Acer via eBay has
Certified Refurbished: Acer Predator Helios 18 Gaming Laptop (PH18-72-93VM) on sale for
$1563.99.
Shipping is free.
Thanks to Community Member
Dr.Wajahat for sharing this deal.
Note, product is a certified refurbished unit/excellent condition
Certified - Refurbished:
- eBay has verified that this item has been inspected, tested, and cleaned by a qualified refurbisher
- Appearance: Pristine, like-new condition
- Performance: Works like new, meets the manufacturer's specifications
- Warranty: Two-year warranty serviced by Allstate
- Packaging: Comes in new, generic packaging with original or new accessories (if applicable)
Specs/Key Features (
source):
- 18" QHD+ (2560x1600, WQXGA+) 16:10. 240Hz 3ms, 500-nits, 100% DCI-P3, DisplayHDR, NVIDIA Advanced Optimus & G-SYNC, Anti-glare, IPS Display
- Intel Core i9-14900HX, 24C (8P + 16E) / 32T, P-core 2.2 / 5.8GHz, E-core 1.6 / 4.1GHz Processor
- 32GB (2x 16GB) SO-DIMM DDR5 RAM Memory
- 1TB SSD M.2 PCIe 4.0x4 NVMe, 2 x PCIe M.2 Slots Solid State Drive
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 12GB GDDR6 Graphics
- Wi-Fi 7 802.11be 2x2 MU-MIMO + Bluetooth 5.4 (Intel Killer BE1750)
- 1080p FHD Webcam
- Per-Key RGB Keyboard
- Ports:
- 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C (DisplayPort over USB-C, Thunderbolt 4)
- 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A
- 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A
- 1x HDMI 2.1 with HDCP Support
- 1x RJ-45 Gigabit Ethernet
- Windows 11 Home
- 90 Whr Li-Ion Battery
- 15.9 x 12.3 x 1.14" (7.17 lbs)
Warranty: 2-Year Allstate Warranty
Leave a Comment
Top Comments
Bottom line: *for the money* and the fact you can start using this device *right now*, these Helios laptops are excellent deals.
Yes you can buy an Asus Strix Scar/Legion/etc and get better thermals and/or performance, but the difference isn't huge and the very best prices we've seen on refurb versions of those laptops all cost at least $300-500 (usually much more). Or, for the same price, you could buy Asus/Lenovo's mobile rtx 4070 laptops like the Zephyrus 16 which is a MASSIVE drop in performance vs this Helios 4080. Mobile rtx 4080 is essentially a downclocked/undervolted DESKTOP rtx 4070, and will absolutely crush even the very best 4070 laptops.
More details from my 3 months of use:
- The screen is decent enough, but ~60% of the time I'm using it connected to external displays (usually OLED). Compared to OLED, Helios' screen is a significant step down in quality, but plenty sufficient to get the job done when I'm on the road away from home and just wanna enjoy some gaming fun. When gaming I rarely use the full 240Hz preferring to instead allow the laptop to run cooler/quieter at 120Hz.
- the noise criticisms of this laptop are nonsense. ALL gaming laptops are loud when pushed. The best can can eek out a little more performance or use fans with a less shrill tone, but just look at all the praise reviews/owners give to Asus thin and light Zephyrus laptops. The 4080 Zephyrus costs ~$800-1000 more, and still offer less performance than this chunkier Helios that can draw more wattage and handle higher thermals (which isn't a knock on the Zephyrus' total package including OLED screen. You definitely get what you pay for in both cases).
- The Helios includes a handy lil' button above the main keyboard that allows you to choose between (in order): quiet, balanced, performance, and turbo modes. It's great! I do wish I could remove "Turbo" from the rotation though because I never use it. Sometimes I'll just click the "Predator" key/logo on the keyboard and switch performance modes in Acer's software.
When on my lap (with a pad and elevated about 1" at the back), I set the laptop to "Balanced" and the fans are still noticeable, but bearable enough I can play without headphones. Depending on the game, I turn max framerates down to 60 or whatever, and maybe lower a couple other settings.
When I'm in my living room with the laptop and its noisy fans set aside and connected to my big-ass OLED tv via hdmi (playing with a controller), I'll click the Helios into "Performance" mode enjoying great avg/min frame rates with all the ray tracing, quality dlss, and in-game settings tweaked up to Ultra+ or vanilla Ultra on a decently modded HD Reworked Witcher 3 install. NO Frame Generation because the hitching and other problems just aren't worth it. A stable ~75fps feels and looks MUCH better than the crappy ~130-150 fps of Frame Gen's frame time stalls and rendering problems. I've had mostly similar experiences tinkering around in about a dozen other games like Plague Tale, Elden Ring, Cyberpunk, etc. In some specific situations Frame Gen is actually pretty good, but so far it sucks most of the time IME, and that has been mostly in single player games where the hype machine claims don't match my real work experiences. I suspect lower wattage laptop CPUs downgrade things too far versus desktop PCs.
- I mentioned Acer's software above, and it works decently enough 95%of the time , but as with many things about this laptop, isn't as smooth, refined, or just plain reliable as me doing things myself in the BIOS or software of another laptop. I definitely do not like that I can't undervolt the cpu, and have no access parts of UEFI, but for this price I'm willing to tolerate the lack of control. I would not put up with that if this thing cost $2k or more. My main problem outside of the limited BIOS is detailed below.
Every once in awhile, it will not allow me to switch between quiet/balance/performance/turbo modes. In these instances, the fans (and presumably cpu/cpu voltages/clocks) lock to "Auto" which seems to roughly equate to Balanced mode. Usually unplugging and reinserting the AC adapter fixes this (or else a system reboot), but not always. When I first discovered this problem, I was strongly tempted to return the laptop for a full refund, but still had 3 weeks or so to decide and spent a lot of time stability testing the Helios with hours of nonstop torture-test loops of Prime95, CineBench, multiple games running simultaneously on both the iGPU and rtx 4080, etc. Lots of different software having full access to all system resources, as well as combos of 2-4 programs/games that could consistently crash the OS.
Last thing I'll mention for the 1-2 people who read this essay is the rtx 50 series *DESKTOP* parts aren't looking like they have much to offer over the 40 series beyond MFG (which, as I mentioned above, is mostly crap ime on a laptop). The laptop parts on the other hand might see more substantial gains. Plus AMD's Stix Halo is looking VERY enticing if the performance/watt numbers enable major battery life savings.
I think everyone is shocked that rtx 5090 reference is a 2 slot solution. Most of that is the cooler, but I won't be at all surprised if TSMC/Nvidia make worthwhile gains to the laptop parts. Of course this all involves waiting for what might end up being nothing, but anyone willing to spend $2k+ to get the specific laptop design, might find some incredible MSI/Lenovo/etc deal on sale later this year. In fact, I bought THIS laptop with that exact idea, and am treating it like a rental that I'll sell later this year to fund whatever new toy tickles the right combo of price/specs.
For right now though, I'd say anyone considering this deal just,p all over it. I'm VERY pleased with mine for the price I paid.
19 Comments
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
Anyone have any thoughts?
Anyone have any thoughts?
People say this computer is hot and cannot undervolt, just wanted to know before purchase.
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
People say this computer is hot and cannot undervolt, just wanted to know before purchase.
Check this video he tests multiple games at those settings
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfV-DqmqT4s
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank RealDealMonkey
Bottom line: *for the money* and the fact you can start using this device *right now*, these Helios laptops are excellent deals.
Yes you can buy an Asus Strix Scar/Legion/etc and get better thermals and/or performance, but the difference isn't huge and the very best prices we've seen on refurb versions of those laptops all cost at least $300-500 (usually much more). Or, for the same price, you could buy Asus/Lenovo's mobile rtx 4070 laptops like the Zephyrus 16 which is a MASSIVE drop in performance vs this Helios 4080. Mobile rtx 4080 is essentially a downclocked/undervolted DESKTOP rtx 4070, and will absolutely crush even the very best 4070 laptops.
More details from my 3 months of use:
- The screen is decent enough, but ~60% of the time I'm using it connected to external displays (usually OLED). Compared to OLED, Helios' screen is a significant step down in quality, but plenty sufficient to get the job done when I'm on the road away from home and just wanna enjoy some gaming fun. When gaming I rarely use the full 240Hz preferring to instead allow the laptop to run cooler/quieter at 120Hz.
- the noise criticisms of this laptop are nonsense. ALL gaming laptops are loud when pushed. The best can can eek out a little more performance or use fans with a less shrill tone, but just look at all the praise reviews/owners give to Asus thin and light Zephyrus laptops. The 4080 Zephyrus costs ~$800-1000 more, and still offer less performance than this chunkier Helios that can draw more wattage and handle higher thermals (which isn't a knock on the Zephyrus' total package including OLED screen. You definitely get what you pay for in both cases).
- The Helios includes a handy lil' button above the main keyboard that allows you to choose between (in order): quiet, balanced, performance, and turbo modes. It's great! I do wish I could remove "Turbo" from the rotation though because I never use it. Sometimes I'll just click the "Predator" key/logo on the keyboard and switch performance modes in Acer's software.
When on my lap (with a pad and elevated about 1" at the back), I set the laptop to "Balanced" and the fans are still noticeable, but bearable enough I can play without headphones. Depending on the game, I turn max framerates down to 60 or whatever, and maybe lower a couple other settings.
When I'm in my living room with the laptop and its noisy fans set aside and connected to my big-ass OLED tv via hdmi (playing with a controller), I'll click the Helios into "Performance" mode enjoying great avg/min frame rates with all the ray tracing, quality dlss, and in-game settings tweaked up to Ultra+ or vanilla Ultra on a decently modded HD Reworked Witcher 3 install. NO Frame Generation because the hitching and other problems just aren't worth it. A stable ~75fps feels and looks MUCH better than the crappy ~130-150 fps of Frame Gen's frame time stalls and rendering problems. I've had mostly similar experiences tinkering around in about a dozen other games like Plague Tale, Elden Ring, Cyberpunk, etc. In some specific situations Frame Gen is actually pretty good, but so far it sucks most of the time IME, and that has been mostly in single player games where the hype machine claims don't match my real work experiences. I suspect lower wattage laptop CPUs downgrade things too far versus desktop PCs.
- I mentioned Acer's software above, and it works decently enough 95%of the time , but as with many things about this laptop, isn't as smooth, refined, or just plain reliable as me doing things myself in the BIOS or software of another laptop. I definitely do not like that I can't undervolt the cpu, and have no access parts of UEFI, but for this price I'm willing to tolerate the lack of control. I would not put up with that if this thing cost $2k or more. My main problem outside of the limited BIOS is detailed below.
Every once in awhile, it will not allow me to switch between quiet/balance/performance/turbo modes. In these instances, the fans (and presumably cpu/cpu voltages/clocks) lock to "Auto" which seems to roughly equate to Balanced mode. Usually unplugging and reinserting the AC adapter fixes this (or else a system reboot), but not always. When I first discovered this problem, I was strongly tempted to return the laptop for a full refund, but still had 3 weeks or so to decide and spent a lot of time stability testing the Helios with hours of nonstop torture-test loops of Prime95, CineBench, multiple games running simultaneously on both the iGPU and rtx 4080, etc. Lots of different software having full access to all system resources, as well as combos of 2-4 programs/games that could consistently crash the OS.
Last thing I'll mention for the 1-2 people who read this essay is the rtx 50 series *DESKTOP* parts aren't looking like they have much to offer over the 40 series beyond MFG (which, as I mentioned above, is mostly crap ime on a laptop). The laptop parts on the other hand might see more substantial gains. Plus AMD's Stix Halo is looking VERY enticing if the performance/watt numbers enable major battery life savings.
I think everyone is shocked that rtx 5090 reference is a 2 slot solution. Most of that is the cooler, but I won't be at all surprised if TSMC/Nvidia make worthwhile gains to the laptop parts. Of course this all involves waiting for what might end up being nothing, but anyone willing to spend $2k+ to get the specific laptop design, might find some incredible MSI/Lenovo/etc deal on sale later this year. In fact, I bought THIS laptop with that exact idea, and am treating it like a rental that I'll sell later this year to fund whatever new toy tickles the right combo of price/specs.
For right now though, I'd say anyone considering this deal just,p all over it. I'm VERY pleased with mine for the price I paid.
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
Leave a Comment