Acer Predator Helios 18 (2023) with Mini-LED display gaming laptop review
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- Опубликовано: 19 июн 2024
- Full review of the new Acer Predator Helios 18 for 2023.
Intel i9-13900HX 24 cores / 32 threads
32GB DDR5 5600Mhz (dual channel)
1TB PCIe NVMe Gen 4 SSD
18” QHD+ 250Hz 16:10 TrueHDR
100% DCI-P3 1000 nits 5ms Mini-LED
NVIDIA RTX 4080 12GB GPU (165W Max TGP)
Gigabit Ethernet
Killer WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3
Per-Key RGB Mini-LED baclkit keyboard
1080p 30fps webcam
90Wh battery
330W power adapter
3.40 kg / 7.49 lbs.
$3999 CAD
00:00 Intro
00:16 Specs
01:15 Build Quality and Ports
03:49 Power On button and Mode hotkey
05:25 Keyboard, Typing test and Trackpad
08:04 Audio and Communications
10:15 Webcam and built-in mics
11:11 Thermals
13:32 Predator Sense, UV, OC
16:07 Fan Noise
19:30 Battery Life
20:52 HDR setup and calibration
21:51 Mini-LED HDR Display
27:39 Gaming Performance
32:02 Gaming Benchmarks
34:46 Conclusion 
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Great review! Thank you. I've been looking at this laptop for a while.
Thank you so much. Its a pretty good laptop overall. Nothing's perfect but if you play at high settings on Balanced mode you can balance out fan noise and performance.
most comprehensive in-depth review of the Helios 18 on youtube, why isn't this product more popular than it is now really boggles me.... from the outset this seems to be the best looking high functioning exceptional value 18" laptop out there, beating the overpriced Blade 18, the very gamer-y Scar 18, and the hefty chunky Alienware m18.
The Blade 18's sky high pricing is not winning it any awards. If they bring it down to within a few hundred dollars of the competition and not be greedy, they'd have a lot more sales. But then again, maybe they're trying to be the Rolex of laptops. The Alienware is a good all around package but poor screen and the weight, oh man, the weight! I don't like the aesthetics of ASUS and their Scar/Strix series. If they toned it down and made it more discreet, perhaps I'd consider.
@@techknowluxAny info of the temp management on blade 18 compared to alienware. I agree if blade 18 would drop few hundreds would be great. Hopefully on black Friday. Thank you for the helpful channel and replies.
@@techknowluxgiven that these 18 inchers will be used mainly as desktop replacements and occasionally on the go, as is the case with my M18, the screen isn't as important given that most of us will have a much higher quality panel connected. I personally have no issue with the M18 screen quality. Colors are awesome and its plenty bright enough. This is my personal opinion, of course.
The Reason why it ain't popular is due to Acer being literally Retarded. SO FEW copies of it were issued to America!!!!!!!!! And only best Buy sells it!!!!!!! retarded as hell
It's because Acer is so late bringing it to market. People were excited for Helios 18... 6 to 8 months ago, but most who wanted an 18" coming out of CES already bought one of the competitors.
Thanx for the very detailed review! I found this laptop at my local internet dealer here in Sweden and got very interested in it, but the litte bit cheaper one with i9, 18", qhd ips, 32gb &4070 graphics. I'm not doing gaming but migt want to try it out, but sometimes some music production. Glad to see there is another empty m2 for ssd and also if I want to go 64gb I can do that as well. Always had a desktop computer but it would have been fun to try a laptop once. The screen on the one I have been looking at seems very nice as well, but yours seems nicer though :) I really like the looks of the keyboard as well.
Yes the other screen options are 165Hz or 240Hz I believe. The top of the line in this model that I reviewed is the 250Hz Mini-LED backlit screen. Very bright and very colorful for gaming and content consumption. The keyboard is actually pretty good. Nice balance between tactile and mushiness even though it's not mechanical. 4080 is definitely the way to go if you plan on doing heavy gaming. Unfortunately the Mini-LED screen is only available on the top model. For casual gamers the 4060 is fantastic.
Very well done video.
Thank you very much!
Nice review! I agree it should offer undervolting and I also wish PredatorSense had an option to disable FALD on the miniLED panel.
Totally agree
Thank you for your review. I’m deciding between alienware 18 and asus scar 18 4090. Will continue checking ur channel for further guidance and reviews. Best wishes.
That's a pretty close call. I like the Alienware build quality a bit better than the ASUS. If you're a fan of the style go for the AW. It not the ASUS Scar is also an excellent, top of the line and fully loaded choice.
Alienware has an inverted motherboard and runs hot and throttles. There is no perfect laptop.
Between this notebook, and another with a 4080 card, which one would you recommend? ( for games ) thx
How do you turn on the lights on the back?
What brightness do you get when consuming SDR content? Is there any way to use the full 1000 nits even in the "standard" Windows applications (which are SDR, I would assume)? Thanks in advance!
SDR gets you 500 nits. No way to use the 1000 nits in SDR. I believe this may be software limited. In Windows it even looks a little dull but as soon as you fire up HDR content the difference is very apparent but its not to say its bad. Dull only in comparison to full 1000 nits HDR in games and content.
Fantastic detailed regiew!
I am considering this or the 3070 model without the mini led. How much worse does the screen look?
Without Mini-LED you'll still be fine for gaming. But don't get the 3070. You'll miss out on the DLSS and Frame Generation tech. Going forward these are going to be a mainstay in many many games.
@higherorderconstruct sorry I meant the 4070 lol. I want the frame gen and dlss 3.5. That's the main selling point to me. Not sure why people get hung up on raw performance. I actually use dlss in quality mode even on my 4090 desktop 🤷♂️
Hello, thanks to review. I want to ask you a question. Does the lfn ock button work on this laptop?
It doesn't boot in BIOS, it doesn't work with the keyboard
Are you referring to the fn lock? I believe that should be in the BIOS.
It's down to £2600 this Black Friday weekend in the UK. Is it worth that price you think? Great review content and fully deserving of 6 figure subscriber following in the future.
Thank you so much appreciate the vote of confidence. 2600 with an rtx 4080 and mini-led as specced in my review? If you arent or couldnt be bothered with tweaking and just want to enjoy, then yes! As they say no bad product, bad pricing.
@@techknowlux thanks. I'd be sacrificing a Legion Pro 7i RTX4080 for it.
I saw one on laptopsdirect
On another review, the temperatures were really high for this laptop.
What are your temps when you’re running on Turbo on a game?
They get high on this laptop. It runs hot, there is no doubt about it. High 80s to mid 90s on the CPU and near 86C (thermal limit) on the GPU in many games. And the fans spin at 6000+ RPM. Hot and loud.
How does this compare to the 16-inch version with the same specs in terms of fan noise and temps? Since you reviewed both, your comment is appreciated here.
@durzu3 The fans are the same so very similar noise profiles at the high end.
I always play with mixed settings even on my desktop, these days ultra settings don't justify the taxation on your system. Most modern games still look fantastic on medium. I usually max out textures because those are the main thing that makes the game look good. I mostly play competitive games so shadows are the first to go, motion Blur next to go, just those two things are huge for saving vram. Also keep on mind Harry Potter is not optimised very well at all, cyber punk is another. Personally I think a 4080 has lots of life, just depends where you want those settings to be. Medium settings with ultra textures looks great and you'll gain fps! Thanks for this video! It was this or leveno 7i with a 4090 for the same price, I just couldn't pass up this display, I get it tomorrow! Since acer doesn't put liquid metal on the gpu, then I'll have to do it myself...if I ever need repairs I'll repaste with mx5 😂
@Amp_Edition I love your train of thought and totally agree. There should be a "normal" setting in games that work well for almost everyone. Keep in mind that many of these games are optimized to run multi-platform, especially consoles. That means they focus on visuals for a lowest common denominator. The Ultra is a cash grab and also a ego driven thing or PC Master Race and all that nonsense. That's why people can spend $2500 on an RTX 4090. Just insane. Even turning it down one notch from Ultra to High for example will make a big difference. If you balance that turning off some heavy hitters as you've described, you can run a quiet and cool gaming laptop.
These things could possibly catch fire?
Hello i need your advice:
do you recommand this laptop for solo gaming in 1600p or 4k in ultra ( like cyberpunk rdr 2 horizon alan wake 2 etc... ) I also play older games like fear painkiller etc ...?
I saw MSI Vector 17HX for the same price with 13980 and rtx 4090 but no mini led ... :(
Does mini led is really worth it?
I lock my framerate to 60 in every games also
Thanks 🙏🙏
@DeCkS229 If you lock fps to 60 then don't worry so much about min-led. You're more interested in smooth and consistent gameplay. The 4090 with give you lots of power to do this even at 4k resolutions. Make sure you turn on DLSS3 and Frame Generation whenever you can and you can do this with either of these two laptops. In my opinion, the MiniLED is very nice but not worth the hundreds of $$$ more. In a few days you'll forget about it's benefits until you watch a movie again. So yeah, it is what it is.
Hi there , sorry , I know it doesn’t have to do nothing with this video but I have an acer predator Helios 16 , cpu is hitting super high temp, is that normal? I mean, fps are super good, but cpu can be over 91c sometimes , even 100c for a few secs, is that bad? Will it not last me long cause cpu is so hot all the time ?
It should be fine. It has to push lots of power to the cpu and gpu to get high framerates and that power generates heat. 91C is within the normal operating range of the cpu.
@@techknowlux thank you, the problem I have is that I play a game called escape from tarkov and it is really cpu hungry , my cpu reaches over 91 c , stays at 96, 99 c rarely under 89 c for 3-4 secs
Surprising that this one had mostly okay thermals considering your Helios 16 had really bad thermals with 90c+ on both cpu and gpu
Its a mixed bag. Some thermal throttling happening on the gpu in heavy games.
I was looking to get this " acer predator helios 18 4070" model for some time now but ALL reviews on the internet claim that it has the " worst" overheating problems of similar quality/price laptops. And i really want to game on it in my summer house. P.S everrybody suggests underwolting cpu with some 3rd party programs and many more tricks. Its insane that for 2kEur price it cant perform out of the box.
I would agree with you. Paying that much money you should not have to tinker like this. Despite having the Mini-LED screen overall Acer is on the bottom of my list foe the year.
Even though the temperature on the GPU is pretty hot, it is nice that the total wattage can still go up to 250W and stay there.
Yes perforfmance is pretty good. Heat/temps and fan noise are another issue.
@@techknowluxThey come hand in hand
Some fudge smudging on the lid
Make sure you wipe before lifting the lid
@kennysponto6568 Yes for sure. Most, if not almost all, of the gaming laptops are prone to smudges. There's no secret sauce to get rid of them other then keeping a microfibre cloth and wiping constantly. What's your approach for keeping your laptop looking clean?
Overall good video
Form my experience owning the helios neo 16
It's a good laptop for people that not into tweaking their cpu gpu or something else and the price is way cheaper than other brands in my country
But from my view is quite disappointing
1 predator sense pretty suck
2 the bluetooth range is
pathetic like more than 3 metre my audio start to distorted seems that is killer ax1650 issue wifi is OK I guess
3 power button is the keyboard layout
4 some other little minor issue that I'm not sure is microsoft or nvidia or intel
Sorry just saying from my view owning it
Thanks. I share your views on some points 1, 3, 4. The biggest disappointment is that Predator Sense needs a lot of work.
@higherorderconstruct the bluetooth issue I think depends I hope it can be fixed by driver
Where can i get a 16 inch version with the mini LED screen???
Try the Acer online store if you have it in your country. Otherwise look around at local retailers. They're a little hard to find right now. I wonder if it's supply constraints or because they're early generation panels there's just little production output. If you're interested in Mini-LED screen, also have a look at the Legion 9i. See my review ruclips.net/video/sk2uckYswDU/видео.htmlsi=By-FLxtNOBO5Rdj6.
@@techknowlux i saw the review but it is way aout of my budget 🤣 i am an engineer and a designer so I need big GPU performance and also a good screen. Looking at this acer bc of the 4080 and accurate pannel. Also looking at scar 16 and maybe legion 7i, tho that screen has not very good reviews.
I dont understand why everybody says the fans are loud. They are loud for a reason. And you have to run it on turbo to get those 5 fps more. At that point it performs like a 4090 Bonus imo. I know there is no vapor chamber but imo its overrated. Razer has vapor chamber and they have horrible battery bloat and are not as powerful as the Acer. Acer has a tried and true cooling system. It works. It never gets hot and it will run forever.
QLED displays are needed
Why QLED specifically?
@@techknowluxOLED is amazing but burn in on a PC will happen in an year while on a TV it is more like 5 or 6.
Ya, no way. Thats 4090 prices. 18 vs 17 not worth the extra grand from a 4080 .
Well the Triton 500 17 inch is more expensive. It's $5500 in CAD.
I always fail to understand the logic of putting the sound meter right next to the air vent. No one actually games placing their ear up against a vent. You could get an even HIGHER reading by opening up the laptop and placing it 1mm away from the fan. The standard should be at head level, meaning the same position a normal person sits in front of a laptop, which is nowhere near as loud as 70+ decibels. Just some really atrocious methodology.
@aoikemono6414 I figured out the same thing part way through my reviewing. I no longer check the noise levels at the exhaust. Only at ear level.
Jet engine
@SyedHabiib It can get very loud. 6000RPM fans.
You should repaste this laptop. The rtx 4080 temps with only 100w power is horrible!!
That's certainly an idea but a shame that it should even need that out of the box.
you probably got a wrong model with wrongly applied paste. Unfortunately, this can happen to anyone. In principle, the gpu cannot be hotter than 87 degrees.
@@techknowlux
@@davidsz.horvath3357the gpu will throttle at 87 but the cpu can easily share heat with the gpu and add massive amount to it at the same time if the cooling system sucks...like with predator laptops
9 months passed from the announcement to the first review. I've been waiting for this laptop for too long. A month ago I bought legion 7 with 4080 for $2200. For the difference in price I can buy a qd-oled dell alienware aw3423dwf. I really didn’t want to take a laptop with an IPS matrix, because my previous one was a Helios 500 with 4k miniled. Acer has too many disadvantages for premium devices. For example, in the same Helios 500 the sound was terrible and in addition to this, during the game, if the left hand was on the W-A-S-D keys, then it covered one of the speakers and the sound became simply terrible. Judging by the tests, in turbo mode Acer overclocks the GPU by about 200 MHz. I think everything is arranged there, as on previous models, like in this video ruclips.net/video/bN6i_H-sj1k/видео.htmlsi=6k0hOrSv-KVbfdzP
Indeed. Too much time. I waited for months as well. I really do hope that this panel makes its way over to Alienware, ASUS and the likes in an 18" size. It's a gorgeous panel. At the price point that Acer is asking, there are some compromises so a potential buyer should consider well.