Take it from someone who's used many a gaming laptop as a day-to-day machine—what you're looking for is balance. You'll want a set of components that the cooling system can handle, a decent amount of storage space, a good-looking chassis, and a great screen. All for a price that won't make your bank manager call you just to make sure you're feeling ok.
Which is why this Acer Predator Helios 16 is such a good deal, currently available at Newegg for $1,400. For a very reasonable price, you get some components that make a lot more sense than some of the overpowered (and as a result, immensely hot) combinations we see in some of the more expensive lappies on the market.
Let's start out with that display. This 240Hz IPS LED backlit panel is, unfortunately, not the Mini-LED model you get in the ultra high-end version with the RTX 4080. Boo. Still, with that refresh rate and a 500 nits peak brightness rating, it's still mega-fast and plenty punchy, and will still look stunning for gaming.
Of course, you could splash out on the more powerful model with the better screen. But while we liked the RTX 4080 version we reviewed, it did get incredibly loud under load.
Which hopefully should be less of an issue here. Now, don't get me wrong, almost all modern gaming laptops run hot and loud, and there's little you can do to mitigate that issue entirely. Here though, rather than the hot-running Core i9 13900HX we reviewed, you're getting the much more sensible Core i7 13700HX.
That's still a great gaming and productivity chip, and shouldn't stress out the cooling system quite as hard as its bigger brother under heavy load. Pair that with a 140 W TGP RTX 4070, and while this machine is still capable of great gaming performance, it's a much more reasonable spec than some of the monsters of heat and noise we review on the regular.
Thanks to that RTX 4070, you'll be able to really feel the benefits of DLSS 3 to push frame rates up on that high refresh rate display, too. While it's tempting to buy "up" and go for heavy-duty graphics chips like the RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 in a gaming laptop, ultimately something more efficient like the RTX 4070 gets the job done. If not as fast, then at least with less drama.
Gaming laptops are usually about compromise, and that compromise is well-balanced here.
Portability? Well, here we run into some downsides. While that chassis looks good, it is a bit clunky, with a significant rear lip. The charger brick is a chonker, and at 2.6 kg it's just a little bit on the heavy side overall. Not the heaviest 16-incher by far, but it's not exactly light on the back in combination with that charger, either.
1 TB of NVMe storage is pretty good going, although you could always throw in a cheap 2 TB SSD to really round it out. 1 TB will get the job done, but personally I'd be looking to upgrade for some breathing room somewhere down the line.
Still, what you're getting here is a very well-specced gaming machine, teetering right on the price/performance sweet spot. For the money, you'll struggle to get a better-balanced set of mobile components than this right now.
