Acer - Nitro 5 17.3" Gaming Laptop - Intel Core i5 - 8GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 - 512GB Solid State Drive - Black

I have an old Acer V5-571 i7 laptop I bought new a while back but wanted something for games so I looked to Acer again. I got this laptop for $150 off the current price on sale and I really can't find a better deal anywhere for the hardware. I checked some benchmarks on the GTX1650 graphics chip and ran the same tests on the Nitro 5 (Upgraded to 32gb and added a 2TB M.2 drive) and was surprised to see that this laptop actually beat the posted benchmarks in almost all the games I tested on Ultra/Extreme settings. (Battlefield V, FarCry 5, Forza Horizon 4, GTA V, Metro Last Light Redux, Red Dead Redemption 2, Star Wars Fallen Order, The Witcher III) I didn't always hit 60fps but every game I tested played great and in some cases, turning down just 1 or 2 options to high from ultra got you to that sweet spot of 60fps and I certainly won't complain about that. Visually there was almost no difference I could see. Now bad parts... when I took the laptop out of the box it did not turn on. Plugged it in, let it sit for an hour or so an still nothing despite the charge light coming on. I happen to be an HP and Dell certified tech so I took the back off and pulled the battery cable, then held the power button for 10-15 seconds, then reconnected the battery and voila! It powered on and booted to the windows setup! Unfortunately that wasn't the end of it. I watched the automated process until it asked me to select a wifi connection, which I tried to do but was unable because most of the keys on the keyboard were not working. Fantastic. Fortunately, during my little adventure with the battery, I had noticed some of the ribbon cables looked a bit crooked. I didn't mess with them though because I was worried I'd have to take it back and didn't want to void my warranty. I couldn't help looking though so I opened it up again and straightened two of the small ribbon cables. At first, the wide ribbon cable for the keyboard looked fine. It was in the connector and taped into place. However when I pushed it with my finger, i saw it was in the socket but was very loose and not really making a connection. I removed the tape and saw that the plastic tabs that hold the ribbon cable in place on each side were not pushed down at all. Someone at the factory inserted the cable and taped it but never locked the tabs that hold it in place. Locked the tabs and powered it back on and double voila! I was able to type now! No real issues since then. Had to try a couple brands of RAM before I found a pair that worked in this thing to get it up to 32gb. Ended up going with some Crucial DDR4 2666 16GB x2. Tried Corsair Vengeance, and GSkill Ripjaws but the unit wouldn't even post with those. Also installed a Sabrent Rocket Q 2TB NVMe hard drive into the 2nd m.2 slot and it was picked up by the BIOS without issue. Speaking of BIOS... Mine came with bios version 1.01. There are currently 9 bios upgrades available on the Acer web site starting with v1.23. Anything above bios v1.25 will cause the backlight on the keyboard to turn off after 30 seconds of non use and it doesn't come back on if you touch the touchpad. You have to press a key. There is a setting in the bios to enable/disable this feature but the backlight will still turn off and Acer says it's a power saving feature. The ONLY way to disable this so the backlight stays on is to use the NitroSense app. Go into settings and turn off the option to turn off the backlight. It was really a pain in the butt figuring this out once I flashed the latest bios and I really need that backlight on. Out of the box this is a really decent laptop. If you got it on sale like I did, you really can't beat the price for the mid level gamer who likes to game on the go. And with a few upgrades, it becomes quite capable. FYI, just those games listed above take up over 600gb of disk space so if you're looking to upgrade, I'd probably start there, then add at least another 8gb of ram to keep things running nice and smooth. Just make note of the above issues if yours doesn't power on or you have keyboard issues. You may be able to save yourself the hassle of returning it. 3 stars for now due to the 'repairs' I had to make myself right out of the box, but I will update my review once I've run it through the ringer a bit more to make sure it's up to par.

Good quality build and very fast. Computer starts up in less then 5 seconds. I ran fortnite in epic at 60 FPS and Ultra in 50-60 FPS range. Old school RuneScape is constant 50 FPS. Will be upgrading the ram from 8 to 16 GB soon not that it’s even needed but only because it costs $45 and is do it yourself easy. Also has great color and sound.

I’ve chosen this computer because I love to play sims 4 and I’m also a teacher and it helps with my school work. It’s sooo fast and powerful!

Runs games and streams smoothly. I’m absolutely in love with this, it’s so beautiful. Love the wine red colour. It’s such a great budget computer with great specs. The only complaint I have is that there’s a little humming but other than that it’s perfect!

This has worked great for me for gaming. I checked on the can you run it site and can 97 of the top 100 games. I like the 17.3 inch screen and the light up keyboard. I would recommend if you are looking to play games at a lower price.

When I got it some keys did not work but i just searched up some youtube videos to fix it other than that the laptop is great and works fine for me for many games

I purchased this laptop from Best Buy. The local Best Buy did not have one, so I had to drive about 40 minutes to another Best Buy. I picked it up using the curbside pickup, and when I got home and went to set it up I noticed the cover for the ethernet cable was loose. I returned to BestBuy and exchanged it for another of the same model. When I got home and open this one up it has the same issue. So now I get to drive back to Best Buy and return it for a second time. I will not be exchanging for another of the same model. I would give zero Stars if I could.

First impressions, nice design and comes loaded with well spec’d hardware at a reasonable price. Lots of venting and powerful adjustable cooling fans. Speakers are set towards the front sides and fire outward, nice. Easily accessible bottom panel for accessing system for upgrading, cool. When I first opened the laptop found a 17.3” screen with small bezels and the nicest keyboard I have every used on any laptop, big Kudos. Keyboard has adjustable light level backlit keys which comes defaulted to turn off the backlighting when idle after 30 seconds and turn back on at the touch of any key to save battery life. Benchmarks for the Nitro's 9th gen i5-9300H comparisons show the i5-9300H to be 12% faster than the 7th Gen i7-7700HQ (the de facto 7th gen mobile gaming CPU) and 18% slower than the 8th gen i7-8750H mobile gaming CPU. Great numbers compared to its bigger brother i7 and i8 mobile processors of the previous two gens, offering exceptional performance per-core value. Based on GPU benchmarking the Nitro 5’s GTX 1650 4GB falls right in the middle between a GTX 1050 Ti and a 1060 6GB. This is a solid choice of GPU for the Nitro 5 bringing the latest tech into play in a strong value gaming laptop. Wi-Fi is rock solid on the Nitro, in fact best results I have had in my house ever, running 780Mbps from one side of the house to the other and 866Mbps halfway across the house. Typically, our (very up to date) laptops will vary in the connection Mbps speed but the Acer maintains the connection speeds with no drops in connection speed, highly impressive! If you are gaming on wi-fi you will love the connection. Good Stuff: - Western Digital PC 512Gb SN520 NVMe SSD, supporting PCIe Gen3 x2 Read 1729MBs Write 1455MBs (tested with CrystalDiskMark) - Two M.2 SSD slots and a dedicated HDD slot - Upgradable to 32Gb memory - Lots of ports including USB-C 3.1 - Wired Ethernet - 17.3” IPS screen with appealing colors – gaming is fantastic NitroSense utility is included which monitors system temps, manages cooling, power plan, and a few other advanced options. Handy utility for gamers. Believe from initial testing battery life on basic usage will last 5-6 hours and would not expect more than a couple hours of hard intense gaming. Keeping in mind gaming laptops are not known for long battery life while powering all the fun technology inside. Full charge from 14% was quick. The Nitro 5 is a solid choice with an excellent implementation of spec’d equipment to bring a very strong product together at a very reasonable price. Delivers brilliantly on the fun factor in the gaming department.