Gen 1, a combo jack and a microSD card reader, and on the back is the power connector, an HDMI 2.1 and two Thunderbolt 4 connectors. Thanks to this, if we were to use it in a desktop setup with peripherals, it would be enough to snap the machine into a massive dock, but content producers can also be happy that they can move a lot of material and have easy access to the content of their cards.

Van benne power

Our favorite games, series, and 2 a.m. cat videos are displayed on an 18-inch, 2560×1600 resolution, 16:10 aspect ratio IPS display that offers a 240 Hz refresh rate to meet the needs of competitive gamers. In SDR mode, we get a brightness of 450 nits, the colors are especially striking (the panel covers 100% of the DCI-P3 color space), and the response time is only 3 milliseconds. The panel is protected by an anti-glare matte coating from light and reflections in sunny rooms, so that you can play undisturbed even then.

Of course, in order to be able to unfold this panel, you need beefy hardware, and there is no shortage of it. Under the hood is an Intel Core i9-14900 HX processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 video card with up to 140 W TDP, 8 GB VRAM, 10 GB 5600 MHz DDR 5 RAM, and a 1 TB NVME SSD performs service. The latter two can be expanded, the memory is in principle up to 32 GB (and the manufacturer pre-placed the cooling pads in the expansion slot, which is why the red dot is absolutely valid), and we can also connect a second m.2 SSD, even in a RAID 0 configuration. For the Helios Neo family, the manufacturer drew the limit at the RTX 4070. If you want a more rugged GPU, you should look at the Helios.

Adequate cooling is provided by Acer’s own 5th generation AeroBlade 3D fans, huge heat pipes and liquid metal paste. Thanks to the large machine housing, the inside of the machine is well ventilated, the keyboard does not heat up in critical parts even under heavy load.

Desktop gaming laptop

To read the operating temperature, we do not need to install extra software, as Predator Sense is available with a dedicated button, where we can immediately see the load and the exact temperature of each component. Here, you can also customize the different operating modes, as well as fine-tune the 4-zone RGB lighting of the keyboard and the colors of the cover logo. We can also set, for example, that we can charge our devices with one of the USB ports even if our laptop is turned off, and we can limit it so that it only allows the battery to drain to a certain percentage. By the way, the machine has a 90 watt-hour battery, which offers about 3.5 – 4 hours of operating time if the machine is only used for browsing and word processing. We will definitely not play without an outlet nearby.

The Helios Neo 18 can only be called portable with clenched teeth. I had a hard time finding a bag that could hold the huge machine, which alone weighs 3.5 kilos, and the massive adapter adds another 1.4 kilos to the total weight. And with 5 kilos on our backs, it’s not so comfortable to walk, or even to use public transport.

But this machine was not invented for those who want to hang out in an office in the morning and in a cafe in the afternoon, are constantly on the road, work on the train, or catch the machine in the park. The Helios Neo 18 is for those who are looking for a reliable gaming iron that can replace a desktop machine in one. For which you don’t need to buy a separate monitor to see, or a keyboard to comfortably type. For those who consider value for money to be more important than price, and are more excited about the high fps number than the RGB decorative strip. With its price of around HUF 900,000, of course this machine can’t be called cheap either, but you can’t currently find a better offer in its category of 18-inch gamer laptops.