Acer unveiled their range of gaming devices at CES earlier this year, with newly updated 16” and 18” models. The Acer Predator Helios 18 AI (PH18-73) is a premium gaming laptop and comes with some neat upgradability, and of course premium specs.

Starting at $7,999 on the Acer Store, the review unit sent over is a little higher spec. It’s packed to the gills with a 24GB NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 driving the massive 18” 4K Mini-LED display, with an Intel  Core Ultra 9 275HX paired with 192 GB of DDR5 memory and 2TB PCIe Gen5 SSD storage.

It’s all powered by a 90Wh battery, which is almost the maximum that can be put into a device before air travel becomes a problem with a 400W charger included. 

While there’s been a trend towards a more subdued design on some gaming laptops, the ACER Predator Helios 18 AI owns its place as a gaming laptop, embracing bold RGB styling across the chassis and the full-sized keyboard. 

It’s big, powerful and fairly ostentatious and I’ve been using playing with the ACER Predator Helios 18 AI for a few weeks now, so is it worth checking out?

Hardware

As far as the Predator Helios 18 AI goes, it’s a big gaming laptop. At a couple of kilos, it’s quite hefty to lug around and even though it’s got a relatively slim profile the sheer size preculudes you from throwing it into a backpack.

The design is of course defined by the big draw point for the Helios 18, that massive 18” 4K Mini-LED display. It draws the eye and the sheer size gives the lower deck plenty of space to include a large glass touchpad and full-sized keyboard that also includes a numeric keypad that doesn’t feel shoe-horned in for once.

The keyboard itself has a nice feel to it with 2.0 mm of key travel, which works well for both typing for long periods and gaming – though the space bar seems just ridiculously short for some reason…likely due to the oversized CoPilot button.

There’s also a fast access button on the lower deck at the top left. This unassuming button launches the Predator Sense quick customisation button which gives you can set to either cycle through performance modes, or just turn Turbo mode on or off.

As a nifty feature for gamers, ACER has included the ability to swap the WASD keys & arrow keys with next-gen mechanical switches using their MAGKEY 4.0 system, with switches that can see the actuation points optimized at just 0.7mm – unfortunately there weren’t any included so I didn’t get any to test out but this looks like a neat feature.

The trackpad below the keyboard works well with a smooth glass finish and support for multi-touch gestures. There weren’t any phantom touches and while it’s responsive, most gamers will be plugging in their own mouse.

The design of the laptop includes RGB panels across the front, rear port deck and of course the keyboard itself which includes backlit per-key RGB configurable in the ACER Predator Sense app. I particularly like the RGB light bar that wraps around the left hand corner of the lower deck, and the splash of colour on the palm rest on the right.

There’s no shortage of ports across the laptop, with USB Type-A ports on either side of the laptop for easy access to peripherals. 

The gaming laptop also includes an ethernet jack to complement the Wifi 7 0 – though ACER has included it on the left rather than the rear port panel which is a personal preference. There’s also a full-sized SD card slot next to it which is great for content creators transferring data, and a 3.5mm audio jack. 

The rear port includes the HDMI out, as well as dual USB-C ‘Thunderbolt 5’ ports, offering some astonishingly fast data transfers up to 20Gbps, DisplayPort out and of course PD charging up to 100W – though this is the minimum ACER recommends for charging, with the 400W powerbrick included able to support higher performance. 

Display and Audio

The 18” MiniLED display comes in a slightly taller 16:10 aspect ratio. The WQUXGA (3840 x 2400) resolution is crisp – though you get options for refresh with the Predator Sense software offering a simple switch between 4K at 120Hz for sharp visuals or FHD at 240Hz for blazingly smooth gaming.

It’s a decently bright display, peaking out at 1000 nits in HDR mode – with a matte finish that works well against glare – but does of course mean there’s no touch support. The bezel around the display is minimal, though slightly thicker on the top and bottom to make room for connectors, and of course the 1080p Webcam but beware there’s no privacy shutter.

The panel itself is great for both gamers and creators with support for 100% of the DCI-P3  colour gamut and includes HDR mode. 

To complement the beautiful display, ACER has included a 6-speaker ‘VOX’ audio system with DTS:X Ultra tuning with several profiles available in the pre-installed app.

The speakers and audio system sounded decent, though it tends to really top out at louder volumes with crackling and distortion when you increase the volume to full. That said, the clarity is decent right up to that point. 

Performance

The system is powered by the Intel  Core Ultra 9 275HX ‘Arrow Lake’ processor with 192 GB DDR5 RAM and 2TB M.2 PCI Express NVMe 5.0 storage. The video is supplied by an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU with 24.0 GB of dedicated RAM.

To say this system performs well is an understatement, with all your usual suspects like Crysis Remastered and Cyberpunk 2077 easily topping 50-60fps on full performance mode in 4K resolution and letting loose even better in FHD. 

The switch between using the Dual-Mode Display is simple with a simple toggle in the Predator Sense software which lets you choose between 4K at 120Hz or FHD at 240Hz – though understandably you’ll have to restart the laptop when you switch.

Performance is better on games at FHD…as you’d expect, though battery life isn’t improved. 

The system uses ACER’s 6th gen AeroBlade 3D fan tech. The fans use 0.05mm fan blades – the worlds thinnest – with over 100 blades to move a lot of air through the system. 

Those fans only kick in under load. During Quiet mode, you can barely hear the laptop and ambient air-conditioning is louder.  

On Turbo mode while gaming though the laptop is fairly noisy with a 79.2dB reading at the rear exhaust, but a more comfortable 59.8dB in front of the keyboard which is still fairly loud.

On the performance side, I was anecdotally happy with the performance. On the more clinical side, I ran it through 3DMark and here’s how it went. 

Battery and Charging

The 99Whr 4-Cell Li-Ion battery lasts a generous amount of time for gaming, with a solid hour and a half of full on 4k gaming before the low battery warnings kicked in. 

The laptop can last around three hours on charge doing run of the mill work on Quiet mode, but still gives you plenty of grunt. 

The 400W power brick is massive. It’s a proprietary connector which connects into the back of the laptop. The 400W charger can get you from flat to full in just over two hours, or you can get to 50% charge in 45 minutes for something a little faster. 

You CAN charge with a 100W USB-C charger at a slower rate than the full 400W charger. The USB-C charger can charge your laptop, but for full power and performance you’ll need the 400W Charger.

Software 

Windows 11

Windows 11 Professional 25H2 with support through to October 2028 – but you’ll also receive OS Service updates, so updates will flow! Including regular updates to Windows Defender.

Predator Sense

ACER’s gaming control software, Predator Sense, comes pre-installed and ready to help you tune your new gaming laptop.

The software is fairly straightforward, though not quite as feature rich as other control centres, you can switch performance modes, run a checkup and see what games you have installed. 

Apps and Offers

There are the usual suspects pre-installed on the ACER Predator Helios 18 AI, from useful tools and utilities for your hardware to offers for apps. 

On the tools and utilities front you get Predator Sense, as well as NVIDIA app for your GPU to ensure your drivers are updated, as well as DTS:X Ultra and Realtek apps for audio tuning and Intel has chipped in with some utilities for Wifi, storage and the on-board GPU when the NVIDIA RTX GPU isn’t required. 

On the ‘bloatware’ front, you get McAfee Live and Dropbox trials pre-installed with offers as well. If you want to use these you can, or simply uninstall them to save some space.

Whether bloatware or a genuine offer, there’s also a trial for Adobe Creative Suite which comes with a reminder or two as you use the laptop. 

Unfortunately there’s no Xbox GamePass free time with the laptop – a bit of a miss for a Microsoft and ACER on a gaming laptop, but it is what it is and all the gaming storefronts work with no issues. 

Final Thoughts

ACER’s Predator Helios 18 AI is a great gaming laptop as a whole. From the large MiniLED display and RGB lighting throughout to the full power silicon running the system underneath, there’s very little to complain about. 

There’s really only a couple of things to concern yourself with, the audio at higher volumes….and the price. Unfortunately in this world of silicon shortages for RAM, GPU/CPUs and storage, that price isn’t coming down any time soon, so it’s about where it should be. 

The rest of the system is a proud gaming laptop and if you’re good with the aesthetic, this is definitely a great performing laptop that should keep any gamer happy.

You can check it out now on the ACER website.