Customer Ratings & Reviews

Nice gaming laptop can every game out there today I love it

I love it, cool colors & game is great. Always could have been cheaper

Works well. Not much memory to game with. I had to add a TB and 16 additional RAM.

Bought for my son and he loves it. Plays all his games.

Good gaming laptop for the price. Needed something with more capabilities so I ended up returning it.

it charges fast, i like how it has glow lights. its great value and quality.

The dual fans and cooling system are great for any over heating.

This laptop is great for school, work, and gaming. Love it!

Fast loading and starts faster than I expected. Clear camera and pictures.

I really like it! If you wanna buy a budget gaming laptop. This could be a great laptop for you!

Got it for my grandson to play games. He absolutely loves it!

Great computer for the price! Easy to navigate, great graphics!

Gaming laptops are an odd breed. You really can’t beat desktop performance when it comes to gaming, largely thanks to the fact that they have plenty of room for cooling and airflow and don’t need to worry about keeping weight down. When you try to match the performance of a gaming desktop in a portable form factor, it’s inevitable that there are going to be some compromises made. The Acer Nitro 5 chooses to make its cuts in hardware rather than portability. It is not going to set any records for performance. It’s not going to be wowing your friends with the styling or bombastic RGB effects. And it’s not really designed with extensive upgrades in mind. And it is better for it. In my experience, those who buy gaming laptops (myself included) tend to use them as laptops first, and gaming platforms second. And this is a bit of a problem because by and large most gaming laptops aren’t exceptional laptop laptops. They’re too heavy to carry around with you every day, too big to use in cramped quarters like lecture halls or airline seats, and too power-hungry to rely on battery power out in the field. But in designing the Nitro 5, Acer seems to have set out to build a machine that is first and foremost a portable computer, that just happens to also be a decent gaming machine. So rather than the latest top of the line GPU that could probably suck a battery dry in half an hour, they equipped it with a rather modest GTX 1050 that only turns on when it detects you’re using a program that needs it. Rather than aggressive, angular styling with plenty of protruding accents that tend to get caught on every carrying case you come across they’ve gone for a more understated look with a few chamfered corners and brushed finish. And they’ve kept the RGB effects to a consistent red backlighting for the keyboard. It’s simple, classy, and light enough to be carried with you everywhere you go without concern. As a daily driver it’s a delight to use. The keyboard is nice and responsive (though there is some flex to contend with – more on that later) and even includes a numeric keypad that doesn’t feel overly cramped, a real achievement in this form factor. The battery can generally be trusted to give you at least 4 hours, and if you’re careful you can stretch that to about 8.5. And it’s surprisingly quiet given how fast the twin cooling fans spin at. Even the webcam is nicer than I expected – albeit in a rather basic way. And the 60hz IPS LCD panel is gorgeous, with near perfect color reproduction and viewing angles that are beyond reproach. Of course, if you’re looking at this laptop you’re probably curious to know how it does in gaming. And there I have to say it’s also very good, and certainly enough for the kind of games I’d usually be playing on a laptop. When testing it out I used two games selected mostly because they have benchmarking tools built in: Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. With the settings maxed out in Rise I was able to average 40fps in the benchmarks, and do a little better in actual gameplay. To my mind that’s more than enough. It didn’t handle the newer Shadow of the Tomb Raider quite as well, with multiple slow downs and near constant screen tearing, but the game did run and was very playable once the graphics had been throttled back to something more sensible. But if I’m honest, the games I’m most likely to play on the go are simpler games like Rimworld which are more likely to tax the CPU than the GPU, and the 9th generation CPU (which, despite being clocked at 2.4, can regularly boost itself up to 3.98) is easily up to the task. And for those who are curious, it CAN run at least a first generation VR setup, though it wouldn’t be my first choice by any means. Now that I’ve sung its praises, I have to say that there are a few things I’m less pleased with in the laptop which you might want to consider in deciding if this is the best one for you. The first, and one of the biggest, is the fact that they only included a 256gb SSD for storage. Now, to its credit, it is a NVMe drive from Kingston that can get you a read speed of about 2gbps. But it’s still only 256gb. Given the size of games these days and the fact that Windows can always be counted on to slowly grow over the years, it’s very easy to fill it up. There is a second m.2 slot and room for a conventional 2.5” SATA drive which I plan to use for a larger archive drive at some point in the future. I feel I should also mention the fact that there’s a LOT of bloatware packed into this machine, likely in order to keep the price down. None of it was exceptionally hard to remove but given the limited disk space you’ve got to work with I strongly recommend taking the time to strip it all out to free up a few more gigabytes. Second is the I/O selection. It’s… okay, but not much more than that. You’ve got the basic 3 USB type A plugs and a USB type C – but they’re only using the first generation USB 3.1 spec as opposed to the much faster second generation standard that’s been available for about five years now. It also would have been very nice to see Thunderbolt 3 support so that one could plug in an external GPU at home to get true desktop performance, particularly given that the underlying architecture of the 1050 is now three years old (though I’ll note the three gigabyte mobile version this laptop uses only came out last year.) Finally, the overall build quality does leave a bit to be desired. The frame of the computer has a fair amount of flex in it, to the point where using uneven pressure to close the screen can cause some light warping. I suspect that the void left for a 2.5” drive is one of the contributing factors here, and it’s possible that installing a drive in there to stiffen things up would fix the issue. But this is definitely a laptop you want to protect with a well padded or armored carrying case. And though this wasn’t a huge issue for me they did omit some of the traditional “gaming” features you’d expect from a gaming laptop’s keyboard, such as n-key rollover or programmable macro buttons. Overall, I’m very happy with my Nitro 5 as a daily driver. I’d recommend it to gamers who are also college students, travelling professionals, or freelancers looking for a gaming PC that won’t break the bank or your back. If you really are looking for something that’s more focused on cutting edge gaming performance and less on day-to-day work, this might not be the best fit for you.

Great bang for the buck! Plays games smoothly and looks sweet!

I've had my computer for a short time, so I am still adjusting to it. But I still am learning!!

Love this laptop. Glad I decided to get this one over the others!

Happy so far. Working from home so spending more time using it!

Great for basic gaming apps. Like the 10-key pad. Fun color too!

This machine is great for gaming at a great price. The look is amazing.

I would highly recommend this gaming pc to family and friends!