Our opinion on the Acer Predator Helios Neo 18 PHN18-71-003
Large, very comfortable format for multimedia gaming laptops Acer Predator Helios Neo 18 PHN18-71-003 High Definition & Fidelity with 18-inch 2.5K DCI-P3 IPS 18-inch anti-glare screen whose high frequency of 240Hz improves fluidity in games, which benefits from a large storage capacity of 2 TB with 2 SSDs in RAID 0 which accelerate treatments. This is also the case for the large amount of 32 GB RAM and the powerful high-end Core i9-14900HX hybrid processor, recent Intel Raptor Lake Refresh, as well as its high-end GeForce RTX 4070 ray tracing NVIDIA Ada Lovelace graphics card suitable for gaming. recent. This versatile black Windows 11 laptop designed for gaming and creating also features a backlit keyboard and Wi-Fi 6E and USB-C Thunderbolt 4 connectivity.
Features of the Acer Predator Helios Neo 18 PHN18-71-003
| Screen(s) | 18″ QHD 2.5K LED IPS 240Hz 16/10th 100% DCI-P3 low blue light (2560×1600, anti-glare/matte) |
| Processor | Intel Core i9-14900HX Raptor Lake Refresh (24 cores: 8P 2.2 GHz / 16E 1.6 GHz, 55W) |
| Installed RAM (max) | 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5 5600 MHz (64 GB), 2 slots (occupied) |
| Graphic card | NVIDIA Ada Lovelace GeForce RTX 4070 8 GB dedicated GDDR6 (2080MHz, 140W), Intel Iris Xe integrated into the processor and Optimus |
| Storage | 2 TB SSD: 2 x 2 TB SSD (NVMe PCIe 4.0 x4) in RAID 0 |
| Connections | 2 USB 3.2 (Gen2) + 1 USB 3.2 (Gen1) + 2 USB-C Thunderbolt 4, HDMI 2.1, microSD card reader |
| Network | Wi-Fi 6E ax (2×2, Killer 1675i), Bluetooth 5.3 + Gigabit Ethernet (2.5 Gb/s) |
| Backlit Keyboard | Yes |
| Numeric keypad | Yes |
| Windows Hello | – |
| Audio system | 2 Nahimic speakers |
| Operating system | Windows 11 64bit |
| Announced autonomy / Battery | 3 hours / Li-Polymer 4 cells 90Whr (330W adapter) |
| Weight / Dimensions (mm) | 3.4 Kg / 404 x 311.6 x 27.1-29.1 |
The Acer Predator Helios Neo 18 PHN18-71-003 faces the competition
The Acer Predator Helios Neo 18 PHN18-71-003 is currently on sale at Acer France and offers an attractive configuration/price ratio for its category where it is one of the least expensive to integrate into such a large format. such large RAM and storage with such a high-performance processor (also recent) and graphics card, such a high frequency and definition screen with such faithful colors as well as Windows provided.
If the Acer Predator Helios Neo 18 PHN18-71-003 does not meet all your criteria, you will find other configurations for gaming on a similar budget in our gaming laptop guide. For the same budget, choose the model with the most powerful graphics card, it will have the greatest impact on performance.
Need a student laptop? Check out our guide
Chassis, connections, screen of the Acer Predator Helios Neo 18 PHN18-71-003
Cooled by 2 AeroBlade 3D 5th generation fans, 5 heat pipes and air grilles, this laptop targeting gamers and creatives adopts a resolutely gamer appearance thanks to its thick black design with angular lines and connectors positioned partly at the back.
This multimedia creator gaming laptop PC has good connectivity including 2 USB-C Thunderbolt 4, a useful HDMI video output to easily connect it to a TV or monitor for example, Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi 6E ax wireless modules to communicate and connect remotely, Ethernet and audio ports or 3 USB 3.0 (USB 2.0 compatible) ensuring transfers are carried out up to 10 times faster than USB 2.0 if USB devices are plugged into them 3.0.
You can obviously backlight the keys of the chiclet keyboard when you need to see them better.
The screen will delight those looking for a large format High Definition High Fidelity panel since the 18-inch screen adopts a 2.5K definition superior to Full HD associated with DCI-P3 colorimetry that is much more faithful than average.
The 16:10 screen displays more elements in height than the classic 16:9 screen while its viewing angles, both horizontal and vertical, are significant.
If creative people will be delighted, so will gamers since the screen has a refresh rate of 240Hz significantly higher than the 60Hz standard, which clearly reinforces overall fluidity, including in games.
Performance, battery life of the Acer Predator Helios Neo 18 PHN18-71-003
The Acer Predator Helios Neo 18 PHN18-71-003 may be of interest to those who have a good budget and wish to equip themselves with a versatile High Definition High Fidelity large format multimedia laptop PC powerful in game-oriented creation offering recent components with a large storage capacity.
It actually integrates 2 1000 GB SSDs configured in RAID 0 for a total capacity of 2 TB. We can therefore calmly install and store multiple games, software and files including, why not, personal creations on this laptop.
An SSD is, remember, more resistant to shock than a hard drive, more energy efficient, silent and much faster.
The SSD therefore provides much better fluidity and responsiveness on a daily basis compared to a hard drive.
So launching games/software, starting/stopping, carrying out processing or even accessing online game cards is much faster with an SSD than with a hard drive.
Precisely because the dedicated high-end GeForce RTX 4070 ray tracing NVIDIA Ada Lovelace graphics card is on board, we can play the most recent games that require 3D resources.
And this even though a greater number of calculations are necessary in 2.5K than in Full HD, which results in a lower number of fps.
The GeForce RTX 4070 ray tracing will delight gamers. But also the creators.
Because it ensures graphics acceleration of processing under software taking advantage of GPU computing power, such as the Adobe suite, Vegas or VSDC.
In fact, NVIDIA Optimus technology automatically activates/deactivates the GeForce RTX 4070 in real time depending on the tasks performed.
Optimus in practice favors as much as possible operation on the Intel Iris Xe graphics module inserted in the processor despite its much lower performance because it consumes little energy which promotes autonomy.
This clearly represents the weak point of this configuration since it is around 3 hours on battery in light use.
That being said, as this creative gaming laptop PC is heavy, thick and very large, it is mainly aimed at mainly sedentary use (e.g. at home).
In any case Optimus uses the GeForce RTX 4070 to carry out graphics work deemed too heavy for the Iris Xe, typically for gaming.
The Iris
We thus obtain a great overall power which will delight demanding users in this area, incommensurate with that provided by the vast majority of models on the market.
The GeForce RTX 4070 is well supported in games and processing by this core which will particularly appeal to users carrying out work intensive in CPU and RAM resources taking advantage of multi-core. We are thinking in particular of 3D rendering, video editing or photo editing, areas in which we obtain much faster processing than if we were dealing with a classic Quad/Hexa/Octo Core and 8/16 GB DDR4/ 5.
Finally, this versatile creative multimedia gaming laptop PC heats up and makes itself heard when pushed hard (e.g. games, treatments).
To contain its temperatures, it can be combined with a ventilated support if necessary (remember to check the dimensions carefully!).
