Acer - Nitro V – 16" WUXGA 165Hz Gaming Laptop - Intel Core 7 240H 2024 - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 – 16GB Memory – 512GB Storage - Obsidian Black

I picked up the Acer Nitro V 16 mainly for AAA gaming, and it’s been a really solid mid range gaming rig so far. The 16 inch screen looks sharp, and that 165 Hz refresh rate makes everything feel super smooth in games like shooters and racing titles. The Intel Core 7 240H has no problem keeping up when I’m playing, chatting on Discord, and running a browser in the background. The Nvidia RTX 5050 (Blackwell architecture) handles modern AAA games at 1080p and 1200p nicely with high settings, and turning on DLSS helps keep frame rates steady without the visuals turning into a muddy mess. However, I don’t think the 5050 is an upgrade over the RTX 4060, which was in my last gen laptop. I feel they are about roughly equal, with the 4060 maybe slightly getting more frames per second in FPS like COD Black Ops 6. I was getting around 135 FPS on Black Ops 6 at 1080p high settings with the Acer Nitro’s 5050 and around 140 FPS on my 4060. The main advantage in getting this laptop is to have DLSS 4 which is not available on the last gen laptops. 16 GB of RAM has been enough for me, though I’ll probably upgrade it to 32 GB later, and while the 512 GB SSD fills up fast with big games, it loads them quickly and I can always add external storage later. The Obsidian Black design looks clean and a bit aggressive but not too flashy, so it works for both gaming and everyday use. Fans do get noticeable when I’m pushing it, but temps stay in check and it hasn’t throttled in longer sessions. Overall, if you want a laptop that can comfortably run current AAA titles without breaking the bank, this Nitro V 16 feels like a very good mid range gaming laptop. It’s a solid upgrade over the last gen equivalent, which was the 4050. You have to ask yourself if you really want DLSS 4 if you have a 4060 because the performance is about the same. If you have something higher than a 4060 this is probably not for you as your current rig would perform better.

Bottom line: The Acer Nitro is a good entry level gaming machine and it can handle typical home and business applications. The overall build is solid and the laptop is light enough to carry to/from school, work and home. The main downside to this laptop is the fan noise. When playing anything from Wobbly Life to Planet Crafter the noise was noticeable. When just doing Office type apps or surfing the web the fans stayed quiet. Pros: - Open NVMe Slot so you can add more storage - Decent specs for an entry level gaming computer - IPS display has fast 165 hz refresh rate - Nitro Sense software allows you to control the laptop functions - Acer My Key lets you assign a shortcut to the Acer key Cons: - The fans can get noisy when playing games - No dedicated NPU for Ai fans Tech Specs: The display is a WUXGA (1920 x 1200) which means it is a wider display which is great for gaming and business apps. The fast 165 refresh rate means clearer imaging during fast games and improved movie/video performance. The laptop is equipped with the Nvidia 5050 video card which is entry level but still provides decent Frames Per Second on most games – see the test results below. The Intel ultra 7 provides plenty of processing power without an abundance of heat. As stated above though, when the fans kick in due to processing demands the fan noise can get noticeable. Luckily I only experienced this when running the laptop in Turbo mode and doing some heavy gaming, it was reasonably quiet when surfing the web or doing Excel, Word type business apps. The storage is a 512 GB NVMe M2 2280 Gen4 card and there is an open slot if you want to add more storage. The laptop has 16gb of Ram which is generally enough for most applications. The Ram is composed of two 8gb sticks so it is dual channel memory which is good but it means upgrading could be expensive. Acer Software: Acer adds several programs including one with Ai apps if you want to use them. The Nitro Sense gives you dashboard so you can monitor the system, configure the RGB Lighting on the keyboard, system mode (Quiet, Balanced, Performance, Turbo) and to configure your user experience . The software is intuitive and gives you control over how the laptop functions. The Acer My Key allows you to assign a short cut or function to a special key located above the numerical keys. 3DMARK Scores Steel Nomad Score = 1993 Battlefield V @ 1080p = 155+ FPS Apex Legends @ 1080p = 140+ FPS GTA V @ 1080p = 170+ FPS Fortnite @ 1080p = 155+ FPS Red Dead Redemption 2 @ 1080p = 100 FPS Geekbench 6 Single Core Score = 2708 Multi Core Score = 12597 Open CL Score = 95518

Okay, I had to rewrite this review based on a few changes I made to how the OS works (Windows 11 Home). First thing is I broke the cardinal rule of not updating all the software on the computer, which I thought I had done. Initially I was going to give this laptop a 3 star rating because it was slow, the screen was kind of dull and I couldn't get my favorite game Ghost Recon Wildlands (GRW) to run. My wifi connection was also slow and seeming as though I have wifi7 and a few nodes around the house to make sure there are no dead zones it was a bit annoying. Windows update didn't help at all and winget was more of the same. Now explain to me why updating the Nvidia software all of a sudden turned this laptop with a RTX5050 mobile chip into the fastest PC when it comes to GRW. My i7 14th gen and 5070 mobile chip with 32Gb of DDR5 won't run it over 60fps.This one was over 85 during firefights with the screen going banana's with all the chaos going on. I like the Thunderbolt 4 port that handles DP out and can charge the laptop with a 65watt power brick. Didn't do anything to help the colors on screen even after a color calibration. Sound is okay but headphones pretty much made me forget about the so so sound from the speakers. The RGB is okay if you like that kind of thing. Glad I was able to turn it off. Not that heavy for its size and I was expecting to have some battery drain while hooked up to the 65watt power while playing GRW but it never dropped and it never throttled. Temps were pretty good never got above 55℃ on either the GPU of CPU. This is a sleeper as far as I am concerned. With the expansion slot to add another Nvme storage drive in this I would definitely recommend trying this out. Just do your homework and make sure you update everything. I think this would be a great candidate to run a Linux distro geared for gaming like CachyOS or Bazzite.

Acer has created a competent gaming laptop, with only a couple of items that I would change being noticed in my time spend testing this PC. This Nitro V laptop arrived packaged in a reasonably plain box, with the upside being that the unboxing experience was straightforward and simple. Everything was well packaged, meaning no damage was incurred during shipping. The first thing I noticed about this laptop was the all plastic construction of the case and body. For the price, I was hoping it would be aluminum, but it is not. Whether or not that is important to you is totally subjective, but I do wish that Acer had used metal in the construction of this laptop’s case and body. That being said, the plastic does feel well made and high quality, but does show quite a bit of fingerprints even after a small amount of handling. Inside, the keyboard (which includes a numerical keypad) is RGB backlit, and the keys feel great to type with. I personally don’t love including a number pad, as it means the keyboard is pushed to the left of the laptop, which throws off my typing. Again, this may not bother you, but I would just get rid of the 10-key for this laptop. The trackpad feels good, and is a decent size. I had no trouble using it during my time testing the Nitro V. The 16" screen is large, gets reasonably bright, and has a good picture, but is not the most impressive screen I have ever seen on a laptop. It does have a high refresh rate of 165 Hz, which means that gameplay is smooth, even when the action gets frenetic. Speaking of specs, here’s a rundown of what Acer included in the Nitro V laptop: -16” WUXGA 165Hz Display (1920 x 1200), 400-nit brightness -Intel Core 7 processor 240H -NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 Laptop GPU -512GB of PCIe 4.0 SSD Storage -16GB of RAM -Full HD Webcam, with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 To test out the gaming capabilities, I played a variety of games, downloaded on the SSD from my Steam account. For older games like Fallout New Vegas, this laptop had absolutely no problem running everything on max/ultra settings, with absolutely no slowdown or issues. This was expected, but is still nice to see. For “older but a bit more intensive” games, I played Fallout 4, partially because I know this game so well, so I know how it should run. The Nitro V easily played this title at ultra settings, and I did not experience any slowdown, or framerate drops in places like downtown Boston, which can be taxing in this game specifically. Overall, I expected a laptop with these types of specs to perform this way, and it did not let me down. For a modern, graphically intensive title, I played Cyberpunk 2077. I found that using the preset of “Ray Tracing: Low” led to an amazing blend of quality graphics, and consistently smooth performance. When running the benchmark on this preset, it averaged 61.64 frames per second. Playing in this mode on this laptop was a great way to experience Cyberpunk, as Night City was rendered in stunning detail, and the action never stuttered or slowed down. I also played for a while using the preset “Ray Tracing: Medium,” which was not quite as polished as the Low preset. While this led to slightly improved graphics, things were not as smooth, as evidenced by the benchmark reporting an average frames per second of 43.55. This difference isn’t really noticeable at all times, but when the city gets crowded, or combat gets hectic, the drop in FPS can be seen. Ultimately, how you choose to run a game like Cyberpunk 2077 will come down to personal preference, and how much FPS you are willing to sacrifice. At the end of the day, I was pretty blown away with the gaming performance of this Acer laptop. While I totally expected the older games to run well, I was extremely impressed with how the Nitro V handled a demanding title like Cyberpunk 2077, and ran it with ease. While I may wish for a metal chassis and no 10-key, there is no denying how well the Nitro V laptop does what it is made to do: play games. Acer has done a great job of building a machine that excels at gaming, and is also an entirely capable day-to-day laptop. If you’re in the market for a gaming laptop with a larger screen, and excellent gaming performance, you need to check out the Acer Nitro V.

Its nice. It runs fast. It has a good battery. It is light. I like it.