Acer Predator Helios 18 laptop review: RTX 4080 gamer with MiniLED display at over 1,000 nits

[Redaktion]

The 18-inch Predator Helios 18 is a true desktop replacement, particularly for gamers and creatives. This is ensured by the very bright MiniLED display in addition to the RTX 4080 and the strong i9-13900HX. Read on to find out whether the laptop also qualifies for gamers and creative people in terms of its other features.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-Predator-Helios-18-laptop-review-RTX-4080-gamer-with-MiniLED-display-at-over-1-000-nits.762877.0.html

[Cristian Laszlo]

Well, i bought this one one day before this review because although it was quite expensive at 2600 Eur, having this configuration (same but with 240 500nit display) for this money seemed the best option. The laptop flies, overall installation was quite painful - i will post a video about this and come with the link here.

Main drawbacks right are:
- screen has some backlight bleeding at almost max brightness
- strange drivers with .cmd and .bat executable
- this thing is heavy. an extra 1.5 kg laptop + charger compared to my previous scar 17
- speakers are a joke, i am really considering upgrading them if there is a possibility
- keyboard has around the 'd' area some minor flex

Main advantages:
- it flieeees
- screen at max brightness is like staring into a light bulb
- good and large screen
- stays cool while office-ing
- no coil whine until now

Well i've had it only since one day and surely if other important issues arrise i will update. Overall i am satisfied by my purchase. I'm an automation engineer and need mobile power with a big screen.

[Enma45]

For that price an Intel wouldn't be crazy before I choose a Zen 4 7040 Phoenix which is cheaper.

[Xtone]

Well, i bought this one one day before this review because although it was quite expensive at 2600 Eur, having this configuration (same but with 240 500nit display) for this money seemed the best option. The laptop flies, overall installation was quite painful - i will post a video about this and come with the link here.

Main drawbacks right are:
- screen has some backlight bleeding at almost max brightness
- strange drivers with .cmd and .bat executable
- this thing is heavy. an extra 1.5 kg laptop + charger compared to my previous scar 17
- speakers are a joke, i am really considering upgrading them if there is a possibility
- keyboard has around the 'd' area some minor flex

Main advantages:
- it flieeees
- screen at max brightness is like staring into a light bulb
- good and large screen
- stays cool while office-ing
- no coil whine until now

Well i've had it only since one day and surely if other important issues arrise i will update. Overall i am satisfied by my purchase. I'm an automation engineer and need mobile power with a big screen.

I bought predator 16 with same panel 240hz IPS and Rtx4080- same impressions, especially with speakers (already tried to make research-no luck, totally crap comparing to my asus zephyrus g14 ) and huge heavy power brick (also tried research-only solutions with not fully tested GaN bricks). Turbo is unusable, my hairdryer is more quiet. Acer softer is also rather simple and not well optimized, for e.g:keyboard backlight stop responding, cannot adjust cpu, GPU and memory manually at all, no fan curve settings, or color profiles.
Lightbar on back is like throw back to 80' neon flashy design-not in a good way.

But aside of all above: it is very good laptop with very strong performance. Build 'old fasion' way-no clogging of fans after 2 months-blades are spaced far enough, good cooling(comparing to asus g14). Study build. When backligt for keyboard is working it has some very nice effects.
I think all above relates to predator 18, as it looks as scaled up 16.

[David Chang]

The full screen shot for the stress test is way too informal, also the full screenshot for when running The Witcher 3 stress test is missing.

The table should contain also the CPU and GPU power, as these can let readers have a quick glance at the wattage allowed for each mode:

For example:
Quiet Mode CPU 25W GPU 90W
Balanced mode CPU 30W GPU 100W
Performance mode CPU 30W GPU 140W
Turbo Mode CPU 50W GPU 175W

[David Chang]

Well, i bought this one one day before this review because although it was quite expensive at 2600 Eur, having this configuration (same but with 240 500nit display) for this money seemed the best option. The laptop flies, overall installation was quite painful - i will post a video about this and come with the link here.

Main drawbacks right are:
- screen has some backlight bleeding at almost max brightness
- strange drivers with .cmd and .bat executable
- this thing is heavy. an extra 1.5 kg laptop + charger compared to my previous scar 17
- speakers are a joke, i am really considering upgrading them if there is a possibility
- keyboard has around the 'd' area some minor flex

Main advantages:
- it flieeees
- screen at max brightness is like staring into a light bulb
- good and large screen
- stays cool while office-ing
- no coil whine until now

Well i've had it only since one day and surely if other important issues arrise i will update. Overall i am satisfied by my purchase. I'm an automation engineer and need mobile power with a big screen.

I bought predator 16 with same panel 240hz IPS and Rtx4080- same impressions, especially with speakers (already tried to make research-no luck, totally crap comparing to my asus zephyrus g14 ) and huge heavy power brick (also tried research-only solutions with not fully tested GaN bricks). Turbo is unusable, my hairdryer is more quiet. Acer softer is also rather simple and not well optimized, for e.g:keyboard backlight stop responding, cannot adjust cpu, GPU and memory manually at all, no fan curve settings, or color profiles.
Lightbar on back is like throw back to 80' neon flashy design-not in a good way.

But aside of all above: it is very good laptop with very strong performance. Build 'old fasion' way-no clogging of fans after 2 months-blades are spaced far enough, good cooling(comparing to asus g14). Study build. When backligt for keyboard is working it has some very nice effects.
I think all above relates to predator 18, as it looks as scaled up 16.

I have a Predator Helios 3D 15 Spatiallabs Edition, it is basically a Helios 16 with a 3D screen, regarding to the speaker, I found that the sounds tuned by DTS:Ultra is too strong for the speakers in the helios 16 chassis, so I purchased Dolby Atmos to soften the sound a bit, need a bit of tuning in the Dolby Atomos settings, it doesn't sound that bad now.

[Damian]

anybody use other ssd or maybe raid0 to speed up system? Thinking about 2x Samsung 990 PRO 4TB in raid0

[NikoB]

anybody use other ssd or maybe raid0 to speed up system? Thinking about 2x Samsung 990 PRO 4TB in raid0

If these are games, then why not. In other cases, this is extremely dangerous - the failure of one of the SSDs will automatically lead to the loss of all information on both.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to build fault-tolerant and fast RAID10 on modern laptops. This was possible on the MSI Titan 18" 2022 with 4 x M.2, but in the 2023 and 2024 models MSI removed the fourth M.2 port...