Acer first showed off its new Predator Helios Neo 16 & 18 AI laptops back at IEM (Intel Extreme Masters) Katowice, where we got some hands-on experience with the upcoming gaming laptops. They’ll be available to purchase in the coming months, and we’ve been in contact with Acer to figure out what to expect from the new laptops.

We recently sat down and chatted with Acer’s Manuel Linnig and Ivano Cimaglia to discuss the upcoming launch centered around the Helios Neo 16 & 18 gaming laptops. We’ve already learned that the new models will offer a “20% airflow improvement” over the last gen, but there’s one thing that won’t be changing – Nvidia graphics at the high-end.

Nvidia for the high-end, AMD or Intel for the mid-range

If you’re familiar with Acer’s range of laptops, you may know that the Predator branding is reserved for some of its best gaming laptops. Below that, you have the Nitro range, which is ideal for gamers on a more limited budget. Linnig confirms that the hardware in these two tiers will remain predictable, with Nvidia’s high-end RTX 50 series reserved for the Predator models.

“The focus has always been the same, you know, we go with Nvidia and Intel on the high-end Predator versions and then we go with AMD CPU & GPU or Intel CPU & GPU on the Nitro mid-range level. So this has always been our strategy and there’s no change in that.”

Manuel Linnig, Director of Marketing & Media at Acer

Even in the discrete GPU market, AMD hasn’t really challenged Nvidia at the high-end this generation, especially if you compare Team Red’s options versus the RTX 5090, though it doesn’t fall massively far behind the 5080 with its new RX 9070 XT, which is nice to see. In any case, Nvidia has been promoting its new 50 series laptop GPUs since CES 2025 and has recently had to deny reports that these mobile GPUs also have a missing ROPs issue. It’s also important to note that Nitro laptops are no strangers to the xx50 and xx60-tier cards.

You may have noticed that AMD’s discrete GPUs skipped from the RX 7000 series straight to the 9000 series. AMD has already explained that this is because the 8000 series will be reserved for mobile RDNA 3.5 graphics, though we don’t know exactly how this will look right now.

All the laptops demoed to us at IEM were Acer Predator models with RTX 5070 up to 5090 laptop GPUs. We aren’t currently aware of what the mid-range Nitro lineup will look like this generation, so we’ll have to wait and see how that shapes up. As for the Predator gaming laptops, the Neo 16 AI and Neo 18, availability and pricing details are as follows:

About the Author

Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is mostly responsible for reporting on hardware deals. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.