The Acer Nitro 5, recently updated with the new i5-8300H, is an excellent gaming laptop that is competitively priced, yet does not sacrifice gaming performance. With 8 GB DDR4-2666 memory, a 1 TB hard drive, and an Nvidia Geforce GTX 1050 4 GB, it has plenty of horsepower to run all your favorite games. Furthermore, the Nitro 5 is able to pack all of this performance in an impressive sleek and stylish package that will sure to attract gamers. Physically, the Nitro 5 screams quality. At fifteen inches, the Nitro 5 is the perfect size for gaming on the go. Dimension wise, the Nitro 5 is impressively thin at 1.05 inches and only 10.47 inches in depth. On the top of the laptop, there is a glossy brushed aluminum appearance that also encompasses the keyboard. It is enhanced further by the red backlit LED on the keyboard. Overall, the theme of the Nitro 5 looks stunning. Lastly, it shifts to a plastic finish on the sides of the laptop. Weight wise, the Nitro 5 feels considerably lighter than it looks despite Acer listing it at just under six pounds. Nonetheless, the Nitro 5 still has some weight to it but it is not excessive as with some gaming laptops. In addition to weight, you will also note the Nitro 5 has a relative large heat exhaust that is located directly underneath the display. The heat exhaust slit does not go all the way across the front, but instead stops about half way. Lastly, underneath the display, there is an engraved smooth red bar where the display pivots. Overall, it is definitely a stylish package. For connectivity, the Nitro 5 offers plenty of options. On the right hand side, you will note two USB 2.0 ports, perfect for a gaming mouse or an external optical drive. There is also a combo 3.5mm jack that will work with either a microphone or headphones (there are two microphones built in to the top near the webcam). Connectively, on the left, there is one USB 3.0 Type- A port and one USB 3.1 Type-C (Gen 1). There is also an Ethernet RJ-45 connection and an SD card slot to fully complement your needs. Additionally, the power button for the laptop is actually a button on the keyboard as opposed to an actual button on the side. Lastly, there is one HDMI connection for an external monitor. Strangely, Acer did not include an LED for hard drive activity. Overall, the Nitro 5 has plenty of connections that should suit your needs. Naturally, I wish Acer would have somewhat remedied the 3.5mm combo jack by splitting it into two separate 3.5mm as some headsets have two analog connections. Although it isn't too much of an issue, as there are two microphones built into the Nitro 5, I cannot use my headset's microphone if I plug in the headphone portion of the 3.5mm and vice versa. Additionally, while some people may complain at the lack of the USB 3.0 Type-A ports, the good news is that with the 2.0 ports you can connect a mouse and/or use a USB gaming headset at the same time if using the integrated microphone proves to be an issue. As configured, the Nitro 5 was one of the least cluttered laptops that I have used. The hard drive came as a single partition with approximately 30 GB used. Surprisingly, once you enter the windows environment the laptop was not starved of resources. The memory was around 20% used and the hard drive wasn't pegged by any particular executable (surprising as Norton Internet Security came bundled). However, the hard drive was fragmented pretty bad initially at 10%. Of the software that was installed, there were only four that were Acer branded installations. Lastly, Acer included Nitrosense, which allows you to control the fans for your CPU and GPU and monitor their temperatures. For my gaming tests, I tried to keep my changes to a minimum to give you an idea on how the Nitro 5 performs directly out of the box. In particular, I defragmented the hard drive, changed the power options to high performance, prevented both the display and hard drive from going to sleep, and prevented OneDrive from starting up with Windows. Additionally, I disabled hibernation and ran all tests while connected to the wall adapter. Lastly, I did not update any drivers. For monitoring, I used HW Monitor 1.35, Core Temp 1.11, and Fraps 3.59. I set the Nitrosense fan setting to max (6000 RPM). On Rise Of The Tomb Raider (2016), the opening sequence is an intensive test for any GPU. For my test, I set the preset to high, turned off V-Sync, and set the anti-aliasing to FXAA. I also turned off shadows, film grain, and motion blur. With these settings, the game was completely playable and looked stunning. Walking across the mountain, the frame rate varied from the low to middle 50s to upper 40s. Once the weather effects kicked in, I dropped to around 42-46 FPS. As the mountain gave way, I dropped to my lowest observed point at 41 FPS. Additionally, the frame rate quickly rebounded once you start climbing the ice. When you get it inside the cave, it increases to the low 50s. Exiting the cave, the weather effects pushed the frame rate down but it quickly rebounded once you emerge. I would like to strongly emphasize that you should tinker with all the settings as you may find certain combinations work better. Turning down some settings to medium may allow you to bump another to high, thus possibly improving your frame rate. Nonetheless, the Nitro 5 performs exceptionally. Furthermore, the GTX 1050 held consistently around 60 Celsius during the test. Switching gears, I fired up the latest Doom (2016) and wanted to test a fast paced multiplayer match. Surprisingly, Doom held a more consistent rate as oppose to Tomb Raider. I ran everything on High preset and enabled FXAA. I disabled film grain, player self shadow, and chromatic aberration. During my multiplayer match, the game play was extremely smooth. The FPS held consistently between 60-75 FPS, with the lowest dip touching 54 FPS. The in-game metric graphs displayed solid green bars and average FPS numbers were highlighted in green for majority of the match. Periodically, you will see periods where the in-game FPS counter would briefly turn yellow and red, however I did not experience any lag at all. Latency between frames remained green and I did not see anything greater than 13 milliseconds. Furthermore, disabling FXAA seemed to slightly increase the minimum FPS and seemed to steady the latency counter during intensive periods of action. Doom looked gorgeous and the Nitro 5 did not break a sweat! Conclusively, I strongly advise to keep your expectations reasonable. Do NOT expect to maximize every graphical setting for every game. You will need to experiment with different settings, but with what I have listed here, I have no doubt that most will be extremely satisfied. In addition to gaming performance, I also wanted to test the multithread and single thread capabilities of the i5-8300H. With a listed base frequency of 2.3 GHz and a max turbo frequency of 4.0 GHz, I was extremely curious to see how it performs. For a multithreaded test, I ran a video encode of a 91 minute 1080p video file. Using Handbrake 1.1.0, I used the Fast 1080p30 preset. I changed the frame rate to match the source and I also removed chapters and subtitles. The audio was set to equal the source's DTS-MA 5.1 audio track. Once again, the fan was set to max. For comparison, I included my custom built computer's CPU. My results are as follows: i5-8300H: 1 Hour 2 Minutes & 1 Second (35.5 FPS) i7- 3770K: 1 Hour 7 Minutes & 43 seconds (32.5 FPS) Impressive! The Nitro 5 not only managed to beat my desktop, but was also within a respectable temperature range. During the encode, I noted the CPU package held fairly constant around 68 Celsius, though each of the cores did vary slightly. The cores would range anywhere from 55-69 Celsius, where Core #0 and #3 registered slightly cooler. For most of the encode, the i5-8300H was held under 70 Celsius, though a few cores did touch it briefly. HW Monitor and Core Temp reported the power consumption around 45 watts. With all four cores on full load, the i5-8300H's 4 core turbo frequency varied between 3.2-3.4 GHz. Simultaneously, my i7-3770K ran its encode at 3.9 GHz, but still lost to the slower the i5-8300H. For a single threaded test, I used MusicBee 2.4 to convert a 24 minute WAV file to MP3 using the Lame 3.99 encoder. I set the encoder to use a constant bit rate of 320 Kbps and the internal algorithm was set to 0 for high quality (-q command). Lastly, MusicBee's maximum number of threads for encoding was set to 1. I ran three instances on each CPU and added the i5-7500 desktop CPU to the mix: i5-8300H: 1 Minute 36 Seconds/1 Minute 36 Seconds/1 Minute 36 Seconds I5-7500: 1 Minute 49 Seconds/1 Minute 47 Seconds/1 Minute 47 Seconds i7-3770K: 2 Minutes 6 Seconds/2 Minutes 6 Seconds/2 Minutes 6 Seconds With the i5-8300H able to reach its maximum turbo frequency of 4.0 GHz, it is clear to see why it was able to edge out even the i5-7500. Additionally, my i7-3770K is starting to show its age, though is still respectable considering it is nearly six years old. The i5-8300H is definitely a workhorse! Concluding my benchmarks, I would like to include my results for 3D Mark Skydive benchmark using the basic version of 3D Mark. The results are as follows: i5-8300H/GTX 1050 - Overall: 17,880/Graphics: 20,391 (93.04 FPS/93.19 FPS)/Physics: 10,502 In conclusion, the Nitro 5 is a stylish combination of stellar performance and mobility. Furthermore, the Nitro 5 takes mobile gaming even further beyond expectations. The Nitro 5 dazzled with consistent temperatures, a clean Windows installation, a solid and sleek design, and a strong and efficient debut for the Coffee Lake i5-8300H. In addition, the GTX 1050 provided enough performance that should allow you to play games with a combination of medium and high settings. With an extremely competitive price, the Nitro 5 comes highly recommended!

======= 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.

Pros Screen has good viewing angles for the price point Screen brightness is good for indoor use Color reproduction is good for the price point Keyboard response rate is accurate and fast Backlit keyboard Trackpad is excellent Build feels sturdy Fans are inaudible during normal use Fans only make air rushing sound during max. No bearing whine Bloatware installed in minimal Dual video cards mean battery saving Intel card used when not gaming Upgradable RAM and Hard drive M.2 slot also available Plenty of ports including USB 3 and USB C Decent battery life of about 5 to 5 ½ hours during moderate use Configurable fan controller Speakers have a good sound quality and are reasonably loud on hard surfaces Can play older games with all settings maxed out Cons Screen Max brightness too low for brighter rooms Chicklet style keyboard feels mushy Red letters on keys make keys hard to see without backlight Keyboard layout cramped on the right side Fans are unable to keep processor cool enough to prevent thermal throttling M.2 slot located under main case meaning installing could void warranty M.2 slot doesn’t appear to support NVME according to HWInfo64 Speakers fire downward meaning they get muffled and low when not on a hard surface Only includes a 5400rpm hard drive which bottlenecks the system. HDD usage often 100% 3D Mark reports system below minimum spec for Vive or Oculus 3D Mark benchmark could only muster 11FPS The Acer Nitro 5 is the budget-oriented series of gaming laptops from Acer. Depending on your budget, you can purchase one with an included SSD, Upgraded Memory, and a Core i7. The AN515-53-52 is the most affordable in the range. Included is a 15.6-inch IPS screen, Core i5 Coffee Lake processor, 1TB 5400rpm hard drive, 8GB of RAM, and a GeForce 1050. All include plenty of ports from USB 2, USB 3, USB C, HDMI, and a stereo jack. If this is your first look into a gaming laptop be prepared. After seeing all these ultra-thin and light laptops you will find the focus on gaming laptops is on performance before size. You can only squeeze so much power into the ultra-thin chassis. That said, the Nitro 5 isn’t overly heavy or large. At first glance, it is roughly the size and weight of traditional laptops of just a few years ago meaning it is still plenty portable. The top case is a dark grey/light black faux brushed metal panel which looks surprisingly understated compared to other gaming laptops. The logo is a standard Acer logo and the only hint this might be a different laptop is the strip of red on the hinge. Even once open the palm rest is a satin black finish, which attracts fingerprints, with black keys with red letters. The WASD keys and trackpad have a bolder outline of red. The backlight covers all the red accents except strangely the trackpad. The only options are on and off. Without the backlight on you could bring this to work and it would be unlikely anyone would realize it’s a gaming laptop. Overall it is a nice touch for those who want a system that can pull double duty. This double duty continues onto the design of the keys of the keyboard. They are chicklet style keyboard that makes very little sound. This is helpful when you are in a quiet meeting but it does lend to a soft feel compared to Cherry MX or other mechanical switches. It might take some adjustment but if you can get over the feeling, the responsiveness and accuracy is quite good. Spacing is also very good allowing you to quickly find the precise key you want with good separation between keys. This does not carry over to the number pad on the right. The function keys at the top and the number pad keys are both very cramped. If you are playing games that make heavy use of the function keys or arrow keys, you might find a challenge to quickly choose the one you want. If you are one of those rare people who can game with a trackpad you will find yourself both happy and a little frustrated. The trackpad has the precision and responsiveness of a precision touchpad but unfortunately if you try to use that in combination with the WASD keys you will find they are nearly stack one on top of the other. Since most people use a separate mouse for gaming and typically for other uses the touchpad is best in the center this shouldn’t affect most and for other cases it works very well. Palm rejection could use a little refinement but is still very good. Since this is a budget gaming laptop the big question is where is the big sacrifice? If you are looking at this system you already know the performance of the Geforce 1050. Older games are playable with all settings maxed out, but newer titles will likely take some tweaking to make them playable. The other slowdown comes in the form of the 5400 traditional hard drive and only 8GB memory. The good news is that both are upgradable via access panels on the bottom of the chassis. If you really want to risk voiding your warranty, there is also an M.2 slot underneath the bottom panel but unfortunately according to HWInfo64 there are no spare PCIExpress lanes available means an NVME SSD shouldn’t be compatible, but you can still use a SATA based SSD without a problem if you are up to the surgery. The system is compatible with Intel Optane RST but unfortunately since the wrong parts were used you can’t take advantage to speed up the slow hard drive on the cheap. With this slow hard drive you will find that system startup and of course games loads are slow. You will also find that with the 8GB of ram the hard drive gets easily get maxed out causing some frustrating lags. Yes, this can be fixed with upgrades later but be prepared for the occasional lag. Once things are loaded in memory usage is quick in most cases. During testing with 3D bench the surprise was that the gaming bottleneck wasn’t the slow hard drive or limited RAM but it was actually the GeForce 1050. Processor based tests faired decent but during stress testing of the GPU the system was only to pull off 11FPS. This doesn’t mean the processor can’t potentially slow you down. During stress testing, even with fans configure to Max speed and even with CoolBoost enabled the Core i5 was able to get up as high as 197 degrees. According to the specs on the processor, the max temp is 200 degrees, so it came extremely close to thermal throttling even with all cooling settings used. The GPU ran cooler, but oddly the GPU the temps kept dropping off the monitor. The good thing is you want to run the fans at max speed to allow max cooling the sound should not bother you. The fans are most certainly audible but only as an air rushing sound. No bearing whine or other unpleasant sounds could be heard. This is quite impressive since some other high-end systems introduce a high-pitched bearing whine at full speed. Continuing with the fan noise, the speakers are respectably loud on hard surfaces. Since they are downward firing any use on other surfaces will muffle the sound and make them far less useful. Combine that with the fan noise and a good set of gaming headphones are in order. Regardless, gaming headphones are the better way because of the distinct advantage of immersion and sound placement. The build in speakers seem more designed for casual use rather than gaming which is understandable for any portable gaming rig and more so in a budget one. Battery life is always a sore point for gaming systems and the Nitro 5 is somewhere in the middle of the pack on this. Integrated Intel graphics mean that during light usage the GeForce goes to sleep and the system sips power but considering all that is crammed into the system you can get at best 5 to 5 ½ hours of light to moderate use. Gaming on battery power is expectedly much shorter and variable depending on the game. The big question is if the AN515-53-52 is right for you. Gaming laptops push the edge of what can be done, and budget gaming laptops have a harder time since they must decide what to compromise to keep the price down. Although the Nitro 5 most certainly has compromises, it seems Acer did a good job of choose what to compromise to keep the price in check and made an overall good system with some upgrade options. If the Core i5 and GeForce 1050 do not meet your initial requirements, you are best off looking towards the higher end Nitro 5 from the start as those two components are not upgradeable. If you don’t need the most powerful gaming laptop available and just would like some modest upgrades while saving money this one could be for you.

First impressions of this Laptop.. The case is visually nice with brushed plastic lid that seems a little thin, I would have liked it to be more sturdy. They might have done this to cut down on weight, or cost, as it weighs in at 6 pounds. The power adapter plugs in on the right side that is next to two USB ports and a headphone port. The left side has a Kensington lock slot, Ethernet port, USB C, Hdmi, USB 3.0 with power off charging and an SD card reader. Ventilation is plentiful as it exits through the back. (However, When I was running this machine hard the bottom right side was very warm to the touch) The bottom has sufficient rubber no slip pads, a battery rest pin hole, storage access panel, memory compartment, speakers. (I find it odd that the speakers are on the bottom) Opening the lid reveals a very nice black keyboard that is highlighted with red accents and also is backlit (WASD keys are red) the monitor is a full 1080P from edge to edge which is attached to an aluminum housing that is very sturdy. On a side note a lightweight cover/bag with a zipper is included for a little protection when not in use. But I would purchase a nice padded Laptop bag for this unit as the included bag is not meant for overall protection. The internals include a 1 tb 7200K drive, a 2gb GT1050 video card, an 8th gen I5 intel 8300H processor and 8 gb of DDR4 SDram. Battery life is said to be 5.5 hours but may be less if using graphic intense games or programs. Powering up this unit, I found that it is very quiet, and there was no noticeable Drive noise. (Note: After playing COD WW2 for 3-4 minutes than fan noise was considerably loud.) A few clicks for the standard windows set up and you are finished setting it up. I was happy to discover very little bloatware was installed on this laptop. I have seen other laptops chock full of “free software” that took me a while to clean off the system. This one had very few items I did not need or want the offers for. Most were just links anyway. Boot speed from being powered of to log in was on average 1:30. Laptops with ssd drive boot quite a bit faster but this unit you will remember has a 7200K Hard drive. This is a little slow but acceptable. Now on to the nitty Gritty I ran a free program called UserBenchmark and the scores that came back are just at or above average. Listed here are the categories and results: PC status: came back at the 72 percentile of other laptops like this that have run the program (not bad) Processor: 86.6% great for pc use and 3 d games (Awesome) Boot drive: average (that’s due to it being a mechanical drive and not an SSD (I’m ok with this) Graphics: The discreet setup, an integrated 1gb graphic card does most of the average items on the display. Ranked at 7.3% (terrible) but when the graphics card is pushed the GTX 1050 kicks in and does its job well!! (I like this setup) (side note, stats say the gtx 1050 has 2 gb of ram but all the tests I ran came back as showing 4 so I don’t know if this was a misprint or if the tests are adding up both cards.) Drive: After multiple tests it performed very good to performed way above expectations. Memory: The Micron 8 gb of memory performed average (in the middle at 47%). I’m sure a better brand and some additional down the road will really boost this unit. GAMING FPS: The following are FPS for the following games (estimated) set on high and 1080P. Counter Strike: 170 Overwatch: 96.6 GTA 5 :59.1 League of legends: 129 Battlefield 1: 66.9 The Witcher: 51.5 Fallout 4: 51.4 As you can see from my picture I played COD WW2 for quite a bit with low to Medium settings, This unit kept up with the pace and performed flawlessly, I didn’t notice and lag what so ever. The monitor also performed well too, Edge to edge 1080P For the money I would recommend this to friends and family. For me it gets a solid 4 stars. If the case would have been aluminum or more sturdy I would have given it a 5.

Short Version: This Acer Nitro AN515-53 is a good gaming laptop. If you are looking for a laptop to play games, this laptop is more than capable for the games of today. Long Version: I have had gaming computers for the last twenty years, but I’ve never owned a “gaming laptop” before. And there was a good reason for that; gaming laptops were too expensive and clunky to be worth the investment. So, it has been a pleasant surprise that this computer has worked as well as it has. In my time with it, I have played Overwatch, Doom (2016), Tomb Raider (2013), Total War: Warhammer 2, Fortnite, and Endless Legend. All have worked well. The game that struggled the most was Warhammer 2, but even my desktop computer struggles with that one. I also really like the look of this laptop. The keys are lit red, but in my experience, they were never too bright. The screen is great. It’s a bright, crisp 1080p. The machine boots up much quicker than I expected. The keyboard is responsive, and the sound system sounds great when everything is working as designed. However, I did notice some bugs. Nothing to make me take a star off, but the audio drivers need some work. Occasionally I would get weird audio feedback with button presses. I checked on Acer’s site and with Windows Update, but the machine was running the best drivers out of the box. It seems to be related to the Dolby Sound System application, but I’m not entirely sure. Either way, it usually cleared up quickly and seemed more noticeable after the machine had first been turned on. Thankfully there aren’t too many unnecessary programs on this laptop but I didn’t need the annoying Acer App giving me other app recommendations. Nor did I want a Norton Security Suite that was just going to be expiring in 30 days. Both of those were quickly removed, but the other Acer Programs were very useful. Through the Acer Software Suite, you can check on the integrity of the hard drive and battery as well as optimize the hard drive and check for necessary driver updates. Upgrades: The laptop provides easy access to the hard drive storage bay and the RAM storage bay. Currently, there is one 8GB DDR4-2400 PC4-19200 260-Pin SODIMM installed. There is a free bank where you can easily install another. In fact, with 8GB DDR4 sticks running around $89 to $100, that may be my first upgrade. The hard drive can be switched out for a slightly larger model or an SSD, but keep in mind that the hard drive will need to fit inside the included mounting hardware. If the drive is too thick (think a 3 or 4gb 2.5 hard drive), it probably won’t fit. Conclusion: I really enjoyed this laptop. If you are looking for a new gaming laptop, I don’t think you will regret picking one of these up.

The Acer Nitro 5 is an impressive laptop. It has the looks and design of a gaming laptop, with specs that help it hold up that end of the bargain, but in a package that's a lot more useful. Let me explain: Out of the box, you get this two-tone 15.6 inch laptop. My initial thoughts, this looks pretty cool, is going to have a great wide screen and ugg, be heavy. To my surprise, only 2 of those 3 assumptions was true. Yes, the laptop looks good. Yes, it has a great wide screen, but no, it is not heavy at all. At 4.85lbs, it weighs more on paper (and I'll reluctantly concede, in real life) than one of my ultraportable laptops with detachable keyboard, but the material and weight distribution of the Nitro 5 makes it feel like a machine half that weight. The weight distribution certainly makes an impact but they managed to accomplish the looks using what feels like plastic, rather than a magnesium (or some other high tech metal) body while still making the thing look good. Ultimately, this results in a good bottom line which price conscious buyers will appreciate. First up after the windows 10 setup process was launching a few videos to test out the screen and speakers. The screen is great. In fact, I initially ran into the same problem I have when using devices with great screens for the first time - I watch a 1080p HD quality video, then everything else looks muted by result for some time while I get used to the device. Between short videos, TV shows, and a streaming movie, I satisfied myself that the 15.6" screen made for a good viewing experience. Screen resolution, despite having a discrete graphics card, tops out at 1920x1080 so the PPI can't be that high, still, this someone combines for a great viewing experience. The keyboard is full sized, if a bit on the large side due to the spacing of the keys. There was a slight learning curve to typing on this laptop, despite the fact that I use a full size standalone keyboard for daily work. The WASD keys are highlighted, a pretty big giveaway of the laptop's gaming intent which I felt was a pretty nice tough. The keys are LED backlit, though the jury is still out whether or not I fully like the way it was done. The trackpad is pretty nice and responsive. Instead of being centered on the laptop, it is offset to the left, but I didn't experience anything negative as a result. In fact, I pretty much forgot about it until looking at the laptop again while writing this review. Gaming wise, the laptop holds up for some entry to mid level titles. Doom 2016 for example plays pretty well. Graphics are great and was the first time I noticed or heard any fan activity on the laptop - for anything else, it's incredibly quiet. Initial loading of the game was definitely taxing for the CPU, game play was handled pretty well by the GTX 1050. One couldn't manage the highest frame rates on very intense gaming, but I think there's a broad range of FPS, racing, and other games which will run pretty well on the laptop with a great experience. Battery life was another item that took a hit while gaming. I didn't notice any real performance difference on and off battery, but the battery does run down much faster gaming versus watching HD streaming video over the same time period. To watch the video I connected to my home wifi network and I paired a bluetooth mouse to play some games, both of these connections were made quickly without any issues, so peripheral wise, things are great. It has provisions for an ethernet connection for gamers who need absolute low latency connectivity. In short, I'm pretty happy with the Nitro 5. I'll admit, I prejudged the package and ended up with a pleasant surprise. This gets 4 stars from me for the good all around package of looks, weight distribution, performance, and price.

Let's just say I'm not the master race type. I've had Playstation and Xbox consoles through the years, and my gaming "roots" take me back to the days of Atari and Nintendo (the latter, a majority of the time), and while my love for gaming has persisted through the years it's never been a top-5 hobby of mine. Just as much as the next guy, I'll wait for certain titles to hit and will buy them immediately on whichever console is my "current" at the time--Halo, Assassin's Creed, etc., but beyond that, I wouldn't call myself an avid gamer. And maybe because of that primarily, the notion of a budget gaming laptop was appealing to me. But I'm not completely new to the PC gaming space; I recognize that the hardcore master race guys and gals out there are building their own machines with the best specs and saving serious dollars by rolling their own (versus buying something off the shelf called a "gaming" PC), and even more recently with more mini-PC cases being made in a way that makes home-building easy for novice DIY-ers, I've been watching (and waiting) for the right time to build my own. Unfortunately, cryptocurrencies have pushed up PC internal prices in the last several months which has dropped this down a few spots on my "to-do" list. And while building your own gaming PC has been the cheapest way into the game for some time now, there's still a temptation for the more mobile, more social among us to have access to a more compact way of taking gaming with us (man oh man do I miss LAN parties). Enter gaming laptops, which we've seen more and more of as time has gone on. This particular review is on the Acer Nitro 5, which hit the market somewhat officially several months ago but has been upgraded to Intel's 8th Generation Coffee Lake processors. A quick rundown of the specs here: • 1TB 7200RPM Hard Drive • Intel Core i5-8300 Processor • GTX 1050 Dedicated Graphics • 8GB DDR4 RAM • 15.6" FHD IPS display • I/O: 3x USB Type A, 1x USB Type C, Full-size HDMI Out, Ethernet, SD Card Slot, Headphone Jack Being that I'm not an avid gamer, I'm going to leave the benchmarking to the more in-depth reviews you will find all over the internet…what I'm most concerned about, as with any gadget, is the experience…especially in light of the specs above. First and foremost--I had a few concerns about the spinning hard drive, but like it over the 256GB NVMe SSD option because of the storage required for a library of games. I recognize that external hard drives (and especially USB-C ones) exist and can alleviate this quite easily, but there's nothing more convenient than having access to more games without worrying about more attachments. From a performance perspective, aside from slower boot times and possibly slower game load times, the spinning hard drive did the job fine…but, if you wanted to buy an additional SSD and add it to this machine, you could do that pretty easily and with limited impact to your wallet. (Not that you want to buy a machine just to upgrade it, but that still puts you under $850 after upgrade). And while the hard drive is a decision that you don't have to stick with long-term, choosing your graphics card is something that you have to decide up front. The Nitro 5 comes with either the 1050 or the 1050Ti, the latter being the better performer, but I found the 1050 to do an adequate job at processing video without stutter or lag. And, not that Rocket League is the most video-intensive game, it pushed 60FPS consistently without fail every time I played. Just upgrading to the model with the 1050 Ti and keeping the spinning hard drive adds only $30, so if you're looking to squeeze every bit of juice out of this it's almost certainly worth the investment. RAM was another big concern of mine; fortunately, this is easily upgradable to a max of 32GB, but as with the lower-spec graphics card I didn't see any performance lags during gameplay running with only 8GB. And the display was good, not great. On a "budget" gaming machine, I wasn't expecting much here--decent viewing angles and got the job done; a 4K display would have too drastic an impact on price tag and performance, so there's not much here that is a surprise. Stepping away from the specs, the design is one that I found to be pretty attractive and not too overstated. Gaming peripherals and PC cases and monitors and the various other gaming-related gadgets are usually far too gaudy for my liking, but the Nitro 5 does a good job balancing the traditional "red" gaming components with an almost stealthy look for the rest of the device. The keyboard was good, although I don't like the backlighting at all, as the backlights are more visible from the front of the device (with light bleeding out from beneath the keys) than it is on the keycaps themselves. I feel like this is a design flaw--making the keycaps just a bit taller can cover up these lines of light and add to the stealthy profile. The touchpad is fine (although a bit "loose" feeling to me) and uses Windows Precision drivers, although I would imagine most folks would be connecting an external mouse to this during long-term use. Accessibility to the internals is no issue; the SATA drive and RAM are both accessible through their own ports and the back cover comes off pretty easily for those who want to upgrade (or in my case, ADD) an SSD. The device comes in at over 5 pounds, which is not unreasonable for a gaming machine, and is primarily plastic. There are a couple final points to make in this review. First, the master race PC builder isn't going to waste their time reading a review like this, or even considering this purchase. But for someone like me, a not-so-serious gamer that wants to occasionally play some PC games, I think this machine is a really good choice. I think the intense gamers will probably be dissatisfied with something like this unless they're looking specifically for a mobile-friendly rig to complement their already awesome home-built PC. Second, there is a fair amount of competition at this price point. I would fully expect a little bit of a discount for the entry-level, budget-conscious gaming laptop, so keep your eyes out for that. Specs will all be about the same, so it may come down to price or design that makes you pull the trigger. Third, if you're not a gamer but plan to get serious about it, I wouldn't spend the money here. There's a lot of draw to having a gaming laptop, but in most cases, you're going to be playing in one place--and at $700, you can build a pretty great starter machine that will be far more customizable and upgradeable for you in the years to come. But all that considered--I had a lot of fun with this machine. If a budget gaming laptop is on your shopping list, given that the Nitro 5 is available in a few different configurations (swapping out the spinning drive for an SSD or the GTX 1050 for a slightly-more-capable GTX 1050Ti), figure out where you think you'll get the best bang for your buck and go for it. I think the sweet spot is probably the better graphics card with the larger hard drive, but that's entirely subjective. Overall it's a decent machine that will provide some good entertainment for my family. I'm not a huge fan of the materials, but the design is solid and performance at the price point is good enough to get you started in the master race.

The Acer - Nitro 5 is a great entry level gaming laptop based on the specifications and the price. This laptop was on sale for $599 during Best Buy's Door Buster's sale leading up to the holiday. I was very impressed with the performance of this laptop right from unboxing it. The performance was great and the games that I played on it actually ran excellent with the graphic options set on high. I was also intrigued but also glad to see that this laptop was Intel Optane ready. I know in some of the questions that asked about this the response was no it is not compatible but that is incorrect. It says on the box that it is Optane ready and I have installed a 16 GB Intel Optane memory module in my laptop. I have also upgraded the hard drive to a WD Blue 3D NAND 1TB SATA SSD and the memory to 16GB Corsair Vengeance memory. I immediately noticed an increase in the boot time , application load time as well as the overall performance of the laptop. The display and viewing angles are excellent. I was concerned that there would be light bleed around the edges of the screen like the prior Dell gaming laptop that I had prior to getting this Acer but there was no bleed and the colors are vibrant and clear. The sound on this laptop was great as well I have not experienced any distorted or muffled sound at all. I am also impressed with the clarity and how loud the laptop speakers are I actually had to lower the volume on the laptop because of how strong the sound is. The Dolby software works excellent and the laptop sounds excellent through headphones as well. I notice that the fans kick in while gaming or during extensive activities but it is not loud and/or annoying. I also expect the fans to speed up to prevent the laptop from overheating. The included Nitro Sense software also allows you to enable cool boost which increases the maximum speed of the fans and it also allows you to change the fan speed controls to your liking. I am using the original 1TB hard drive as portable storage to hold back up files. Overall I am very impressed with this laptop and the upgrades that I made to the laptop makes it not only a great gaming powerhouse but it is great for everyday use and tasks as well. This was an exceptional value for the price and I would definitely recommend this laptop. I would also recommend using caution when reading through the reviews and answers to questions regarding this laptop as some people who respond have not used the laptop and are basing their answers off of speculation and not facts. I took a chance and purchased one of these to use it myself and to actually see how this laptop performs through actual use. I could not have been happier. This laptop was to replace a 17" Dell Gaming laptop that I had for about a year and a half. So far this Acer is a much better laptop and performs very well.