Acer Predator Helios 18 AI review: Colorful gaming notebook at a high price

Brute performance meets stylish lighting: The new Acer Predator Helios 18 AI is the manufacturer’s latest gaming notebook flagship and aims to impress even the most demanding gamers thanks to the Core Ultra 9 and RTX 5090. But how does the 18-incher perform in practice? Let’s find out in our test.

Technical data

Acer Predator Helios 18 AI test: More RGB is hardly possible

The Acer Predator Helios 18 AI has a modern, yet discreetly understated design in the gaming laptop segment. The visual basis is a black plastic casing that looks robust and high-quality, with Acer adding an additional visual accent with new, eye-catching RGB LED lighting on the front edge and sides.

I have never seen more RGB in a gaming notebook. This bar makes the device stand out, especially in the dark, and gives it an unmistakable gaming flair. Of course, the lighting can also be deactivated if you don’t feel like it.

With a screen diagonal of 18.0 inches, the Helios 18 AI is one of the larger models in its class, which is also reflected in its weight of around 3.5 kilograms. Despite the comparatively voluminous chassis, the casing is still surprisingly slim for the performance class. The cooling technology with its large design is visibly located at the rear of the device and ensures effective air circulation, although this requires the laptop to have a certain depth.

The Predator’s build quality is solid: the hinges hold the screen firmly in place, even if the lid closes somewhat abruptly when the device is lifted. The cleared underside with large ventilation openings facilitates cooling, while the textured surfaces of the keyboard area and palm rest offer a good grip and a pleasant feel. The keyboard is RGB-illuminated and offers feedback in a good range for gaming notebooks, with the keys providing sufficient travel and good precision.

A particular plus is the ease of maintenance: thanks to four RAM slots, the RAM can be generously expanded, while the three M.2 SSD slots also offer plenty of space for fast mass storage – a rare luxury in the gamer laptop world. These upgrade options make the Helios 18 AI a future-proof choice for demanding users.

Features and connections

The manufacturer leaves nothing to be desired in the top model of the Acer Predator Helios 18 AI, combining an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card. This is complemented by an incredible 192 gigabytes of DDR5 RAM and a 2 TB PCIe 5.0 SSD.

The connectivity of the Predator Helios 18 AI is at a high level and covers almost all the needs of gamers and content creators. The device has three USB-A ports and two modern Thunderbolt 5 USB-C ports, which can support high data rates as well as Power Delivery. An HDMI 2.1 output enables smooth image playback on external 4K displays up to 120 Hz, which is a crucial feature for gamers or streamers.

The use of a fully-fledged RJ45 Ethernet port is also not a matter of course these days, but offers a stable and fast network connection for online gaming and streaming. The SD card reader is one of the highlights of the Helios 18 AI: it is equipped with exceptionally high transfer rates, which should please photographers and videographers in particular who often want to transfer large amounts of data quickly. A combined 3.5 mm jack connection for headsets rounds off the equipment package.

For wireless connectivity, the Helios 18 AI comes with the latest Wi-Fi 7, which theoretically enables very high speeds in the 6 GHz band. However, practical tests have shown that the performance in the 5 GHz range sometimes lags significantly behind the competition, which can lead to a loss of speed, especially when gaming. Bluetooth 5.3 supports the connection to peripheral devices.

The placement of the ports on the sides and back of the device is well thought out and allows convenient use of gaming mice, headsets and external storage media without tangled cables on the desk.

Acer Predator Helios 18 AI with mini LED display

The Acer Predator Helios 18 AI comes with an 18-inch mini LED display with a resolution of 3,840 x 2,400 pixels and a frame rate of 120 hertz. It achieves a peak brightness of around 700 nits, which is excellent.

Thanks to excellent illumination and convincing black levels, the screen achieves very good picture quality, which the notebook combines with full DCI-P3 color space coverage, making it suitable for creative professionals.

In combination with the low response time, this results in a coherent picture, thanks to which the Predator Helios 18 AI can score points not only in everyday tasks, but also in gaming use.

Heat development, volume and practice

The Acer Predator Helios 18 AI is undoubtedly one of the louder gaming notebooks. Even in idle mode, the fans occasionally start up, although the noise development is still within a good range at a measured 30 dB(A).

Under load, however, it can become significantly louder. We measured a maximum of 51 dB(A), which makes the gaming notebook from Acer noticeably louder than many of its competitors. Although the device’s noise is not unpleasantly shrill, there are notebooks that are noticeably quieter even under continuous full load. However, the comparable Alienware 18 Area-51 is significantly louder.

However, Acer has the heat development well under control. A maximum of around 50 degrees Celsius can be measured below the display, while the rest of the case remains rather cool. However, the exhaust air that is blown out from the side is quite warm.

Acer Predator Helios 18 AI in the benchmark test

Unsurprisingly, the Predator Helios 18 AI impresses across the board in terms of performance and achieves top scores both with the SSD and in gaming mode. In terms of everyday system performance, the notebook is on a par with other comparably equipped models.

However, the PCIe 5.0 SSD is not quite as powerful as some of its competitors, but still outperforms PCIe 4.0 counterparts, sometimes significantly. Nevertheless, more could have been achieved here.

The situation is similar in terms of system performance with PCMark 10, where the Acer model also lags behind the Alienware laptop, even though the Predator Helios 18 AI has more RAM and otherwise identical components – the notebook has to give up some ground here due to the SSD.

The performance in the pure Cinebench CPU tests, on the other hand, is also not quite on par with other notebooks that use the Core Ultra 9 275HX. The multi-core performance in particular ranks significantly below that of the competition. At least in the balanced mode used by default.

In terms of gaming and graphics performance, the Acer Predator Helios 18 AI also ranks below the Alienware 18 Area-51 and comparable notebooks, which is due to the notebook’s slightly lower TDP.

In practice, however, the Acer notebook also masters current games in 4K+ resolution absolutely smoothly. In F1 24 at maximum details and high ray tracing, 71 fps are achieved for a smooth gaming experience. The laptop masters Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p in ray tracing overdrive mode with 125 fps.

Battery life of the Acer Predator Helios 18 AI

Despite a large 99 Wh battery, the battery life of the Acer Predator Helios 18 AI is meager. However, this should come as no surprise for a gaming notebook. After just 2 hours and 43 minutes, the Modern Office benchmark of PCMark 10 comes to an end, while the gaming test probably clocks in at 1 hour and 17 minutes – so it’s not really practical to use it without a power cable.

However, this is still more than in the case of the Alienware counterpart. Charging takes place via a massive 400-watt power supply unit, which is connected via a dedicated port on the back of the gaming laptop.

Acer Predator Helios 18 AI test: Conclusion

The Acer Predator Helios 18 AI impresses in the test with its good performance and powerful features. The manufacturer delivers an absolutely appealing, albeit rather bulky gaming notebook, which should particularly delight fans of extensive RGB lighting. The gaming performance in particular is impressive, but the competition is better positioned in terms of system performance.

On the other hand, there is a modern port selection and an excellent, bright display with great sharpness and color reproduction. However, the price of the Acer Predator Helios 18 AI is pretty hefty. Too hefty even for most gamers, which means that the laptop clearly fills a certain niche and doesn’t quite match the performance of comparable competitors.

VORTEILE

• Coherent design
• Attractive lighting
• 192 GB RAM
• Modern connections

NACHTEILE

• Extremely expensive
• Large & heavy
• Somewhat weak SSD
• Performance not always on par

Detailbewertung

Design & Workmanship 95

Display 94

Features 95

Performance 83

Battery 78

Value For Money 75

Fazit

Massive gaming notebook with attractive lighting and powerful features at an extremely high price. The performance is sometimes not on par with cheaper competitors.

87

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