The premium gaming department Acer Predator has revealed the Predator Helios 16 and Helios 18 together with a couple of new gaming monitors at CES 2023.
First up the Predator Helios 18 and 16 aim for nothing less than absolute gaming performance that can match the needs of all competitive and casual titles with ease. Armed with either a 13th Gen Intel Core i7 or i9 HX series CPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 series Laptop GPU, they will come with a maximum of 32GB DDR5-4800 RAM and 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD in RAID 0 to minimize load times and provide high and steady FPS count.
The display seems to be the one aspect with the most selections as for the Predator Helios 18, the size is 18-inch with 16:10 aspect ratio and comes at either 1920×1200 165Hz, 2560×1600 165Hz, 2560×1600 240Hz, or the very best – AUO’s 250Hz Mini LED with 1000 local dimming zones providing perfect backlighting control. On the other hand, the Predator Helios 16 is the same but minus the 1920×1200 165Hz selection.
All of these parts are going to make the machine toasty all the time so Acer took the chance to refine its cooling system and now features the 5th Gen AeroBlade 3D metal fans and vector heat pipes joining hands with liquid metal on the CPU to get temperatures under control with ease.
If you haven’t noticed already, both devices sport a new aesthetic of simplified matte black chassis with clean edges and thin bezels with a customizable RGB strip located at the back for more gamer essence. The keyboard even has a Mini LED backlit keyboard with per-key RGB control. Several kinds of I/O ports have also been blessed including 2x Thunderbolt 4, 2X USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, 1X HDMI 2.1, and 1x microSD card reader.
For the gaming monitor side, first, we have the standard flat Predator X27U at 1440p resolution and 240Hz/0.01ms refresh rate and response time for incredibly smooth gameplay without tearing thanks to AMD FreeSync Premium integration. It also has a KVM switch for the multi-setup user that works or games with different machines and that also means the USB hub with USB-C passthrough can help keep wires clutter-free.
For the big boy X45, the curved 45-inch UWQHD ultra-wide beast has the same refresh rate and response time as the former as well but with better viewing angles contributed by the 800R curvature. Oh, it is also an OLED panel so the colors and blacks will definitely look better than the former. Games and movie experience are further elevated with its 1000 nits maximum brightness for excellent contrast and HDR10 certification. User may connect their rig to the display via DisplayPort 1.4 or HDMI 2.0. The KVM and USB hub functions are available as well if you’re wondering.
Availability
All 4 items already had their prices and launch period announced which are the following:
- Predator Helios 16 – Starts from USD1,649.99 launching on March
- Predator Helios 18 – Starts from USD1,699 launching on April
- Predator X27U – Starts from USD1,099 launching in Q2
- Predator X45 – Starts from USD1,699 launching in Q2
