Acer - Nitro 5 15.6" Gaming Laptop - Intel Core i5 - 8GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 - 1TB Hard Drive - Shale Black

======= Summary ======= The Acer Nitro 5 is a good budget gaming laptop that will satisfy casual gamers and those targeting a smaller budget. Many older games, and even some recent games such as Far Cry 5, run well on 1080P with Medium or High settings with smooth and consistent framerates. Performing everyday tasks such as web browsing, document editing, photo editing, and video playback is easily handled by the Nitro 5. Build quality is good for an all-plastic laptop. If you don't mind the weight (~6 lbs) and the thickness, I think the Nitro 5 is a great all-arounder laptop for everyday use plus some casual gaming. ** The Good ** -Good matte IPS display with vibrant colors and good viewing angle -Accurate Touchpad with Precision Drivers -Easy to type keyboard -Pretty good stereo audio (with Dolby technology) -1080P gaming is smooth -Good port selection -Upgradeable DDR4 memory -Hard drives can be upgraded/added (one SATA and one M.2 NVME) ** Not So Good ** -Even though the plastic build is decent and okay, the lid scratches very easily. -The slow, traditional 7,500 RPM SATA hard drive is the weakest point and holds back the potential of the laptop. -Limited keyboard lighting options. ======= Design ======= I like the black and red design of the Nitro 5. It is not gaudy nor too flamboyant. It has a "gamer laptop" look without going too overboard. It is not "sexy" like an Ultrabook with ultra-slim bezels, <1" thickness, and <2.5 lb weight. But then the Nitro 5 is not catering to that crowd. It is catered toward casual gamers who want a good 1080P gaming experience with a discrete graphics card, extra cooling hardware and ventilation, and a nicely-sized and comfortable keyboard for gaming, all for less than $750. Toward that end, I believe Acer did a good job designing the Nitro 5. I only wish the lid was made of a more durable material. The faux brushed metal look is nice and smooth to the touch but the coating gets scratched up VERY easily. I already have several scratch marks and they won't buff out. If seeing scratches bothers you very much, I suggest putting on some sort of protective film like I did on mine. ======= Connectivity ======= After being annoyed by my HP Spectre 13 laptop's lack of ports (it only has 3 USB Type-C/Thunderbolt ports), seeing all the available connectivity ports on the Nitro 5 has been so refreshing~! I love that it has an HDMI port, Gigabit Ethernet port, 3 USB-A ports, an SD card reader, and a USB Type-C port. For my needs, those ports are all I need and I'm satisfied that I don't need to use any dongles or adapters. ======= Keyboard and Touchpad ======= Thanks to the thickness of the laptop, the keyboard offers more travel distance compared to keys on an ultrabook. As a result, typing was easier, more comfortable, and more natural for me. Typing on the keyboard has a kind of "soft" feel but it was not mushy and annoying. I quickly adjusted to the keyboard and had no difficulty typing on it. Gaming on the keyboard was also good and did not hinder my gameplay at all. For those times I do some calculator work, I appreciated having the number pad area. There is one thing about the keyboard that annoys me and it is not being able to keep the red backlighting on at all times. After a short time, the lights will go out and you have to press a key to make it light up again. I wish a BIOS update is coming in the future to fix this. As for the Touchpad, I was thrilled to discover that despite using Elan hardware (which I'm not a fan of), the Touchpad uses Microsoft's excellent Precision Driver. I immediately went into Settings and set up all of my usual Gesture Shortcuts which made me very happy. Good job, Acer, for going with the Precision driver~! I had no issues with the Touchpad at all and found it easy to use and customize to my liking. ======= Screen ======= I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the 1080P IPS screen. I expected some light bleeding, grayish blacks, and muted colors based on the price of the Nitro 5. Instead, I experienced a screen that is sharp, crisp, vibrant, and with good viewing angles. The blacks are inky black and there is no light bleeding anywhere. Definitely impressed. I played Rise of the Tomb Raider and Far Cry 5 at 1080P and the games looked great as well. The screen is great for everything - documents, web browsing, multimedia, and games. ======= Performance & Audio ======= Even though the Nitro 5 has an Intel Core i5 CPU, it is an 8th-generation Coffee Lake Core i5 with 4 physical cores with 8 threads mated with 8GB of DDR4 memory. As a result, the performance is great for both single-thread and multi-thread apps and games. Regular everyday tasks such as web browsing, document editing, and multimedia playback are all easily handled by the Nitro 5. Gaming is great too with the discrete GeForce GTX 1050 GPU. I played Rise of the Tomb Raider at 1080P with High settings and the game ran very well and smoothly with no severe framerate drops. To my big pleasant surprise, I was even able to play Far Cry 5 at good framerates at 1080P with Medium settings. Audio was surprisingly good as well with nice loud volume and clear stereo sound separation. The only thing that stood out like a sore thumb was the slow hard drive performance (I'm used to SSD hard drive speeds on my other PCs). Even though the SATA hard drive spins at 7,200 RPM and not 5,400 RPM, it still felt too slow. Longer Windows and application bootup times, longer game loading screens, and longer file transfer times. Fortunately, the default SATA hard drive can be upgraded to a faster SATA SSD hard drive, such as a Samsung 860 Evo. You also have an option to add an even faster NVME M.2 PCI Express drive if you're willing to remove the bottom laptop cover. Besides the slow hard drive performance, which can be remedied by an additional purchase, I'm satisfied and happy with the rest of the Nitro 5's performance characteristics. ======= Software ======= My software experience on the Nitro 5 is a good one. Windows 10 is fast, smooth, and reliable and the Nitro 5 came with an acceptable level of bloatware - 9 Acer apps, Norton Security, Netflix, a handful of games, and some Microsoft apps. They're all easy to remove. ======= Battery life ======= If you're not gaming on the Nitro 5 and you are doing other regular stuff, the laptop has decent stamina. For my usage, the laptop lasted between 5 to 6 hours (Chrome browser, YouTube, and document editing). When playing games such as Far Cry 5, however, the battery will quickly drain out in about 1 & 1/2 hours. For long gaming sessions, have the charger connected so the Nitro 5 doesn't hibernate suddenly. FYI, the battery seems easy to replace in the future. You do have to take off the bottom laptop cover but it's pretty easy to do so. ======= Upgradeability ======= Coming from a soldered down ultrabook, the Nitro 5 offers a refreshing amount of upgrade choices - SATA HDD, NVME M.2 HDD, DDR4 RAM, and battery. I'll definitely be adding an NVME M.2 HDD in the near future. ======= So, is it any good? ======= For its $720 price, the Nitro 5 is a good value gaming laptop for casual gamers. The CPU is powerful, the memory is fast and upgradeable, and the GeForce GTX 1050 can handle 1080P gaming smoothly. The Dolby stereo speakers sound good, the keyboard is spacious and comfortable to use, the Touchpad with the Precision Driver is a pleasure, and the general performance is very good. Just do yourself a favor and upgrade to a SSD hard drive - SATA or NVME. And don't put stuff on top of the lid.

When I read a lot of the reviews on this item the major complaints were things like, heat and noise. Those who buy a super thin gaming laptop and expect the fans not to work hard are crazy. As a gaming laptop this item will run all my games (black dessert online, Ni No Kuni II, FFXIV, and more) on high graphics. Yes after a few minutes the fans will kick on high and you can definitely hear it but it isn't anything crazy loud. And as for heat I've personally not dealt with anything other than it getting a little warm. I had my reservations about buying this laptop at first because I had never owned an Acer. I can however say this laptop is 100% percent worth the money if you are trying to stay out of the $1000 or above range.

I've dealt with a really bad PC for gaming for a long time but was able to invest in an affordable gaming laptop. The financing on this was great, only about $51 a month for a year to pay off. So far, I've been able to play some great games at high or ultra-high graphics, like Skyrim, Mortal Kombat X and 11, Outlast, and so on. It's not too heavy, and it's design is really nice. I also like the backlit keys, although they only seem to be in red. The fans are also very quiet, which is great, and it doesn't seem to get too hot. One gripe is that the touchpad isn't the greatest, but it's not bad, either; it doesn't have a distinctive left- and right-click buttons, which can sometimes make clicking a little difficult for certain gaming and just standard browsing. So far, I'm very happy with this purchase, and I hope it lasts for a long time.

This is a great little computer for the money. I have seen poor comments about the screen, the speakers, and the heat management of this machine. What I would like to say is I have no issue with any of those factors. It has a 1080p full HD display and it is beautiful. Some people have complained about its color reproductions........try adjusting the color output if you dont like it. I have played TitanFall2 for hours at max settings and have had no issue with heat. The machine hasnt slowed down once. Yes, the speakers are small and with that they dont put out big sound. But duh, it's a laptop! The sound that they do reproduce is fantastic with the Dolby audio just not loud volume. What you do get for this price is a very capable gaming laptop and Best Buys great service! Highly recommend this to anyone.

Your getting a lot for the price. Your getting for 600 dollars a it 8300H along with a desktop grade GeForce GTX 1050

I bought this laptop for my son for basic computing and gaming, based on the specs and we were not disappointed. He loves it and it easily handles all the games he plays.

I was looking for a reasonably priced gaming laptop and the Acer Nitro 5 was my choice. I don;t play a lot of shooter games, I am more in simulation/building games like Cities Skylines. So I needed a decent GPU for the graphics, not so much frame rate. The Nitro 5 comes with 8 gb ram, a decent CPU at 2.3 gHz that can be overclocked. And the GPU with its 4 gb DDR4 ram is plenty for my needs, and will play most games out now on high or medium settings. The GPU can also be overclocked. So far I have had no problems playing any of the games I play, and I am really enjoying my first gaming laptop. I would recommend the Nitro 5 to anyone that needs a good cheap entry level gaming laptop.

Good solid laptop. Bought this for my son 2 years ago and he takes it everywhere. He only had one issue with it and that was the back of the creek cover cracked and became loose from taking it in his back pack. Took it right in and got it fixed within a week.