Customer Ratings & Reviews

I’m pretty sure we got a used one. It was over half full (space used up) when I turned it on. The warranty was also a strange date, a year a few months and 17 days until the warranty expired. Because the warranty was so strange is why we think it was used. Having less than half the storage available was also another indicator.

This review is for the Acer Nitro 5 Gaming Laptop. My variant has the Intel Core i5 processor with 8GB of RAM, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650, a 1TB mechanical hard drive, and a 128GB solid state drive. With that hardware configuration this laptop is quite capable of multitasking movies, music, internet, and intensive gaming, but the best part is that it won't break the bank. I believe this is the best compromise between performance, and price for a gaming laptop today. The outer casing of the laptop is made of plastic, but the build quality, fit, and finish are all excellent. The best part for me is that it is not a fingerprint magnet. Neither is the screen with its nice matte finished 1080p IPS screen. The design cues suggest that it is a gaming laptop, but it is not gaudy. I find the design very elegant, and classy. The keyboard is backlit in red which matches the accent color present elsewhere throughout the laptop. Key travel is excellent, and very comfortable to type on. The internal solid state drive contains the Windows OS, and I also install the rest of my programs there. The computer boots fast, and programs are snappy. All of my other media, and games are stored on the 1tb mechanical drive. There is also a spare M.2 slot if you want to add another SSD. My variant comes with 8GB of DDR4 RAM. There is one 8GB chip installed, and a total of 2 slots so you can expand up to 32GB. Even though I am very impressed with the performance of this computer this will be my first upgrade. Why? Why not. It is a cheap, easy, and effective upgrade through the panel on the bottom of the laptop which allows you to access the battery, RAM and M.2 slot. I tried a variety of Steam games on this laptop from first person shooters to RPGs, and lighter indie programs. I have come away from every one of these experiences thoroughly impressed. Are there better gaming laptops out there? Sure. But like I said before I do believe this is the absolute best compromise between price, and performance. If you are in the market for a gaming laptop, but don't want to break the bank you should be looking at the Acer Nitro 5. I highly recommend it, and I strongly believe you won't be disappointed.

The Acer Nitro 5 is a pretty impressive gaming laptop, that won't break your bank. First off, the laptop itself looks really nice. The case feels good to the touch and looks like its made of good quality. The keyboard has black keys that are outlined in red, this actually looks really cool. The key is backlit, with a red led light, so it compliments the black and red keys. The screen is a matte finish, and is a full 1080p. The colors and brightness are very impressive! Acer really came through with the led screen on this one, as it looks gorgeous. The touchpad is located slightly off center - at the bottom of the laptop, and is a multi-touch touchpad. The laptop itself is really lightweight, especially for it being a gaming laptop, this makes it very easy to carry around. So far the laptop looks and feels good, but what about the performance..The Acer Nitro 5 is a decent performing laptop. It has no trouble running most of the newest games, even at high setting, which I am very impressed. The model that I have, is the i5 with a GTX 1650 card, as well as the 128ssd + 1tb hdd. It comes packed with 8gb of ddr4 ram, which isn't a whole lot for a gaming machine, but it does the trick. With the ssd, the boot up time for this laptop is instantaneous. I couldn't believe how fast this laptop boots, it literally is less than 2 seconds! The first thing I downloaded was Steam, so that I can play some games that I already own. I was surprised that some of my older games had pretty bad screen tearing, while the newer games worked flawlessly on ultra settings. Maybe the older games are just due for an update...As far as everything goes, the only issue that I have experienced with the laptop, is sometimes the touchpad can be glitchy and non responsive. I even went into the settings to change the sensitivity and nothing seemed to help. It's not a deal breaker, as it seldomly happens. But it does happen every once and awhile. Overall, I am very impressed with the Acer Nitro 5. It's a great gaming laptop, with everything you need to play todays most demanding games. It has a great look and feel, as well as it's packed with tons of power. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who wants a gaming laptop that doesn't want to break the bank.

Great while it works. But this device, as well as the other acer Nitro models, is well known for its costly motherboard issues. I would avoid. I'm glad I purchased the geek squad protection. Otherwise I'd be out over 700 dollars.

Plenty of memory space in this beast. LOVE the 1TB Hard Drive. I do not have to worry about storage now. The screen is fantastic. Just the right size while not being too large for a laptop. This fits nicely in my backpack for carrying around and is surprisingly not too heavy. It is lighter than it looks. I love the lighted keyboard. The keys are very responsive and easy to type on. It boots up quickly and easily runs multiple programs and internet tabs at one time. Set up was a breeze... it walks you though all the steps. The price point is very competitive. I was surprised how much memory and speed I was getting for this cost compared to other more expensive laptops with similar specs.

This laptop is amazing. Very powerful. Nice graphics. Great battery life, lightweight, and quiet. This has been amazing to use, from gaming to browsing the internet I have not been disappointed. The graphics while gaming is the best feature of this laptop, the colors are true not over bright. The picture quality doesn’t lag. VERY FAST going through different modes. Once I am done gaming I can browse the internet and get the same performance. I am very pleased with this laptop.

Absolutely horrible product. Will NOT ever purchase anything by Acer. Customer service is just as bad. Bad experience for us. Stuck with a comp that doesn't work. Hopefully, someone else would have more luck with a Acer product. I only comment on our experience with Acer.

Great gaming laptop for the cost. The gtx 1670 it came with and the fact that I was able to put 32gb of RAM into it definitely add to this. Recommend as a portable gaming laptop, only downside was the storage space feels a bit small for the capability of the system.

Had the computer for a month. Two weeks in it started squealing. Took it back to get fixed. Brought it back home and it still does the same thing. Not happy with product or Best Buy.

First of all this is only a 5-star review because I'm considering the value nature of the "Nitro 5" series when writing this review. I know there are MUCH more powerful and featured gaming PCs and laptops out there with more bells and whistles. The Acer Nitro 5 is VASTLY improved from the previous year's model - A device I wouldn't touch for its limited specs, washed-out screen, and HUGE bezels which lead to a large footprint even for a 15.6" device. Now I know gaming laptops are all huge and some of the gaudy-ness is part of the appeal to some gamers, but its 2019 and I expect capabilities without needing to be the size of PCs 10-15 years ago. The 2019 Nitro 5 is a revolution in gaming laptop chassis on the value end... Sure the "Razer" guys have really shrunken into Ultrabook territory, but at these prices, for polycarbonate chassis, this thing is really compact and delivers many of the options of the "big guys"... Lets start with the screen: 15.6" IPS panel with very little light leak (still has some) - But the troubling thing is that the Nitro 5 product material mentions 144Hz panels in the 2019 models. These models are clearly 60Hz panels - I guess the Best Buy or NA models don't get the high-framerate LCDs... The contrast and color is good for this segment, and functions adequately. Design/Build Quality: The Nitro 5 is a value-series gaming laptop. Plastic chassis and some cheaper-feeling components aside, the fit-and-finish for these materials is very good. The screen assembly is easily warped and manipulated, but again, flimsy plastic bends… This also seems to be a pretty weak display hinge, as the screen doesn’t always stay put with ANY jostling of the machine on the table or moving from table-to-table. All of this does mean that the laptop is very light for a large 15” gaming rig. The industrial design is much more understated than its predecessor, and while it is definitely a gaming laptop, thanks to the RED illuminated keys and design cues, its probably more understated than much of its competition. The functional design is excellent. The keyboard is a pleasure to type on, and control games with. Highlighted WASD keys and arrow keys are easy to find, and key travel is good. Also the touchpad is bigger now and much more responsive than before. A big improvement from earlier models. The internal design is the real achievement here. Dual-channel memory banks and the ability to support DDR4-2666 RAM in dual channel will make game performance great, but bear in mind that the device only comes with 8GB RAM in single-SODIMM/Single-channel mode, so you’ll want to add another stick of DDR4 to match to get full potential here. This is a 9th-Gen Core i5 quad-core main chip, paired with the new nVidia GeForce 1650 GTX GPU with its own 4GB of GDDR5 memory. Plenty of performance foundation for every Play Anywhere game I threw at it, including Everspace and Gears of War 4 Ultimate, both at 1080p on EPIC settings. (Though full disclosure. I did upgrade my rig to 16GB RAM before reviewing...) Framerate averages: Gears of War 4: 52 FPS Recore: 55FPS Everspace: 52FPS As far as storage capabilities, this rig really shines, out of the box you have a speedy 128GB 4-lane NVMe drive in one of the DUAL M.2 2280 slots to house the OS and any apps that won’t move, and a pretty nice PMR 5400 spinning drive in a full 2.5 SATA3 bay for mass storage of games and modern Windows apps. Getting apps to install to the secondary drive by default is a config switch in the storage settings, so make sure you do that before setting this thing up. Stock performance from these drives was good, but 1TB total game storage is limiting these days, so it’s awesome to know you can max this thing out pretty affordably with 2X M.2 drives, and a larger 2.5 drive... I went as far as 2x 1TB M.2 SSDs, and a 2TB hard drive (hybrid drive) and I had no trouble setting up the SSDs as RAID0 and assigning the HDD as default app storage. So for a few hundred extra bucks, his thing can be upgraded to full-on beast rig! 2.5Ge Ethernet, HDMI 2.0 and plenty of USB ports round off a great connectivity solution! Definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a light, semi-compact traveling gaming setup... Would recommend to anyone but the most hardcore LAN party nerds who carry around desktops. Very upgradeable, all the key ports for parties, and TONS of horsepower for casual or regular gaming.

I have only had this laptop for 7 months and the screen is now working improperly. I have a previous generation Acer Nitro 5 that has worked extremely well which is why I bought this newer version only to be disappointed!

Spent a lot of money on this computer in a broken under 2 years, spent another $250 sending it back for repair over three times still not fixed

For a budget gaming laptop, it has good power, specs and well rounded specs. Acer CoolBoost and the massive fans and exhaust ports does a great job, just remember do not sit on your lap (it has a warning also). The fan cooling customization is very helpful. Beautiful display combines an excellent refresh rates with an FHD screen outfitted with an IPS panel. Many, many ports are available. No SD Card Slot For a gaming laptop it has a long battery life

I've owned this computer for a year and it's already malfunctioning. At least once a week it's blue screening. I barely use it for anything other than school work and casual browsing.

I've had decent luck with other Acer laptops in the past. They seem to balance performance for most use cases with a reasonable hit to the wallet. I was looking for a decent enough gaming laptop that could let em enjoy most of my games, but at a price that wouldn't break the bank. I was really interested in the Acer Nitro 5 and was even happier to see the price tag wasn't too high. Sadly, there were several drawbacks that caused me some frustration. There's a lot of people complaining about the build quality of the case being all plastic. That didn't bother me too much, but it is worth noting that other Acer laptops I've had before were cheaper and were metal. I guess Acer spent the money on the inside of the machine. One of my biggest pet peeves with screens is when there's light bleeding around the edges. For a laptop to be marketed as a gaming laptop, I would assume some pretty decent controls in this regard. Sadly, my Nitro 5 had light bleeding all around the edge of the screen. Playing a darker game made it seem like the gamma was up too high. The build I opted for included a 128GB SSD and a 1TB hard drive for storage. I found Windows 10 to be really snappy, as expected, running off the SSD. However, when I went to do anything that touched the hard drive, I noticed a lag in data read/write. Another thing I hate with most laptops is the amount of bloatware I have to remove to make it as vanilla as possible. I usually always have to remove Norton and Candy Crush - sorry, but I don't hit up sketchy sites and I didn't spend the money to play something my kid's want to play. From a connectivity point, the Nitro came nicely equipped with HDMI, USB-C (Not Thunderbolt 3), USB-3 and regular USB. Bluetooth and AC WiFI were also there. I primarily use my device over WiFI, so I can't speak to the speed of the ethernet port. Because this is a budget friendly build, the graphics were limited to Full HD 1080p at 144Hz. The GeForce card in mine wasn't powerful enough to push 4K gaming. Not that I would've expected it - but just something to be aware of. The keys are backlit which is a nice touch - however, there's only one option - red. The keyboard does have a nice quality of touch to it and I didn't notice anything terribly off in the responsiveness. The sound quality of the speakers was just OK - if you want better sound reproduction, then make sure you use your headset. All in all, I wasn't disappointed enough to say I wouldn't recommend it. If you're looking for a reasonably spec'ed laptop to do most day-to-day work and then some light gaming, this might be perfect for you. If you're a hardcore gamer, then you'll probably want to save up the money for something a little beefier.

I'll start with the positives. The Acer looks look and has great battery life. The NVDIA GTX card screams. I could not discern a frame drop or any lag. The hard drive offers plenty of storage for the machines size. That being said. The display is only 1080p while most competitors offer 4k. Also there is no touch input ( which my laptop 3 years ago offered it). There is no SD card slot!!! All the other ports are good but NO SD? Lastly while the hybrid drive is snappy on start up, this is billed as a gaming laptop. Acer put a great card in it then choked it into a bottle neck by not making the hard drive all solid state. This laptop may be good for a very new beginner but there are much better options out there.

I love this gaming laptop. It's very fast and plays anything I throw at it with ease. I have played games from now and games from the past and they all play at 60fps with high to ultra settings. The sound is pretty good for a laptop but not anything special. The design is very slick and I love the led lit keyboard. Definitely a great laptop.

computer randomly stopped working. opened it up and the motherboad screws were loose (caused it to short and kill the mobo)

Had this computer for a few years now and i still dont have any issues! I am still able to run any game i choose too with a minimum of 60fps on newer titles on medium+ settings which is why I haven't upgraded yet. I highly recommend this for people who just want something that's affordable.

PRO -Affordable price : It's practically the same price as a well-equipped Dell laptop, except the dell likely wouldn't have the tiered storage or discrete GPU. -Good total performance for the price : The dGPU gives extra gaming performance that you can use, but you're not paying extra for a top-end CPU that you likely won't need. A 4C/8T i5 is more than enough performance for moderate gaming. -Good battery life : The Nitro 5 maximizes battery life by only engaging the 1650 dGPU when it's needed ( during games and the like ). The rest of the time it's idle/disabled so it won't draw extra power or generate heat. -SSD and HDD storage : The SSD is great for fast boot times and speedy OS updates, the HDD gives ample storage for other things. -Wired Ethernet port : A lot of laptops are ditching this, but it's something I use all the time and I'm glad Acer kept it. -Good connectivity : HDMI, thee USB-A ports and on USB-C port. -Includes 10-key : Not a lot of 15" laptops offer this, and it's something I use a lot. -Backlit keyboard -Thin display bezel -Reasonable size : Has some extra weight from the extra hardware packed inside, but still reasonably thin and portable. The power brick isn't monstrously large either. -Good cooling design: A lot of laptops, in their quest to be as thin as possible, put all their fan cooling vents on the bottom of the chassis. While this works ok when on a hard, flat surface like a table or desk ( provided the laptop feet give it enough clearance ), the vents can get easily blocked when holding it on your lap. Acer wisely placed vents on the sides and back so it's not as much an issue. CON -It's not a high-performance system : This isn't really a knock against it, but temper your expectations about how well it will game. A 1650 is a mid-range GPU at best. It'll play Fortnite and Overwatch great and handle Fallout or Battlefield at moderate detail levels. But don't expect it to run Witcher 3 or Wolfenstein at maximum detail. -SSD is only 128 GB : Would have been really nice for a 256 GB drive. Considering this is branded a gaming laptop, you only only fit Windows and one or two games for fast loading on the SSD. Otherwise you have to run them off the much slower HDD. -Windows is not optimally configured for two-drive use out of the box : By default, Windows 10 uses the OS install drive for the user's documents, downloads, music, videos, and file storage as well as Windows Store apps. When using a SSD and HDD together, particularly a smaller 128 GB SSD, this wastes precious SSD space on files that don't need the extra SSD read/write speed. It's relatively easy to relocate these default folders, as well as the paging and swap files, to the more spacious HDD and I'm surprised Acer didn't include a script as part of the initial user creation / OOBE step to do this. -Odd keyboard layout : Or at least different enough from the usual Dell layout I'm used to. I'm used to the delete key as the top right key over backspace; here it's the second from the right. The cursor keys are also one key to the right of what I'm used to. Acer also adds a quick key for their Nitro Sense software suite where the Num-Lock key normally is. This shifts the actual Num-Lock one key to the right and also displaces the math operator keys and is quite unnecessary. and messes up anyone who can touch-type on a tenkey for data entry or calculator work. Speaking of a calculator, I'd much prefer a calculator launch key than Nitro Sense. -No SD slot : May not be a big deal to a lot of people, but it's something I've used a few times on my other laptops and has come in use. -No 144 Hz display : The Nitro 5 page on Acer's site says it has a 144 Hz display*, of course the asterisk denotes it's only on certain models. This particular model is limited to 60 Hz only, which is fine for this price point, though squeezing in a 144 Hz monitor would have been great. -Bottom firing speakers : Like typical bottom cooling vents, these work well on hard, flat surfaces, but not so well on your lap or couch. These would be better on the front edge, the bottom monitor bezel, or above the keyboard. OVERALL There's always more you can do for a computer system to improve performance, make nicer, or more powerful. But that usually means a much higher cost in electrical draw, heat generated, and especially money. In terms of laptops, the first two are the biggest hazard because it means needing a bigger ( and heavier ) battery and power supply as well as a bigger chassis to hold the more powerful ( and louder ) cooling system. The Nitro 5 adds a little performance kick with a modest 1650 dGPU, giving it a big advantage over more basic Dell and Lenovo units while only marginally increasing the cost. It won't game as well as the more premium MSI or Razer laptops, but it also costs nearly half of those models and is more portable. My only real gripe is the relatively small SSD ( it really should be 256 GB ). This particular configuration of the Nitro 5 is a case study in smart compromises to make a full-featured $800 laptop.