Acer Nitro 5 15 (2020) Laptop Review

The Acer Nitro 5 has a typical budget gamer design, with a plasticky look and a black and red color scheme. The keyboard's backlight only lights up in red, and there are also red accents around the WASD and arrow keys. There are air vents on both sides of the laptop and the back.

The Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop feels well-built. It has a full plastic construction that feels solid, with just a bit of flex in the keyboard deck and screen. The hinge is sturdy, similar to the Dell Alienware m15 R3 (2020) in build and solidity.

The hinge is outstanding. It doesn't feel particularly smooth when opening and closing the screen, but it still passes the one-finger lift test while still having enough resistance to prevent screen wobbling. It does wobble a bit if you type very aggressively, though.

The Acer Nitro 5 isn't easy to carry around, as the laptop and the power adapter are both on the bulkier side.

The Acer Nitro 5's serviceability is excellent. It's very easy to access the internals, as you only have to remove some Philips screws, pull a few clips, and pry it open. There are two memory slots, supporting up to 64GB of memory. Our unit has a single 256GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD, and there's a second M.2 SSD slot and a slot for a 2.5-inch storage drive. There's an HDD mounting kit (cable and screws) included in the box.

• Acer Nitro 5 15 (2020)
• 135W power adapter and cord
• Hard drive upgrade kit (cable and screws)
• Quick start guide
• Stickers

The Acer Nitro 5 is available with the following displays:

• 15.6" IPS 1920 x 1080 60Hz
• 15.6" IPS 1920 x 1080 120Hz
• 15.6" IPS 1920 x 1080 144Hz

1080p is a typical resolution for 15.6-inch displays. It looks decently sharp, although you can see individual pixels if you're close enough. All three displays look the same in terms of sharpness, so you only have to choose the refresh rate you want.

The Acer Nitro 5 has three screen refresh rate options: 60Hz, 120Hz, or 144Hz. The 60Hz panel's response time is very slow, causing noticeable ghosting behind moving objects. For the best gaming experience, it's best to go with the 120Hz or 144Hz panels, as they'll likely have a faster response time. Unfortunately, none of the displays support variable refresh rate to reduce screen tearing.

The 60Hz display has a good contrast ratio, better than the 700-1000:1 contrast on most IPS panels. However, it's still low compared to VA and OLED panels and isn't ideal for dim settings because blacks look grayish in the dark. The 120Hz and 144Hz displays will perform similarly.

The 1080p 60Hz screen's brightness is okay. It's fine for most indoor settings but isn't bright enough to fight glare in very well-lit or sunny environments. It gets very dim at the lowest brightness setting, which is great for dark room viewing because it causes less eye strain. The 120Hz and 144Hz panels will likely perform similarly.

The reflection handling is decent. It struggles more with direct reflections, so it's best to avoid having bright lights shining directly on the screen. It isn't too bad when viewing light-color content with the screen at max brightness, but it makes dark-color content hard to see.

The display's black uniformity is sub-par. The whole screen is grayish, and there's visible backlight bleed along the top and bottom edges, which can be distracting when viewing dark scenes.

The display's horizontal viewing angle is okay. The image looks dimmer and more washed out from the side. It's good enough to share the screen with someone else if you don't need perfect image accuracy.

The display's vertical viewing angle is okay. Again, the image looks dimmer and more washed out from above and below, so you have to look at it almost straight on to get the most accurate image.

The 60Hz panel has bad color accuracy out of the box. Most colors are inaccurate because the panel has a narrow color gamut and can't display all the colors in the sRGB color space. The white balance is also visibly off, and the image has a slight reddish tint due to the warm color temperature. The gamma doesn't follow the sRGB curve; most scenes are too bright, and dark scenes are slightly over-darkened.

The 60Hz screen has a bad color gamut. It doesn't even have full sRGB coverage, the color space used in most content, and it has even worse coverage of the wider color spaces, like Adobe RGB, DCI P3, and Rec. 2020, making it a poor choice for viewing HDR content or media creation. Luckily, there's an HDMI port if you want to use an external desktop monitor. The other panels will likely perform similarly.

The display is only flicker-free if you set the screen brightness to maximum. However, the flicker frequency below maximum brightness is very high and isn't noticeable.

The Acer Nitro 5's keyboard is sub-par. Although it has stable keys with a good amount of travel and feels good to type on, it sometimes doesn't register some keystrokes, which causes more typos when typing and can be a dealbreaker for some gamers. The layout is fairly standard, though, so it doesn't take long to adapt to it. The backlight has four levels of brightness, which you can control directly from the keyboard. There's a 'Nitro' button where the NumLock usually is to launch the Nitro app, which lets you access power settings and fan controls, as well as monitor system temperatures. If you want a similar gaming laptop with a better keyboard, check out the HP Victus 16 (2021).

The touchpad is decent. It's responsive to all movements and gestures; however, palm rejection doesn't always work, and actions like dragging and dropping are hard, as you need to keep a consistent amount of pressure for it to work. The size is okay, though the position might take some time to get used to, as it's very shifted to the left.

The Acer Nitro 5's speakers sound relatively clear but have no bass whatsoever. They also don't get very loud.

The webcam's video quality is sub-par. The image is too dark, lacks fine details, and the colors aren't true to life. Audio is clear over the microphone, but there's static in the background, which can be annoying. If you want a similar budget gaming laptop with a better webcam, check out the Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 (2021).

The Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop has a decent port selection. One of the USB-A ports supports USB 3.2 Gen 2 data transfer speed (up to 10Gbps) and can charge a mobile device even when the laptop is in sleep mode, while the other two USB-A ports only support USB 3.2 Gen 1 transfer speed (up to 5Gbps). The USB-C port supports USB 3.2 Gen 2 data transfer speed. Unfortunately, you can't use the USB-C port to charge the laptop or connect an external display. The Ethernet port has a maximum speed of 1Gbps.

The Acer Nitro 5's wireless adapter is an Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200. The Ethernet adapter is a Killer E2600 Gigabit Ethernet Controller.

The Acer Nitro 5 is available with the following CPUs:

• Intel Core i5-10300H (4 cores/8 threads, up to 4.50GHz)
• Intel Core i7-10750H (6 cores/12 threads, up to 5.00GHz)
• AMD Ryzen 5 4600H (6 cores/12 threads, up to 4.0GHz)
• AMD Ryzen 7 4800H (8 cores/16 threads, up to 4.2GHz)

All of the available options are high-power CPUs typically found in gaming laptops and mobile workstations. In GPU-limited games, there isn't much performance difference between these four CPUs since parts of the CPU will likely be idle. However, if you play open-world games or other CPU-intensive games, there's a benefit in going with a six or eight-core CPU. More cores will also allow you to do other things without affecting gaming performance too much, like streaming or playing music in the background. If you want a similarly sized laptop that's equipped with newer AMD Ryzen 5-series CPUs, consider the HP Pavilion Gaming Laptop 15 (2021).

There are two discreet GPU options:

• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti.

Both GPUs are entry-level graphics processors that can get you around 60 fps at 1080p in modern AAA titles, albeit with some tweaks in the graphics settings. The Ti variants in NVIDIA's lineup usually perform better than the non-Ti variants, but the difference isn't huge. If you want a gaming laptop with more powerful GPU options, check out the Lenovo Legion 5 Gen 6 15 (2021).

You can configure the Acer Nitro 5 with 8GB, 12GB, or 16GB of memory. It's best to get 16GB for gaming because 8GB might cause stuttering in some games.

You can configure this laptop with 256GB or 512GB of storage. It's best to opt for more storage because constant writing and erasing of data causes wear and tear on the SSD, reducing its lifespan. However, since the SSD is user-replaceable, you can get a 256GB configuration first and upgrade it yourself later on. There are three storage slots: two M.2 and one 2.5-inch.

The AMD Ryzen 5 4600H in our Acer Nitro 5 has a great score in the Geekbench 5 benchmarks. This level of performance was good a few years back, but it's rather slow compared to current-gen processors. The Ryzen 7 4800H has much better multi-threaded performance and is a better choice for those running heavily multi-threaded applications. The Intel Core i7-10750H will perform similarly to the one we tested in the Dell Alienware m15 R3. The i5-10300H has roughly the same single-thread performance as the i7-10750H, but its multi-thread performance is worse because it only has four cores.

The GPU compute score is great. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 performs a little worse than the 1650 Ti, but not by much. Both GPUs can handle demanding tasks like image processing, although you might see some stutters here and there, especially in VRAM-heavy applications.

The Cinebench R23 score is excellent. Again, this level of performance is good for the Ryzen 5 4600H, but it's low compared to newer CPUs. Even low-power, current-gen U-series CPUs perform better. The AMD Ryzen 7 4800H performs similarly in single-thread workload tests but is much faster in multi-threaded ones because it has more cores and threads. The Intel Core i7-10750H performs better in the single-thread test than the AMD Ryzen 5 4600H but lags in the multi-thread test. The i5-10300H is the slowest when it comes to multi-thread performance.

Regardless of which configuration you get, it's almost always better to render 3D models using the GPU rather than the CPU. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 and 1650 Ti are generally pretty close in performance. The GTX 1650 Ti is a little faster than the GTX 1650, but the difference isn't night and day.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti in our Acer Nitro 5 performs well in the Basemark GPU test. It can get you around 60 fps in most modern titles, but you'll likely have to lower some graphics settings to get there. The GTX 1650 is a slightly weaker GPU, so you might have to lower the graphics settings further to get smooth and consistent frame rates.

The 256GB SSD's performance is excellent. The system boots up, launches apps, and loads games very quickly. The sequential write speed is good but is more towards the lower end of NVMe SSDs, so writing a large amount of data to the drive is slow, like when installing a big game. If you choose to add a 2.5-inch SATA storage drive, the games installed on that drive will take longer to load because SATA drives are generally much slower than PCIe NVMe SSDs. The speed of the SSD may vary depending on the size, as larger SSDs tend to perform better.

The Acer Nitro 5's battery life is great. You can easily get through an eight-hour day of light productivity on a full charge, as the system switches to the integrated graphics to extend battery life. However, gaming consumes significantly more power, so you'll almost always need to plug it in when gaming. Battery life varies greatly depending on your usage.

Borderlands 3 runs poorly on the Acer Nitro 5. The average is well below 60 fps at 1080p with 'High' settings, and the frametimes are inconsistent, causing stutter. You need to lower the graphics settings to get a smooth experience, whether you get the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 or 1650 Ti. It's primarily a GPU limitation, so you might not see much difference with a more powerful CPU.

All configurations of the Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop can deliver smooth gameplay in Civilization VI with some minor tweaks in the settings. The turn time is okay with the AMD Ryzen 5 4600H, and we expect the Intel Core i7-10750H to be similar. The AMD Ryzen 7 4800H will give you the fastest turn time, though only slightly, while the Intel Core i5-10300H will have the slowest.

CS:GO runs very smoothly on the Acer Nitro 5. It's an older title that typically runs well on most gaming systems, so every CPU and GPU configuration of the Nitro 5 can provide a smooth experience.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a graphically demanding title, even for current hardware. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti maintains close to 60 fps at the 'High' settings, but there are noticeable stutters. Regardless of the GPU you choose, you need to lower the graphical settings to get a more stable 60fps. The large frame time spikes in the graph are scene changes.

The Acer Nitro 5's thermal and noise performance is okay. It gets a bit toasty under load, causing a hot spot around the number 0 on the keyboard. It isn't a problem for gaming as most people position their hands closer to the WASD keys, but it might be a bit uncomfortable when typing. The fans get fairly loud, though probably still tolerable for most people. Intel CPUs typically run hotter than AMD Ryzen CPUs, so you can expect to hear the fans working for longer periods on the Intel models.

The Acer Nitro 5's performance over time is outstanding. Neither the CPU nor GPU gets very hot, and even though there's some performance loss, it's only a few percent, which isn't noticeable. There's plenty of thermal headroom, so it's unlikely that the other CPUs will suffer from significant performance loss. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 performs similarly to the GTX 1650 Ti.

The Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop comes with pre-installed software, including:

• Norton Security Ultra: Virus and malware protection. You only get a free trial; you need to pay for a subscription to continue using it.
• Acer Product Registration: To register your laptop with Acer for warranty.
• Acer Collection S: Shortcut to download apps like Netflix, Messenger, Hulu, Fitbit, etc.
• Power Director: Video editing software, similar to Adobe Premiere.
• Express VPN: VPN (Virtual Private Network) trial.
• DTS:X Ultra: Contains preset sound profiles and EQ functions for the built-in speakers.
• GoTrust ID: Two-factor authentication and password manager.
• Xsplit Gamecaster: A streaming app for platforms like Twitch.
• Nitro Sense: Lets you access power settings, fan controls, and monitor system temperatures.