Acer Helios 16 Review – Great RTX 4060 Gaming Laptop 

This is the Acer Helios 16, a somewhat mid-range gaming laptop that, on the whole, does a pretty good job. There’s plenty you should know before buying though, so let’s get into it! Starting with the exterior, this is a pretty sleek, yet thanks to the ‘junk in the trunk’, is unmistakably a gaming laptop. You get RGB lighting on that stick-out section, which while it does look nice, is a little confusing considering you’ll never see it. Otherwise, it’s a pretty plain clamshell. Spec wise, my model came with an i7-13700HX, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, an RTX 4060 Laptop GPU with 8 GB of VRAM, and a 1TB SSD. That’s not too bad – but of course, we should see how that all performs, starting with the gaming results at the native 1600p resolution.

On average, on generally medium to low settings, you’re getting around 150 FPS on average. Some games, the more esports titles, offer hundreds of FPS – Siege is up at 400 FPS average, and CS2 is near 300 FPS, although in anything more intensive you’re looking at more like 90 FPS or so. Some are higher – Hitman’s GPU data reports at 115 FPS average, but games like Starfield, Flight Simulator, and Fortnite all fall below at 70 or 60 FPS. I must admit that I don’t really understand why we’re putting 1600p displays on 4060 Laptop systems, especially 240Hz panels too, but we are so there you go.

Interestingly, at 1080p for the sake of comparison, this turns out pretty much exactly like you’d expect for a 140W TGP 4060 and a fast Intel CPU. In Cyberpunk it’s functionally tied with the XMG FOCUS 16 and the Acer Helios Neo 16 at around 125 FPS average. Shadow of the Tomb Raider ran a tiny bit slower than the average 4060 machine, although it’s still in the mix so that’s no problem. One interesting result is HITMAN 3, where the built in benchmark splits out CPU and GPU results, and this is the GPU data, and here we see a pretty promising result, for a 4060 Laptop GPU anyway. It’s only 2 FPS behind the highest 4060 based machine I’ve tested, so that’s great to see. Rainbow Six Siege is right at the top end too, functionally matching the Helios Neo 16 with the same config. In short, this is a pretty decent machine for gaming, and is right in line with other i7 and 4060 machines I’ve tested.

As for the CPU performance, Cinebench shows great performance. It’s right up against the Neo with the same spec, and towards the top of the charts here. Single threaded performance was a touch slower than I’d expect, but certainly close enough. Blender actually shows a touch better performance than the Neo, and the best of the i7 class chips. It turns out, that’s because this Helios 16 was able to draw more like 97W from the CPU during those renders, versus 83W on the Neo. That isn’t the absolute highest I’ve seen, and it is very typical of an Intel CPU, but still worth keeping in mind for the battery life and thermal output. 

As for the display, as I mentioned, this is a 1600p 240Hz panel, and a pretty decent one at that. I measured just shy of 500 nits of peak brightness which is great, and around a 1300:1 contrast ratio. That’s perfect – enough brightness to use it in bright environments without issue for sure. It’s also remarkably vibrant, content looks really nice on this, and to the eye it looks rich and nicely saturated. It also covers over 100% of the DCI P3 spectrum which is fantastic, and to top it off, it’s remarkably accurate. The SpyderX2 reported an average DeltaE of 0.88, with no result over 2, so that is fantastic. 

When it comes to the more gaming related tests, the display actually lists itself as a 3ms panel on a sticker, and it’s actually pretty close to being correct. If you use the much more lenient VESA standard tolerances, it does actually come out to around 3 milliseconds on average. With my more strict testing method it’s more like 6 milliseconds with overdrive on, and with a tiny bit of overshoot, but on the whole it’s a decent user experience. Here’s the highspeed footage from Aperture Grille’s Frog Pursuit test, and as you can see there’s functionally no ghosting, with only a tiny bit of inverse ghosting visible. I think Acer has tuned this overdrive very well, and means you are getting the best out of this panel that you can. 

I’m also happy to report the input lag results are about right too. OSRTT measured around 2.5 milliseconds of on display latency, which is right around half the refresh rate, and very few results take longer than one frame to render. All of that combines to a great gaming experience. The display is smooth, responsive, and sharp, especially if you’re playing at the native 1600p resolution. For more esports titles like Siege, you get enough performance from the 4060 here that it’s a great experience, even at 1600p. I enjoyed playing on this on all of the games I was testing, so I’m pretty confident in saying this is a great gaming machine. 

If you were wondering about the keyboard, it’s fine. It’s a little mushy and soft for my tastes, but it is more than serviceable – both for gaming and typing. The trackpad is equally fine. It’s a good size, palm rejection works well, and it has all the gestures you’d expect. No problems there. As for IO, you get two USB C thunderbolt ports, three USB A ports, HDMI, ethernet, an audio jack, and DC in. That’s fine, although I should note that the power input is on the back and the barrel jack is a straight port, meaning you need a lot of space behind the laptop to plug it in. Also, the power brick is massive. 

Taking a peek inside, after removing a bunch of T6 Torx screws – not phillips heads, so you will need a more specialist tool kit – you’ll find two DDR5 SODIMM slots, a spare M.2 slot, and a very loose 90Wh battery. This model came with two 16GB DDR5 DIMMs and a Micron 1TB SSD. I should mention that the cooling package here does a pretty good job. It’s on the louder side – although it’s exclusively air movement noise, not a whine from the fans themselves. 

Lastly, I should mention the price. At least at the time of filming and in the UK, this model is listed for £2000 on Acer’s website. While that is in line with some of the similarly specced machines I’ve tested, I’d be negligent to not mention that the Helios Neo 16 I’ve mentioned several times throughout this video is currently available – with the exact same spec, save for a 165Hz display and 16GB of RAM  instead – for just £1300. That is much more in line with what I feel an i7 and 4060 system should be, and that’s the one I’d recommend. If this Helios 16 ends up on sale for £1400, it’s likely worth the extra for the nicer display and more RAM, but as it stands, this isn’t where I’d put my money. It’s a great machine, but not for that price.