lcd panel acer nitro 5 an515-53 color accuracy price

One of the weak spots on Acer’s Nitro lineup has been the display in the past, so we will see how the new model fares. The base offering is a 15.6-inch 1920x1080 IPS display, offering a 60 Hz refresh rate, and on higher-tire models there is a 144 Hz offering available, although with the limited GPU offerings, that is likely overkill for this machine. There is no G-SYNC available either, so although 144 Hz displays are fantastic, the Acer Nitro 5 likely won’t be able to achieve that kind of framerate at its native resolution anyway.

To see how the Acer Nitro 5’s display performs, we test it using Portrail Display’s Calman software suite with a custom workflow. Brightness and contrast measurements are done with the X-Rite i1Display Pro colorimeter, and color accuracy testing is done with the X-Rite i1 Pro 2 spectrophotometer.

To hit a price target, one of the first areas generally cut is the display backlighting, and that is certainly the case here. At just 260 nits of peak brightness, the Acer Nitro 5 is one of the least-bright displays we have tested recently. That being said, it does offer relatively good black levels, so the overall contrast ratio is very solid at 1300:1.

At 200 nits brightness, the grayscale was very impressive on the Nitro 5, with very even red, green, and blue coloring to the white levels. The overall result did not go over the 3.0 level at any point, and the average was just 2.4 dE2000, which is quite good.

Unfortunately for the Acer Nitro 5, the good grayscale is not backed up by good color accuracy. The Nitro 5 backlighting is not only dim, it can not even get close to covering the entire sRGB color gamut. The blue values are very undersaturated at 100% levels, but red and green are both unable to hit the correct target either, so the secondary colors are quite far off the mark as well.

Gamut tests the color accuracy at 100% levels for the primary and secondary colors, and the saturation test does the same thing but at 4-bit steps from 0% to 100%. The blue levels are some of the worst results we have seen in years, with a peak error level of almost 17. For reference, error levels of 3.0 are considered accurate, and under 1.0 is considered impossible for the eye to distinguish.

The Gretag Macbeth swatch tests not just the primary and secondary colors, but many others as well, including the important skin tones. With the display unable to achieve the full sRGB gamut, the GMB results are unsurprisingly poor. The average error level is helped by reasonable grayscale, but most of the other colors are quite far off.

The colorchecker tests a sample of colors, and displays the target color on the bottom with the measured color on the top, to give a visual indication of the inaccuracy of the display. This is a relative result, as any errors in your own display will change the output, but it is still a handy way to more easily interpret the error levels shown above. It is not very pretty for the Acer Nitro 5.

Going into this review, there were not high hopes for the display. It is an area where Acer has found room to keep costs down in the past, and if we are being honest, it is an area where you expect less than ideal results in a budget-focused design. That being said, $300 iPads and $500 Surface tablets ship with full sRGB displays that are calibrated per-device. This display is fine for what it is. It is an IPS display, with good viewing angles, and at least on the review unit, good white values, but although some slack must be given Acer due to the tight budget on this device, it is still a bad display.

The entire case of the Nitro 5 is made of matte black plastic. Apart from the RGB key lighting, the wine-red area between the rear air vents and the red "Nitro" logo on the hinge cover add some color. The smooth surfaces of the chassis prove to be quite susceptible to fingerprints. There is no maintenance hatch, and the battery is firmly built into the device.

The laptop doesn"t exhibit any major weaknesses in terms of workmanship. The gap dimensions are accurate, and there are no material protrusions. The base unit can be twisted a bit, but the whole situation is kept within limits. On the other hand, the lid could be more rigid. Moreover, applying pressure on the lid"s back doesn"t lead to alterations in the display. The hinges keep the screen firmly in position, and a one-handed opening of the lid is possible. The maximum aperture angle is about 150 degrees.

Acer Nitro 5 AN515-45-R1JH Aorus 15P XC Asus TUF Gaming A15 FA506QR-AZ061T Asus ROG Strix G15 G513QY MSI GF65 Thin 10UE Razer Blade 15 Base Edition 2021, i7-10750H RTX 3060 DIN A4 ❌

363.4 mm / 14.3 inch255 mm / 10 inch23.9 mm / 0.941 inch2.3 kg5.07 lbs357 mm / 14.1 inch244 mm / 9.61 inch27 mm / 1.063 inch2.2 kg4.85 lbs360 mm / 14.2 inch256 mm / 10.1 inch24 mm / 0.945 inch2.3 kg5.07 lbs354 mm / 13.9 inch257 mm / 10.1 inch27.9 mm / 1.098 inch2.4 kg5.22 lbs359 mm / 14.1 inch254 mm / 10 inch21.7 mm / 0.854 inch1.9 kg4.27 lbs355 mm / 14 inch235 mm / 9.25 inch19.9 mm / 0.783 inch2.1 kg4.61 lbs297 mm / 11.7 inch210 mm / 8.27 inch1 mm / 0.03937 inch5.7 g0.01257 lbs

The Nitro 5 comes with three USB-A ports (2x USB 3.2 Gen 1, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2) and one USB-C port (USB 3.2 Gen 2). The latter doesn"t support Power Delivery or DisplayPort via USB-C. Consequently, there"s only one video output with the HDMI connection. A memory card reader isn"t available, either.

The WLAN chip (MediaTek MT7921) supports the 802.11ax standard and offers Bluetooth 5 functionality. The data rates determined under optimal conditions (no other WLAN devices nearby, short distance between laptop and server PC) lag behind the chip"s capabilities. The tests were repeated with time intervals - without any changes in the final result. We suspect a driver problem. Moreover, wired network connections are handled by a Killer E2600 Gigabit Ethernet controller. It performs its tasks smoothly.

The webcam (0.9 MP) generates images with a maximum resolution of 1280x720 pixels. There are problems with color accuracy. With a deviation of almost 12, the target (DeltaE less than 3) is clearly missed.

The laptop comes with the usual documents: A quick-start guide and warranty information. In addition, a short ribbon cable including a SATA connector is also included, which would be required to install a 2.5-inch storage drive. The corresponding mounting frame is already integrated inside the laptop.

The backlit chiclet keyboard consists of differently shaped keys: The concave main keys (letters, number row), and the remaining flat-shaped keys (function keys, numeric keypad). The resistance provided by the keys could be crisper in our opinion. Moreover, the keyboard yields a bit during typing. This didn"t prove to be bothersome, though. All in all, Acer delivers a keyboard that"s suitable for everyday use here.

While the matte 15.6-inch display (2560x1440 pixels) delivers a good average brightness (304.4 cd/m²), the contrast (652:1) is too low. We consider values beyond 1,000:1 to be good. The 144 Hz panel offers quick response times. We didn"t detect any PWM flickering.

Out of the box, the display shows a very decent color reproduction and only just misses the target with a color deviation of 3.11 (DeltaE less than 3). It doesn"t suffer from a blue tint. The AdobeRGB (67%), sRGB (96%), and DCI-P3 (66%) color spaces aren"t completely mapped.

ℹDisplay response times show how fast the screen is able to change from one color to the next. Slow response times can lead to afterimages and can cause moving objects to appear blurry (ghosting). Gamers of fast-paced 3D titles should pay special attention to fast response times.↔ Response Time Black to White

In comparison: 53 % of all tested devices do not use PWM to dim the display. If PWM was detected, an average of 19272 (minimum: 5 - maximum: 3846000) Hz was measured.

The preinstalled NitroSense software offers various performance profiles and allows the user to adjust the two fans. We ran all benchmarks using the performance profile "High Performance" and enabled the automatic fan control. The performance profiles correspond to the standard Windows 10 profiles.

The Cinebench R15 benchmark"s multithread test is processed at 3.6 to 3.8 GHz (plugged in) and 2.5 to 3.3 GHz (battery power), respectively. The single-thread test is always run at 3.4 to 4.4 GHz.

We verify if the CPU Turbo is also consistently used when plugged in by running the Cinebench R15 benchmark"s multithread test in a continuous loop for at least 30 minutes. Turbo is used at a moderate extent.

The fast and smooth system has enough computing power for all common application areas. Gaming, video editing, and image processing don"t pose a big challenge for the Nitro. This is complemented by good PCMark results.

Acer equips the laptop with two single-sided 8 GB RAM modules (DDR4-3200) that have relatively slow transfer rates and memory timings. Among the laptops that we"ve tested so far with this CPU-GPU combination, memory ranks in the lower range of the table.

The standardized latency monitor test (web browsing, 4K video playback, high-load Prime95) didn"t reveal any irregularities in the DPC latencies. The system seems to be suitable for real-time video and audio editing. This assessment is based on our test device running the latest software available at the time of testing. Future updates could lead to improvements or even to worse performance.

An NVMe SSD (M.2-2280) from Western Digital serves as the system drive. It provides 1 TB of storage space and delivers good transfer rates. In addition, the laptop offers room for a second M.2-2280 SSD (NVMe) as well as a 2.5-inch storage device (SATA slot and screws are in the box, and the mounting frame is found inside the laptop).

The actual performance of an RTX 3000 GPU depends on a few factors: The cooling, the memory configuration, and the maximum TGP that a laptop manufacturer chooses within the limits defined by Nvidia. Acer allows the

The laptop displays all modern games smoothly onto the screen. The full screen resolution (2560x1440 pixels) and high to maximum quality settings can usually be selected. The frame rates are below average in comparison with the RTX 3070. In many cases, the Nitro has to admit defeat to a nominally weaker RTX-3060 laptop like the

The frame rates increase by up to 10% after installing the previously mentioned firmware update. An overall performance increase can"t be observed, though. Even after executing the update, the Nitro 5 isn"t able to outperform the Blade 15.

dB(A)0102030405060708090Deep BassMiddle BassHigh BassLower RangeMidsHigher MidsLower HighsMid HighsUpper HighsSuper Highs2022.72122.822.72525.220.923.225.23131.53130.831.54026.722.221.326.75028.834.419.928.86329.533.217.229.58018.217.413.418.210018.818.413.218.812522.420.513.522.416025.224.313.325.220026.62512.826.625028.125.712.128.13153129.311.83140030.228.110.830.250030.227.210.930.263030.228.71130.280033.731.811.233.7100036.433.811.136.4125037.734.811.737.7160039.336.411.639.3200040.137.412.240.1250038.535.912.538.5315039.634.712.639.6400036.932.31336.9500035.130.913.535.1630035.83113.735.8800034.229.21434.21000035.230.215.435.21250027.827.915.527.81600017.420.913.717.4SPL49.145.824.849.1N6.550.66.5median 33.7median 29.3median 12.6median 33.7Delta4.43.30.94.4hearing rangehide medianshow medianFan NoiseAcer Nitro 5 AN515-45-R1JH

Our stress test (Prime95 and FurMark run for at least an hour) is performed by the CPU and GPU at 3.7 GHz and 1,590 MHz, respectively. The stress test represents an extreme scenario. With this test, we check whether the system remains stable under full load.

The laptop heats up noticeably under load, but not excessively. During the stress test, the 50 °C (~122 °F) mark is exceeded at three measuring points. The temperatures remain within the green range in everyday use.

(-) The maximum temperature on the upper side is 53.2 °C / 128 F, compared to the average of 40.4 °C / 105 F, ranging from 21.2 to 68.8 °C for the class Gaming.

dB(A)0102030405060708090Deep BassMiddle BassHigh BassLower RangeMidsHigher MidsLower HighsMid HighsUpper HighsSuper Highs2022.822.822.82524.923.224.93131.930.831.94022.321.322.35020.219.920.26318.717.218.78016.513.416.510015.713.215.712516.113.516.116018.213.318.220027.212.827.22504512.14531553.311.853.340062.310.862.350056.110.956.163062.61162.680059.111.259.1100065.111.165.1125065.311.765.3160068.511.668.5200068.512.268.525006812.568315067.812.667.8400064.21364.2500067.813.567.8630062.613.762.6800068.11468.11000075.315.475.31250075.515.575.51600060.213.760.2SPL79.924.879.9N44.30.644.3median 62.6median 12.6median 62.6Delta11.80.911.822.328.722.325.839.825.829.133.829.120.724.520.728.226.828.219.216.219.219.915.319.928.817.628.835.417.435.438.915.838.939.115.339.140.514.440.551.313.251.36012.76060.211.760.266.41266.467126764126462.611.862.660.312.260.360.612.460.661.412.861.462.713.262.763.413.363.468.313.768.372.71472.77414.87468.41468.461.413.261.449.612.749.67925.17942.80.642.8median 61.4median 13.2median 61.47.41.37.4hearing rangehide medianshow medianPink NoiseAcer Nitro 5 AN515-45-R1JHAsus TUF Gaming A15 FA506QR-AZ061T

All in all, the Nitro"s power consumption is at a normal level over the entire load range considering the hardware installed here. We register a maximum power consumption of 14.6 watts in idle usage. Competitors like the and the

The stress test and our The Witcher 3 test let the Acer laptop"s energy consumption rise up to 164 watts and an average of 134 watts, respectively. This makes the AN515 one of the more frugal laptops in our comparison field. The following diagram illustrates the laptop"s rather constant power consumption during our the Witcher 3 test and the stress test. The power adapter"s nominal capacity is 180 watts.

The 15.6-incher achieves runtimes of 5:40 hours and 6:53 hours in our Wi-Fi test (accessing websites using a script) and video test (short film Big Buck Bunny (H.264 encoding, Full HD) running in a loop), respectively. During both tests, the laptop"s power-saving features are disabled, and the display brightness is set to about 150 cd/m². The wireless modules are also disabled for the video test.

Within our comparison field, the Nitro 5 is among the laptops with the lowest battery capacities. Nevertheless, the device delivers decent battery life. However, it doesn"t come close to the excellent rates of the two Asus laptops. The two machines benefit from their 90 Wh batteries.

The compact Nitro 5 performs decently overall, but it delivers below-average frame rates compared with the RTX 3070 laptops that we"ve reviewed so far. The reason for this: Acer opted for a TGP at the lower end of the allowed range - 85 watts. The GPU performance can be slightly increased via a firmware update.Acer has a solid gaming laptop in its lineup with the Nitro 5 AN515-45.

The display (QHD, IPS, 144 Hz) offers stable viewing angles, a good average brightness, a matte surface, fast response times, decent color reproduction, and good color-space coverage. The contrast is too low, though.

An alternative to the Nitro 5 could be the Asus TUF Gaming A15 FA506QR. It"s on par with the Nitro in terms of performance and price, but it offers much better battery life.

At the time of writing, you can find the Acer Nitro 5 AN515-45 on Amazon (Ryzen 7 5800H, GeForce RTX 3070, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, QHD 165 Hz IPS display, Windows 10 Home) at $1,699.99.

As a Software Developer, my job depends on my computer’s performance and reliability. My current desktop, with an AMD FX-8300 and Nvidia GTX 760 was getting long in the tooth and has been having issues with stability. My laptop, a Dell 3147 2 in 1, just didn’t have the oomph to handle my workload, even after throwing an SSD in it. A second laptop, my once trusty Toshiba A665D, would continually turn off after several minutes. As someone who relies on their computer for their job, something needed to change.

The Nitro comes with Windows 10 Home installed. As is standard with most PC Laptops, there is bloatware installed, such as Norton Antivirus and various Acer Utilities. The Acer NitroSense Utility lets you monitor and control fan speed, with options for Auto, Max or to custom set your own fan speed. It also has graphs for monitoring GPU and CPU temperature.

The Nitro has a 15.6in Full HD 60HZ IPS Screen. This is an average screen, that gets decently bright. It isn’t HDR capable. I don’t do anything that requires accurate color reproduction like color grading, nor do I have a way to measure color reproduction, so I cannot make any statements about how well the display fills the sRGB color space. For my needs, software development and gaming, it works perfectly fine.

As I am using this laptop for productivity purposes, a good keyboard is a must. In-fact, I am currently writing this article using this laptop. The Nitro’s keyboard has a nice tactile feel, with good travel, without feeling mushy or being too loud. However, the layout is a bit cramped, due to Acer attempting to cram in a number pad. The left side control key is quite small, due to needing to fit a function key next to it. Acer should have put the function key next to the right side control key, so as to keep the left side control key full-sized. The right side shift key is also smaller, due to the need to fit the arrow keys beside it. Lastly I would have preferred the home and delete keys to be swapped, or better yet, swap the numlock and del key.

The backlight on the keyboard isn’t that great. It’s a dim red color, and I find it hard to see the lettering on the keys in a dark room. When on battery power, the backlight must be manually turned on using the function shortcut. After turning it on, the backlight runs on a timer, the duration of which cannot be changed or set to constantly on. If the system is restarted, backlight settings are not saved, and the keyboard backlight be turned on again.

The laptop comes with a good assortment of ports. On the left side, there is Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.1 Type C, HDMI, USB 3.1 Type A, and an SD Card Slot. There is also a Kensington Lock port. On the right side, there is DC-in, 2x USB 2.0, and a combo Mic/Speaker 3.5mm jack. Next to the DC-in jack there is an indicator for battery status and another one for power status.

The Type C port does not support alternate modes such as ThunderBolt, HDMI/Displayport or accepting a Type-C laptop charger. Acer states that the Laptop is Oculus-Ready, which means that the HDMI is directly connected the Nvidia GPU, instead of the Intel integrated GPU (as is the case with some other 1050ti laptops).

The Nitro AN515-53 comes with an 8th Gen Coffeelake Intel i5-8300H. This processor has 4 cores/8 threads and has a base clock of 2.3ghz/boost clock 4.0ghz. The 8300H is one of the few i5s to come with Hyperthreading enabled, allowing each core to handle two tasks at a time. On paper, the i5-8300H is faster than last year’s i5-7300HQ and i7-7700HQ. And it is definitely faster than the overclocked AMD FX-8300 I was rocking before-And at a fraction of the power consumed!

The Nitro comes with 8gb of DDR4. For a modern system, 8GB is the bare minimum a computer should have, especially now that many flagship phones are now coming with 6-8gb of RAM. The RAM is accessible from a door under the laptop, with 1 free slot available for additional RAM.

The Nitro AN515-53 has an Nvidia 1050Ti with 4gb of GDDR5 memory. This graphics card is capable of handing all the latest games at high settings. When not gaming, the laptop uses the power-sipping Intel 630 integrated graphics.

It is equipped with an Intel 600p Series SSD. It has a read speed of 1570MB/s and a write speed of 540MB/s. For additional storage, there is a slot to add a secondary SATA drive.

The Nitro 5 is a considerable upgrade over my current setup. It is more powerful than my desktop, while consuming 1/10th the power. The keyboard is not the best, and will take some time to get used to. If you are looking for a good gaming laptop for $700, or just a laptop for productivity,  it is a laptop that will get the job done without breaking the bank.

However, Acer does offer the Nitro 5s in a multitude of configurations. This article is about the updated 2020 15-inch Nitro 5, code-name Nitro 5 AN515-55, in its higher-tier version with the 10th gen Intel i7 processor, RTX 2060 graphics and a FHD 144 Hz display with 100% sRGB color coverage.

I’ve gathered all my thoughts and impressions on this product down below, however, keep in mind that most of our findings apply to the other 2020 Nitro 5 variants as well, with some differences in the performance, thermals, and noise for the lower tier configurations. That means that you will find most of this article useful no matter the Nitro 5 model you’re specifically looking at, and we’ll update with links towards our other reviews once we get to test those as well.

Much like the previous generations, this 2020 Nitro 5 is entirely made out of plastic. It doesn’t feel cheap, but it’s also not as nice as the metallic Acer Predator options, starting with the Nitro 7.

I appreciate that Acer ditched the faux carbon-fiber patterns and red accents on the lid used on some of their previous Nitros, as well as the fact that they implement muted Acer branding elements on this generation. However, those black smooth surfaces are incredibly prone to showing fingerprints and smudges, both on the lid and on the arm-rest, and you’ll constantly have to rub this laptop clean if you care about these aspects.

Despite the all-plastic build, this Nitro 5 feels sturdy, with a strong screen and little flex in the lid or keyboard deck. It’s also fairly compact and lightweight, at a little over 5 lbs in this variant.

As far as the practical aspects go, I will complain about a few details, such as the fact that the status LEDs are annoyingly placed just beneath the screen and the front lip and corners are too sharp for my liking. For the most part, though, this is a fine laptop. Acer put grippy feet on the bottom, implemented a hinge that allows one-hand operation and can get the screen to about 160 degrees on the back, and placed a fair selection of ports on the sides.

Acer offers this Nitro 5 series with either a red or an RGB keyboard, and we have this latter variant here, normally reserved for the higher-tier configurations.

It’s also a good typer that should appeal to most of you. The feedback is a bit stiffer than I’m used to and not as mushy as I remembered from the previous Nitros, and that’s a good thing.

Acer offers a couple of different screen options for the Nitro 5 series. Once more, our sample gets the higher-tier variant, which is a fine IPS FHD panel with 144 Hz refresh rate and fairly good response times.

This is a solid choice for gaming and daily use, with 100% sRGB color coverage, wide viewing angles and almost 400-nits of brightness at its highest setting. Blacks are fairly washed out, though, and that also impacts the overall contrast.

Our test model is a top-specced configuration of the Acer Nitro 5 in the 2020 AN515-55 model, with an Intel Core i7-10750H processor, 32 GB of DDR4 3200 MHz RAM, 1 TB of storage and dual graphics: the Nvidia RTX 2060 dGPU and the Intel UHD within the Intel platforms, with Optimus.

Before we proceed, keep in mind that our review unit is an early-production model with the software available as of late-July 2020 (BIOS v0.14, Nitro Sense 3.00.3138, GeForce Game Ready 451.67 drivers). While certain aspects might change with future software updates, our results should be mostly what you’ll get with the retail models as well.

Spec-wise, the 2020 Nitro 5 tops at a 6Core Intel Comet Lake i7-10750H processor available on this sample, with i5 models offered on the lower-end models. AMD Ryzen configurations are also available in some markets, but we’ll cover those in a separate article.

The updated Intel platform supports up to 3200 MHz DDR4 memory. Our configuration gets 16 GB of RAM in dual-channel, and there are two DIMMs available inside. As for the storage, our unit gets a single WDC PC SN530 drive. There are two M.2 slots on this laptop, as well as a 2.5″ bay.

For the GPU, what we have here is the standard Nvidia RTX 2060 non-Super graphics chip from 2019, in the 80W variant. I would have expected some power variation between the performance modes available in the Nitro Sense control app, but switching between Balance or High Performance doesn’t seem to change anything on our sample. In both cases, the CPU stabilizes at 45W in demanding loads, and the GPU runs at its stock 80W settings.

Both the CPU and GPU are soldered on the motherboard, but the memory, storage units, and wireless chip are accessible inside for upgrades. For that, you’ll need to take out the bottom panel, hold in place by a couple of Philips screws. I have to add that the 2.5″ bay lacks the required connector on our unit, and there’s a good possibility that Acer will not include it if you opt for a configuration without an installed HDD. Looks like a standard connector that you can easily find online, though.

Before we talk about real performance in demanding loads, I do have to mention that this Nitro 5 is a fine everyday laptop for multitasking, browsing, and video.

On to more demanding loads, we start by testing the CPU’s performance by running the Cinebench R15 test for 15+ times in a loop, with 2-3 seconds delay between each run.

The i7 processor quickly stabilizes at around 45+W on the High Performance setting, which translates in frequencies of 3.5+ GHz and temperatures of 95+ C, with scores of 1070+ points, and quiet fans at only 40-41 dB at head-level. There’s plenty of headroom on this implementation, and Acer could decide to allow it to run at higher power on this profile, the same way they allow it on their Helios and Triton lineups that we’ve tested.

Undervolting is disabled on this sample, and I couldn’t figure out how to enable it in BIOS. That’s unfortunate, as undervolting would have surely helped here, based on our experience with other Acer 10th gen notebooks.

Switching over to the Balance profile power doesn’t have any impact on the performance and thermals on this sample, which is one more reason why I’d expect the retail units to perform a little bit differently. The CPU is however power limited at 25+W on battery, with matching scores. Details below.

To put these findings in perspective, this Nitro 5 performed poorer than the other 15-inch implementations of the i7-10750H platform that we’ve tested, and that’s due to the stock 45W power-limit and lack of undervolting support. I’ve also added two competing AMD Ryzen 4800H models in the chart below, options available in this Nitro’s price range, just for a ballpark comparison of the kind of CPU performance gap you can get with the AMD platform these days at around $1000.

With that out of the way, we then went ahead and further verified our findings with the longer Cinebench R20 loop test and the gruesome Prime 95, on the High Performance profile. The CPU runs at 45+ W on both tests, with fairly quiet fans and solid temperatures of around 75-80 degrees C.

We also ran our combined CPU+GPU stress tests on this notebook. 3DMark stress runs the same test for 20 times in a loop and looks for performance variation and degradation over time, and this unit passed it fine. Luxmark 3.1 fully loads both the CPU and GPU at the same time. The CPU stabilizes at around 45W and 90+ degrees C, with the GPU running at around 80W and 82+ C.

The HWinfo logs below show the CPU and GPU speeds and temperatures in Witcher 3 and Far Cry 5 on the High Performance power profile, with the laptop sitting on the desk.

You can also manually adjust the fan’s speed in the Nitro Sense app, if you’re looking to better balance thermals and noise. However, without undervolting support or the possibility to cap the CPU in Throttlestop, I don’t think you will get it to run at lower than high-80s based on our experience with this sample, at least not in the latest generation AAA titles. Repasting might help, though, but that’s not for everyone

Acer didn’t skimp on the thermal design of this 2020 Nitro 5 configuration, implementing a cooling solution with two fans, four radiators, three heatpipes, and sufficient thermal plates spread on top of the components and secondary electronics. That’s a step-up from the design on the previous 2019 Nitro 5 lineups, and much closer to the kind of cooling normally implemented on higher-tier products, such as their Predator Helios 300 lineup.

With this sort of thermal design, I’m somewhat surprised by those high CPU temperatures in this chassis. Make sure to look into a few other reviews, maybe there’s something wrong with our sample. I’ll update this section once we get to review a few more Nitro 5 configurations.

With games, the fans ramp up to 43-44 dB on Auto, or 49-50 dB on their Max setting available in the Nitro Sense control app. Here’s a quick summary, at head-level.

As far as outer shell temperatures go, this Nitro runs cooly with daily use, but heats up a fair bit with gaming. With the fans on Auto, we measured temperatures in the high 40s around the arrow keys, and mid 50s in the right side of the keyboard, but the WASD region stays cool at mid to high 30s. Switching over to the Max fan profile shaves a few degrees of the hottest regions, but doesn’t drastically change things.

*Daily Use – streaming Netflix in EDGE for 30 minutes, Balance Profile, fans at 33-37 dB*Gaming  – High Performance – Auto fans – playing Far Cry 5 for 30 minutes, fans at 43-44 dB

The speakers fire through cuts on the underbelly and don’t expect much from them. We measured volumes of around 73-75 dB at head-level, and experienced average to poor sound quality, with little at the lower end (on the Music profile in Nitro Sense). You’ll most likely want to hook up some headphones with this.

For some reason the CPU didn’t clock down the way it should on our sample, thus I’d expect the retail versions to run more efficiently and offer around 3-4 hours of daily multitasking, 4-5 hours of light use and 5-6 hours of video on a charge.

This Nitro 5 configuration comes with a compact 180W power-brick, and that’s what you’ll also get with the GTX 1660Ti models. The battery fills up in about 2 hours and USB-C charging is not supported.

This top-end configuration with the 144 Hz screen, the i7 processor and the RTX 2060 graphics chip goes for around 1350 EUR in Germany and 1150 GBP in the UK, but I couldn’t find it in the US just yet.

However, Acer offers this in a multitude of other versions, starting from 899 EUR/799 GBP for the i5 model with GTX 1650Ti graphics, while the i7 model with 1660Ti graphics is available for 1199 EUR/999 GBP. Careful about those screen options, though. If possible, I’d definitely pay extra for the 144 Hz 100% sRGB panel on this sample.

The RTX 2060 variant tested here might not be the most popular version of this laptop, as it’s nearly as expensive as the 2060 variant of the higher tier Predator Helios 300, but the 1660Ti and 1650Ti models are worth more than a look. Acer cleaned-up the design, upgraded the thermal module, keyboard and screen options, and also updated the hardware specs with these Nitros.

On the other hand, the high CPU temperatures with games, paired with only limited performance in CPU-heavy loads, plus the poor speakers and smudge-prone black plastic build are some of the aspects that could lead you towards something else. But even so, the 2020 Nitro 5 lineup is competitive in its segment, where some compromises have to be made to hit the lower price tag.

The Acer Nitro 5 is an affordable, near-entry-level gaming laptop with a 10th-generation Intel Core i5-10300H CPU and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 GPU. The laptop"s screen is a 15.6" Full HD panel created with In-Plane Switching (IPS) technology, which makes it more color accurate than traditional VA panels. The display supports a refresh rate of up to 144 Hz. Other specifications include 8 gigabytes of DDR4 RAM and a 256-gigabyte, fast NVMe SSD. The keyboard is backlit and the connectivity options include both Wi-Fi 6 and Ethernet.

A limited-time new year deal on Amazon is offering $160 off on Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop. Perhaps the new year deserves a new gaming laptop, in which case one might want to consider this Acer laptop on sale. The normal listing price for this version of the Acer Nitro 5 is $839.99 but with a 19% discount on the product, shoppers can acquire it for a price of $679.99.

The Taiwanese company, Acer, is one of the largest computer manufacturers in the world. The company produces a wide range of products relating to personal computing, including but not limited to servers, peripherals, displays, smartphones, and most notably desktop and laptop computers. The company"s Predator series of products are designed for gamers in particular, but the company also produces other gaming items, like the Nitro gaming laptops.

This specific Nitro gaming laptop is the Acer Nitro 5, model number AN515-55-53E5. It comes in a traditional 15" laptop form factor, with a 15.6-inch widescreen (16:9) display. The panel is a LED-backlit display created with In-Plane Switching technology (IPS), which provides the display with better colors than an average VA panel. The display supports a refresh rate of up to 144 Hz. In terms of performance, this model has the 10th generation Intel Core i5-10300H processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 GPU, which has new 2nd generation RT cores for a better ray tracing experience.

Furthermore, the Nitro 5 in question comes with 8 gigabytes of DDR4 RAM at 2933 MHz installed, which is upgradeable to a maximum of 32 GB with two slots. The storage solution is a 256 GB NVMe SSD. The laptop has 2 PCIe M.2 slots and a 2.5" hard drive bay. Connectivity includes wired options in HDMI, USB, and Ethernet, while wireless connections can be made with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi 6. Now during the new year deals on Amazon, this Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop is priced at $679.99

The Acer Nitro 5, a budget gaming laptop under $1,000, is a carefully curated rig that makes the right concessions to attract bargain-hunting gamers. Acer wanted to offer consumers a decent graphics card at a wallet-friendly price, so it sacrificed a premium build quality and a bright, colorful display to make room for an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 GPU.

The Nitro 5 isn’t for bougie gamers — I’m talking to you pretentious players who wouldn’t touch an all-plastic laptop with a ten-foot pole, fancy folk who believe dim displays are for peasants, and CPU snobs who only use the latest processors. These types would balk at the thought of using this gaming rig. This Acer laptop is for down-to-earth gamers who are willing to accept a few trade-offs in favor of a better discrete graphics card.

If you turn your nose up at lackluster screens, odd keyboard layouts and cheaply built gaming rigs, you may not be satisfied with the Nitro 5. However, if you’re a sucker for crimson-and-onyx motifs, impressive mid-range GPUs and decent VR performance at an affordable price, the Nitro 5 is an excellent choice.

The Acer Nitro 5 starts at $829.99 and comes with a quad-core Intel Core i5-10300H CPU, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti GPU with 4GB of VRAM, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB NVMe SSD and a 15.6-inch, 144Hz display.

My Test model costs $999 and comes with the same storage and display, but swaps out the processor, graphics and memory for a hexa-core Intel Core i7-9750H CPU, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 GPU with 6GB of VRAM, and 16GB of RAM, respectively.

The Acer Nitro 5 looks like it’s been ripped from Optimus Prime’s robotic build and welded into a badass gaming rig with an eye-catching red-and-black motif. A glossy, but subtle Acer logo sits in the center of the onyx-coated lid. The lid features two textures: a smooth, fingerprint-attracting black center flanked by a funky hexagonal-pattern design.

An attractive red hinge with the word “Nitro” connects the display to the deck. Acer adorns the Nitro 5 with red-trim accents around the keyboard keys and touchpad. The Nitro 5’s chassis is made out of plastic — and it shows. If you press down on the lid, you’ll notice some flex and a lack of sturdiness. The palm rest is more solid than the lid, but certainly still feels cheap. One of the trade-offs you’ll make with this budget gaming laptop is build quality.

Acer tries to distract you from the display’s ultra-thick bezels with visually pleasing bevel-edge corners, but there’s no ignoring the Nitro 5’s chunky frames. The gigantic chin is the largest bezel, sporting a glossy Acer logo. The Nitro 5 has four rubber feet on each corner, making room for a large, edge-to-edge ventilation grill.

At 4.9 pounds and 14.3 x 10 x 1 inches, the Acer Nitro 5 is lighter than its three budget gaming rivals: the Asus ROG Strix G15 (5.3 pounds, 14.2 x 10.8 x 1 inches), Dell G5 15 SE (5.5 pounds, 14.4 x 10 x 0.9 inches) and the Lenovo Legion 5 (5.4 pounds, 14.3 x 10 x 0.9 inches).

On the left side, you’ll find a Kensington lock slot, an RJ45 Ethernet port, an HDMI 2.0 port, a USB Type-C port and two USB Type-A ports. On the right side, you’ll discover a headset jack and another USB Type-A port.

The Nitro 5 does not have Thunderbolt 3 support, a microSD card slot nor a mini DisplayPort. If you need more ports, we recommend checking out our best laptop docking stations and best USB Type-C hubs pages.

The Nitro’s 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080-pixel display looked surprisingly sharp and detailed as I watched The Mauritanian trailer on YouTube. I could spot every wrinkle and pore on Benedict Cumberbatch’s face. I could make out the cute, tiny freckles that populate Shailene Woodley’s cheeks. However, Jodie Foster’s striking blue eyes and red lips could have been bolder and more vivid on the Nitro 5’s display. Still, the Acer laptop offers a satisfactory visual experience.

I played Hitman 2, navigating through a Colombian jungle to take down a drug cartel. I loved how the display accurately showed Agent 47’s  transition from the muggy wilderness — cloudy with a misty haze — to a less humid environment with muddy streets and run-down brick homes. Of course, being that the Nitro 5 is equipped with a 1080p screen, it won’t win any awards, but I was pleased with the game’s visuals on Nitro 5’s IPS display.

I hope you don’t sit near a bright window — Nitro 5 is pretty darn dim. The Acer laptop’s display emanates only 245 nits of brightness, which is dimmer than the average budget gaming laptop (271 nits). The ROG Strix G15 (251 nits), G5 15 SE (301 nits) and Legion 5 (287 nits) are all brighter than the Nitro 5, but not by much.

The Nitro 5 also covers 45% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which is eight percentage points less than the 53% category average. The ROG Strix G15 covers 1% more of the DCI-P3 color space than the Nitro 5 (46%). The G5 15 SE takes the crown as having the most colorful display (77%). The Legion 5 fares the worst with an embarrassing color-coverage score of 40%.

With a Delta-E score of 0.33, the Nitro 5 is less color accurate than the 0.3 score of the average budget laptop (the closer the score is to zero, the better). The Nitro 5 is also less color accurate than the G5 15 SE and Legion 5, which share a Delta-E score of 0.26, but the Acer gaming rig defeated the ROG Strix G15’s score by a hair (0.34).

Meh! I’m not a big fan of the Nitro 5’s less-than-impressive keyboard. But admittedly, it has some positive aspects, so let’s start there. The oft-used keys in PC gaming (i.e. the W, A, S, D and arrow keys) are outlined with a thick red trim to help them stand out on the keyboard. There is one additional key outlined in red: a dedicated “N” key, located within the top-left corner of the full-sized numpad, to quick-launch the NitroSense app for fan control.

The keyboard’s island-style, red-and-black color scheme panders to my personal tastes — I have a weakness for crimson-and-onyx motifs. I even love the red backlighting, which has four brightness tiers. Unfortunately, if you’re not a fan of red-backlit keys, you’ll be disappointed to know that the Nitro 5 doesn’t feature customizable RGB-key lighting, so you’re stuck with red. You can always turn off the red backlight, but the dark-red symbols superimposed on black keys are a tad difficult to see.

While I love how the keyboard looks, I cannot stand how it feels. I hated typing on this laptop so much, I angrily gave up on it while typing this Test in Google Docs. I scored 84 words per minute on the 10fastfingers.com typing test, which is a slight regression from my typical 85-wpm typing speed. One of the Nitro 5’s biggest offenses is its shortened Shift key — an issue I addressed in 2020 laptop trends that must die. Capitalizing letters is a pain in the rear; instead of landing on the Shift key, I often ended up on the up-arrow key, which sent the blinking text cursor flying to another paragraph. Another gripe I have with the Nitro 5 keyboard is its poorly placed power button — I am not a fan of power buttons integrated into the keyboard, sorry.

The Nitro 5’s 4.2 x 3.1-inch touchpad is fine, offering a satisfactory clicking experience. It’s also responsive to Windows 10 gestures, like two-finger scrolling and three-finger tabbing. However, when I don’t have a gaming mouse handy, I prefer touchpads with dedicated left-and-right buttons. While playing Dishonored 2, I found myself landing on the wrong side of the touchpad, causing me to accidentally fire my pistol and alert nearby enemies of my presence. I had to run for my life — so much for stealth gameplay.

While playing Dishonored 2 on the Nitro 5, I preferred the Gaming General preset, which provided well-balanced sound for both the characters’ voices and the background music. Dishonored 2 is one of those games where you’ll need to rely on sound to detect whether an enemy is nearby, and of course, being that the Nitro 5 is a budget gaming laptop, it won’t offer a surround-sound experience. Overall, the speakers are simply OK.

On the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark (Highest, 1080p), the Nitro 5 hovered around 52 frames per second, which outpaced the budget gaming laptop average (36 fps). The ROG Strix G15, powered by an Nvidia GeForce RTX 1650 Ti GPU, fell short against the Nitro 5 (40 fps). The G5 15 SE, armed with an AMD Radeon RX 5600M GPU, also fell short of the Acer gaming rig (45 fps). The Nitro 5 finally met its match with the Legion 5. Powered by a GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, the Lenovo laptop offered the same score as the Acer laptop (52 fps).

The Nitro 5 averaged 67 frames per second on the Grand Theft Auto V benchmark (Very High, 1080p), which crushed the 48-fps category average. The ROG Strix G15 could only muster 44 fps. The G5 15 SE and the Legion 5 also failed to reach the Nitro 5’s glory with just 56 and 64 fps, respectively.

On the Metro Exodus benchmark (Ultra, 1080p), the Nitro 5 climbed to 47 fps, beating the 36-fps category average. The ROG Strix G15 only offered 30 fps. The G5 15 and the Legion 5 came close to the Nitro 5 with 46 fps and 42 fps, respectively, but the Dell and the Lenovo laptops couldn’t surpass Acer.

When we ran 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra, the Nitro 5 (3,696) crushed the category average (2,919), the ROG Strix G15 (2,197) and the Legion 5 (3,180), but the G5 15 SE killed the Acer’s winning streak with a knock-out score of 4,360.

If you’re wondering whether the Nitro 5 can handle VR, you’ll be happy to know that the Acer gaming rig slew the VRMark Orange Room benchmark with a score of 7,116, sailing past the average budget gaming laptop (5,415). The Nitro 5 also defeated the ROG Strix G15 (5,259), the G5 15 SE (7,237) and the Legion 5 (5,013).

The Nitro 5 packs 16GB of RAM and an Intel Core i7-9750H CPU (a mid-tier processor that is a generation behind as of this writing). The Acer laptop managed to juggle 45 Google Chrome tabs and three YouTube videos without a hitch.

Despite its obsolete CPU, the Nitro 5 served up a score of 5,435, which beats the category average (4,696) and the Core i7-10750H processors inside both the ROG Strix G15 (5,168) and the Legion 5 (5,325). However, the Nitro 5 couldn’t keep up with G5 15 SE’s AMD Ryzen R7 4800H CPU, which outputted a spectacular score of 7,715.

The Nitro 5 took 11 minutes and 41 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p on our HandBrake benchmark, failing to surpass the category average (11:25). The ROG Strix G15 (10:28), G5 15 SE (6:43) and Legion 5 (10:05) were quicker than the Acer gaming rig.

When we ran the file transfer test, the Nitro 5’s 256GB SSD duplicated 4.97GB of multimedia files in 18 seconds at a transfer rate of 301 megabytes per second. This is a tinge faster than the category average (285 MBps). The Nitro 5 also beat the 512GB SSDs inside the ROG Strix G15 (129 MBps) and the Legion 5 (200 MBps). However, the Acer laptop couldn’t keep up with the G5 15 SE (452 MBps), which also sports a 512GB SSD.

The Acer gaming rig lasted 7 hours and 6 minutes on the komponentenpc battery test (continuous surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness), which outlasted the average budget gaming laptop (6:56). The Nitro 5 also has more endurance than the ROG Strix G15 (5:11). The G5 15 SE (7:14) and the Legion 5 (7:13) lasted 8 minutes and 7 minutes longer than the Nitro 5, respectively.

After gaming for 15 minutes, the Nitro 5’s underside reached 104 degrees Fahrenheit, which is slightly above our 95-degree comfort threshold. The center of the keyboard and touchpad hit 107 and 77 degrees, respectively. The hottest location of the laptop is the underside, near the vents, which climbed to 119 degrees.

After playing a 15-minute, 1080p YouTube video, the Nitro 5 remained relatively cool under the hood, showing off the advantage of its plastic chassis. The Acer laptop’s center (88 degrees), touchpad (76 degrees) and underside (87 degrees) all hovered below the 95-degree comfort threshold. Again, the hottest location was the underside (near the vents), reaching 91 degrees.

You’ll also find Acer properties such as Acer Product Registration, which offers discounts and exclusive offers, Acer Collection S, an app store, and Acer Care Center, a platform that runs system updates, tuneups and diagnostics.

The Acer Nitro 5 is a solid budget gaming laptop with competition-beating frame rates and VR score. However, there is one laptop that consistently kept outperforming the Nitro 5 during our testing: the Dell G5 15 SE.

The $829 G5 15 SE kicked the $999 Nitro 5’s butt. The AMD-equipped Dell gaming rig sports a punchier display, more storage, zippier file-transfer and video-editing rates, and better overall performance.

On the plus side, the Nitro 5 crushed the G5 15 SE — and its other rivals —  when it comes to gaming frame rates, offering an average of nine more frames than the Dell laptop. It also surpassed all of its competitors on the VRMark Orange Room benchmark.

If decent VR performance and higher frame rates appeal to you, get the Nitro 5, but if you prefer a better display, a blisteringly fast CPU and more storage at a sub-$1,000 price tag, the G5 15 SE is the better option.

Acer’s Nitro 5 is a gaming notebook with an attractive price. The appeal of these laptops is their higher end spec also make them a great option for photo and video editing on the move or just a fast everyday computer. It’s still not cheap at around £800 or $800, but you can pay a lot more for a laptop far less capable.

This model comes with a 144Hz 15.6” Full HD IPS screen, an AMD Ryzen 5 4600H, 512GB of fast SSD storage, 8GB of RAM and an NVidia GTX 1650Ti graphics card. At this price it’s not perfect. Battery life is not great, the screen is only average and it’s mostly made of plastic, but it can handle most current games at its native resolution and it’s no slouch editing your videos in Adobe Premiere Pro or your photos in Adobe Photoshop.

Inside the box you get the laptop itself, a beefy 135W charger and a couple of brief getting started guides. You can download a complete user manual here.

I would have liked to have seen an SD card slot but it’s great to see a full speed Gen 2 USB Type-C port that supports speeds up to 10GBps, double that of the 5Gbps of other Gen 1 ports. This is particularly useful for gaming or video editing which I’ll come back to later. You can’t use this port for charging the laptop or for output to a display.

The laptop is made almost entirely of plastic, the type that does attract fingerprints, but feels fairly robust especially around the keyboard and palmrest. The lid does have a little flex, especially down towards the hinges, which won’t offer a huge amount of protection for the fragile LED panel behind it.

With its fast NVMe SSD, finishing off the Windows install took around 10 minutes. There is some junkware that I uninstalled including software from Norton, but I’ve seen a lot worse. I let the laptop use the free built in Windows Defender for antivirus. If you need further protection I’d usually recommend MalwareBytes. There’s also Acer Care Centre to update drivers and guide you through backup and recovery that I also left installed. As well as Acer’s Nitrosense with its own dedicated key for configuring and monitoring the laptop’s performance.

I particularly like the keyboard which has over 1.5mm of travel and is very comfortable to type on, even for longer periods – and it’s fairly quiet too. You can hear how it sounds typing in the accompanying video.

My display did have a single bright green sub pixel which is quite noticeable on a dark background. There isn’t an awful lot you can do about it and Acer don’t consider it a warranty issue unless there are more than two.

It has a listed response time of 3ms. It’s difficult to confirm this claim precisely, but in the tests I ran it seems plausible it’s less than 5ms and I didn’t notice any ghosting either. And it supports variable refresh rates via Freesync.

This is not really a laptop intended for critical colour work, but I was a little disappointed that it could only display 59% of the sRGB colour space – the spectrum of colours that most devices conform to, from phones to TVs to monitors, and around 40% of the Adobe RGB and P3 colour space.

I also measured the colour accuracy or Delta E of the screen. Delta E is a metric for understanding how the human eye perceives colour difference with a value of less than 1 being not perceptible to the human eye. And a value between 1 and 2 being barely perceptible.

It charges with the 135W, 19.5V, 6.92A AC adapter with a 5.5mm pin. Gaming laptops always need hefty chargers, but this one is slimmer and lighter than many others I’ve come across.

I also conducted a few real life tests. As a worst case scenario, I ran Forza Horizon 4 in benchmark mode continuously until the battery ran out, starting out with the battery at 100%. The screen brightness was 246 nits. The laptop lasted just 53 minutes – I was hoping for a little more.

I did connect the RavPower Power House AC portable charger I reviewed a while back to try and extend the battery life, particularly for gaming. I wasn’t expecting it to work since the laptop’s 135W charger exceeds the power pack’s 100W maximum capacity. But in my testing it was able to charge the laptop even running the intensive 3DMark Timespy benchmark. A lot of games also perform better running off the AC charger. For example by default Forza Horizon 4 locks at 30fps on battery but gets double that on AC power.

There are a few iterations of this laptop. This model comes with an AMD Ryzen 5 4600H 3GHz Hexa or 6 core processor, 8GB of DDR4 memory, a 512GB NVMe SSD and a discrete NVidia Geforce 1650Ti graphics card.

Windows boots in less than 10 seconds and wakes from sleep in less than 3 seconds. Games load pretty quickly as do large applications. Shadow of the Tomb Raider loads in 26 seconds, Fortnite in just over a minute and Adobe Premiere Pro starts up in around 14 seconds. Games still load faster on a XBOX Series X – Fortnite took around 50 seconds to load – but there’s not a huge amount in it.

Running the PCMark 10 benchmark which measures the computer’s overall performance for a range of office and productivity tasks, gave a score of 5117 which compares well against similar machines in the benchmark’s database.

Running the Geekbench 5 CPU Benchmark gave a single core score of 1053 and a multi-core score of 4969 which are both decent results. Its compute score for its graphics capabilities was 44801.

The UserBenchmark test gave the laptop a high 90% Desktop score, with the 1650Ti getting a Gaming score of 41%. This is a useful test that you can run on your own machine to see what benefits upgrading to this laptop might bring.

Unfortunately I couldn’t get the sequence to export using the 1650Ti for hardware encoding, and software encoding using the CPU took over an hour. This sequence exported in 7 minutes on my desktop PC with an i7-8700 processor, an Nvidia RTX 2070 video card and 32GB of RAM. More RAM would certainly help here.

I attached a 500GB Sandisk Extreme Pro drive which measured 971MB/s read and 920MB/s write speed in CrystalDiskMark – almost its maximum spec’ed 1050MB/s. Premiere Pro was happy editing directly off this external storage.

The stereo speakers sit just under the raised front section on either side of the laptop. You can use the Nitrosense software to switch their EQ preset – but this works a lot better with headphones attached.

The integrated WiFi card impressively supports the latest WiFi 6 with speeds of up to a theoretical 2.4Gbps, if you are lucky enough to have WiFi 6 in your house. Even over 802.11ac or WiFi 5 as it’s now known, I get a very good connection around the house connected to my Unifi access points, matching my iPhone 11. This Intel module also supports the very latest Bluetooth 5.1 standard with its extended range and I got a reliable connection to several devices including my Xbox Series X controller. Even if you don’t have WiFi 6 or any compatible Bluetooth 5.1 devices, it’s great to see these new standards that will become commonplace soon, already implemented in relatively affordable laptops.

Fortnite played fine in its maximum Epic settings averaging around 45fps and around 70fps in High mode. There was the occasional stuttering where the frame rate dropped briefly.

Forza Horizon 4 looked like it wasn’t going to play with an error message about the hardware not meeting minimum specs even though it does. But ignoring the messages it played very well averaging a smooth 55fps with Ultra graphics settings in its benchmark mode. Upgrading the RAM to 16GB I would imagine would overcome the initial warning.

I also played Doom Eternal with High settings which averaged around 50fps with no stuttering. There’s only 4GB of video card RAM or VRAM which isn’t enough for higher graphics settings.

As I alluded to earlier the fan is noisy while playing games but it does keep the laptop cool. The exterior of the laptop barely got above 40C. For all the games I used Nitrosense to put the laptop in high performance mode. In Nitrosense you can also adjust cooling yourself and monitor the temperature and loads of the CPU and GPU. You can also turn on Coolboost mode which increases the fan speed to increase cooling.

There’s the 512GB Western Digital M.2 NVMe drive already installed, but there’s space for another one and you should be able to set them up in RAID 0 for even faster performance, but that’s not something I’ve tried yet.

On top of that there’s even space for a 2.5” drive – either an SSD or mechanical drive. Acer even supply the required motherboard cable and set of screws – which are often quite hard to get hold of – so don’t lose them if you plan to upgrade the laptop in the future. If you wanted the laptop as a video editing machine, you could add a second M.2 NVMe drive for your media and then add a large cheaper 2.5” drive for archiving.

The Acer Nitro 5 is a well thought out budget gaming laptop. It can play most games at decent graphical settings at its native 1080p resolution. Its fast 512GB NVMe SSD makes the laptop feel quick in general use, and it’s big enough for a few larger games. There’s also the Gen 2 USB-C port to easily add additional fast external storage. And the upgrade options are even more plentiful if you’re happy removing the bottom cover. If you are, I’d recommend upgrading the memory to 16GB.