Acer's new gaming laptops with AI power won't hurt your pockets
Acer has introduced two new gaming laptops outfitted with the latest chips to enable AI features. The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 AI and Helios Neo 18 AI were announced at a recent Counter-Strike gaming tournament in Poland, according to Engadget.
The laptops can run processors up to Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Laptop GPU, which facilitates their AI features. Acer said it intends for the Helios Neo 16 model to be a portable gaming option, and the Helios Neo 18 to be good for replacing a desktop computer.
The Predator Helios Neo 16 features a 16-inch OLED WQXGA display with a 240Hz refresh rate, 400 nits maximum brightness, DCI-P3 100%, and 1 ms response time. The Helios Neo 18 features an 18-inch Mini LED WQXGA display with a 250Hz refresh rate, DCI-P3 100%, and 3 ms response time.
The Predator Helios Neo 16 AI and Helios Neo 18 AI both have simple and minimalist designs, with the Helios RGB logo prominent on the back panel, in addition to 'dynamic 4-zone' RGB keyboards.
They have similar hardware support with 64GB of RAM and up to 2TB of internal storage. Other similarities between the devices include Intel Killer Ethernet and Wi-Fi 6E, for connectivity, as well as NVIDIA G-SYNC, Advanced Optimus, and MUX Switch.
The Helios Neo 16 supports Bluetooth 5.4 or above, while the Helios Neo 18 supports Bluetooth 5.3 or above. Many of the two laptops' I/O ports are also identical. Both devices also have 90-watt-hour batteries.
The Predator Helios Neo 16 AI will be available in North America in April with a starting price of $1,900. The Predator Helios Neo 18 AI will be available in North America in May with a starting price of 2,200. They will also be available in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa in June, with a starting price of €1,700 and €1,800 respectively.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
Smartwatches Can Secretly Receive Data From Air-Gapped Computers
Researchers from an Israeli university have shown a new way for hackers to steal information from PCs that are not connected to the internet, known as air-gapped systems. These computers are often used in places like government offices, military bases, and nuclear plants to keep important information safe by keeping them away from any network. The attack, called SmartAttack, needs a computer to be infected with the virus first. This can happen if someone inside the organization helps or if a device like a USB drive is used on the device. Once the computer is infected, the software collects information like passwords and other confidential messages. To send this information out, the malware uses the computer's speaker to make very high-pitched sounds that people cannot hear, according to the study posted to arXiv. These sounds are at frequencies above what humans can detect. But smartwatches, which are everywhere nowadays, can pick them up with their microphones. The smartwatches then use special software to turn these sounds back into the stolen information, as reported by Bleeping Computer. Credit: arXiv After the smartwatch receives the information, it can send it to someone outside the secure area using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. The researchers say this method works best if the smartwatch is close to the computer and has a clear path to the speaker. The farther away the smartwatch is, or if something is blocking the speaker, the harder it is for the smartwatch to pick up the data. The team says the best way to stop this kind of attack is to not allow smartwatches in secure areas or to remove the speakers from these computers. Other ways to protect these systems include using devices that make noise at these high frequencies to block secret signal communication, or using software to turn off the computer's audio functions.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
Should You Forget Intel and Buy This Millionaire-Maker Stock Instead?
Intel faces tough existential challenges. Broadcom operates a more diversified business, which is tethered to the AI market. It could generate much bigger gains than Intel over the next few years. 10 stocks we like better than Broadcom › Once upon a time, Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) was a millionaire-maker stock. If you had invested $10,000 in its initial public offering (IPO) in 1971, it would be worth $10.3 million today. However, that investment briefly blossomed to $37.9 million when the stock closed at its record high on Aug. 28, 2000. Yet Intel hasn't generated any millionaire-making gains since then. Over the past decade, the chipmaker struggled with market share losses to AMD in the x86 CPU market, persistent shortages and delays, and abrupt strategic shifts under four different CEOs. It couldn't leverage its dominance of the PC and server CPU markets to expand into the higher-growth mobile and AI chip markets, while its own foundries fell behind Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC for short) in the race to produce smaller and denser chips. From 2024 to 2027, analysts expect Intel's revenue to have an anemic compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2% as the company's new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, tries to bolster its engineering capabilities, develop more CPUs with integrated AI features, strengthen the foundry business, and streamline spending. Analysts expect Intel to stay unprofitable in 2025 as it spins all those plates, but they expect it to turn profitable again in 2026 and grow its net income more than sevenfold in 2027. That's an optimistic outlook, but Intel could struggle to balance the rollout of its latest 18A chips with its cost-cutting -- which includes the divestments of its noncore assets, layoffs, and its dependence on TSMC to manufacture some of its new 2nm CPUs. The stock also still looks overvalued relative to its peers at 74 times its forward adjusted earnings. So instead of betting on Intel's eventual recovery, it might be smarter to stick with another millionaire-maker semiconductor stock with a brighter future: Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO). Avago Technologies, the chipmaker that acquired the original Broadcom and inherited its brand in 2016, went public in 2009 at a split-adjusted price of $1.50 per share. A $10,000 investment in that IPO would be worth $1.63 million today. Prior to acquiring Broadcom, Avago produced a wide range of wireless, storage, networking, optical, and radio frequency chips. The original Broadcom competed against Avago in the storage and networking markets, but it also sold a wider variety of mobile, multimedia, and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth combo chips. By combining those two businesses, the "new" Broadcom supplied a diverse mix of essential chips for its enterprise, industrial, and mobile customers. Unlike Intel, which manufactures most of its own chips at its foundries, Broadcom is a fabless chipmaker that outsources its production to TSMC and other third-party foundries. That strategy is less capital-intensive and is better insulated from delays and shortages. Broadcom subsequently bought more companies, including Brocade, a provider of storage networking products, in 2017; the mainframe and enterprise software provider CA Technologies in 2018; Symantec's enterprise security business in 2019, and the cloud software giant VMware in 2023. Those acquisitions turned Broadcom into a more diversified tech company that generated 42% of its revenue from its infrastructure software business in fiscal 2024 (which ended last November). The remaining 58% came from its semiconductor solutions business. Most of the company's recent growth was driven by its sales of networking, optical, and custom accelerator chips to power the latest AI applications. In fiscal 2024, its sales of those AI-focused chips surged 220% to $12.2 billion and accounted for 24% of its top line. The rapid expansion of that business, which propelled its stock to fresh all-time highs last year, offset the slower growth of its non-AI chip and software businesses. From fiscal 2024 to fiscal 2027, analysts expect Broadcom's revenue and earnings per share to have a CAGR of 18% and 80%, respectively. That robust growth should be driven by its soaring sales of AI chips, its integration and expansion of VMware's cloud ecosystem, and ongoing buybacks. That's an impressive trajectory for a stock trading at 38 times its forward adjusted earnings, and it pays a forward yield of 1%. Intel suspended its dividend to stabilize cash flow last year. So if you're looking for a diversified tech play with plenty of exposure to the booming AI and cloud markets, Broadcom seems like a much better investment than Intel. While Intel might eventually recover as it gets its act together, it faces a tougher uphill battle than Broadcom, which doesn't face the same existential challenges as Intel. Before you buy stock in Broadcom, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Broadcom wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $649,102!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $882,344!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 996% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 174% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 9, 2025 Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Intel, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool recommends Broadcom and recommends the following options: short August 2025 $24 calls on Intel. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Should You Forget Intel and Buy This Millionaire-Maker Stock Instead? was originally published by The Motley Fool
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
Prime Day 2025: Here's what you need to know to shop Amazon's biggest sales event
Summer's only a week away, which means Amazon Prime Day — the annual mega-sale known for some of the best deals of the year — is fast approaching. While Amazon hasn't announced the official dates just yet, the event typically falls in mid-July, so now's a good time to start prepping your wish list. Whether you're after tech, home goods or something a little quirky, Prime Day is a golden opportunity to score serious savings. (I'm hoping to score a waffle maker with a built-in Bluetooth speaker — because making breakfast is always better with a beat.) I've been covering Prime Day since it kicked off a decade ago, so I've seen all the tricks — the legit deals, the fake-outs and the stuff that magically goes "on sale" after the price quietly went up. My goal? Help you cut through the noise and actually save some money. Here's what to know going into Prime Day 2025. Related: Amazon Prime Day 2025 deals are coming in July: The best early deals to shop now and everything else we know Yahoo's Amazon Prime Day portal Prime Day 101 is pretty much the same as Shopping 101: Seek out the biggest percentage price drops before you pull the trigger. But what are those percentages based on? There's the list price, aka MSRP ("manufacturer's suggested retail price"), which is the default price set by the manufacturer — or the Amazon seller, which in many cases is not Amazon. And because those third-party sellers have complete control over the prices shown for any product, they can artificially inflate the list price in order to make the discounted price seem more substantial. Not every seller does this, of course, but it does happen. For example, there are a lot of no-brand robot vacuum cleaners available from Amazon. A common strategy there is for the seller to assign the product a very high list price, at least for a few weeks, then sell it for considerably less — making it seem like you're saving more than you are. Meanwhile, competing models are all priced around that same "sale" price, but seem less attractive by comparison. Amazon has attempted to mitigate this issue on some products by instead listing something it calls the "typical price." Per Amazon, that is "the median price paid on Amazon in the last 90 days, [excluding] prices paid by customers for the product during a limited-time deal." It's a nice idea, but it doesn't seem to preclude some third-party sellers from pulling the same inflated discount game, even on name-brand products. Take this 16-inch Dell Inspiron laptop sold by "General Hardware Story." It has a list price from that vendor of a whopping $3,400. It was listed as "71% off" during the Memorial Day sale, when it sold for closer to $1,000. Sounds great until you investigate further. That $3,400 price is an illusion: A pair of on-screen offers — 50% off at checkout, 20% coupon — knocked it down to $1,020 just a day after the Memorial Day sale ended, meaning that supposed giant holiday discount was a mere $20! A little common sense is applicable here: If you're seeing something advertised as 70%, 80% or even 90% off, chances are good it was never really selling for that higher price to begin with. And if it was, it definitely wasn't worth it. So, given that the posted discounts don't always line up with reality, how can you determine if a deal is really worth buying? That brings us to tip #2. Knowledge is power, and there's no better knowledge you can have during Prime Day than a product's complete price history. Thankfully, a couple of free tools let you pull back the curtain and see exactly that. Why is this so important? Two reasons. First, as discussed above, you can see if that deal is really a deal or if the discounted price is the "always" price. Second, you can eliminate that sense of urgency from your shopping, because if a product has been discounted like this before, chances are good it will be again. The tools I recommend for this: CamelCamelCamel (so named for the animal's humps, which go up and down — just like prices) and Keepa. Both will show you detailed price-history charts, including the lowest and highest prices on record. Now, the caveat here is that these price trackers will capture the same dramatic price fluctuations based on those sometimes-inflated list prices noted above. But for products with more honest price fluctuations, you can still save by waiting just a few days for the discount cycle to repeat. A great example: Amazon-branded products like the Kindle, Fire TV Stick and Echo Show. Checking their price histories, I know that they go on sale with almost clockwork regularity (typically once per month). Granted, Prime Day may yield some of the year's lowest prices on those products, but often by only $5 or $10. If this isn't the best time for you to make a purchase, you can always wait for the next discount. To use these tools, you can either search for a product (or copy/paste an Amazon product link) on their respective sites, or install their desktop browser extensions, which make searches much faster and easier. Prefer to shop on your phone? Keepa has mobile apps for Android and iOS. If there's a product you've been eyeballing but don't want to have to keep checking to see if it's on sale, there's an easy, automated solution: Create a price-drop alert so you'll get notified if and when that product hits your desired amount. CamelCamelCamel and Keepa both offer this feature, a great secondary benefit to using them. Here's an example of what that looks like in the former, with Apple AirPods Pro 2 as my desired deal: Obviously this needn't be limited to Prime Day; I use price-drop alerts all the time. As long as you're not in a rush to buy whatever it is, this is the way to make sure you get exactly the discount you want. This may come as a shock, but there are other stores out there. Best Buy, Target, Walmart and other retailers often run competing sale events during Prime Day, matching and sometimes even beating Amazon's prices. Indeed, I think we're all a little hard-wired to believe that Amazon always has the best deals, but that's not always the case. Before you pull the trigger, especially on a large purchase, it's worth taking a minute or two to do some price-comparison shopping. And if I can hop onto my little soapbox for a moment, don't forget to check out local stores as well. Especially bookstores, which can offer a browsing experience and customer service unmatched by Amazon. Some even have loyalty programs or other discounts that might get you close to Amazon pricing. I'd be remiss if I didn't note that Yahoo will be monitoring and sharing all the best Prime Day deals in all the different categories: home, health, kitchen, tech and more. We have teams of experts (I mean it, literal experts!) scouring Amazon for the latest and greatest buys. So if you haven't already, bookmark Yahoo Shopping and Yahoo Tech as your jumping-off points for Prime Day 2025. Speaking of tech, this is a good time to mention that Prime Day usually yields some of the year's lowest prices on Amazon-branded devices: Kindle e-readers, Fire TVs and tablets, Echo smart speakers and screens, Ring doorbells and so on. If any of those are on your shopping list, it's a good idea to press pause until July. Although Amazon hasn't officially announced the dates for Prime Day 2025, the retailer has confirmed that the event will take place in July. Historically it happens during the second or third week of the month, though things could be different this year owing to a variety of factors (see below). Needless to say, we'll be watching for the official announcement and updating this story once we get it. My crystal ball is in storage, but it's a good bet this Prime Day might look a bit different from past ones. According to a 2024 AltIndex report, roughly 70% of all goods sold by Amazon come from China — and China is now subject to new tariffs. While things could change between now and July, it seems likely that prices will be higher on many, if not most, of these goods. Interestingly, some of Prime Day's biggest discounts tend to be on Amazon-branded products: Fire TVs and tablets, Kindle e-readers, Echo smart speakers and so on. If Amazon is now paying more to import these devices, will the discounts be less than in previous years? We'll have to wait and see. In recent years, Prime Day has spanned two full days, ending at midnight Pacific Time (3 a.m. ET) the second day. Once we get the confirmed start date and the duration, we'll know exactly when it's expected to end, too. Update May 27, 2025: We expanded the List Price tip to include a second example, and provide more context on how Amazon's "typical price" listing works.