Hardcore gamers are known to invest in pretty pricey gear, though, there’s plenty of gaming hardware that surprisingly offers more for less.
Acer’s latest stab at this end of the PC gaming scene is the Nitro 5, a gaming laptop for the budget minded. It boasts a user controllable dual-fan cooling system, an Nvidia GeForce GTX graphics card, an up-to-date (mid-tier) processor, a decent 1080p screen and a comfortable keyboard – to name a few key features.
At $749 (£899, about AU$1009) to start, however, some sacrifices had to be made. That’s to be expected. But we can’t quite stand for compromises made in areas that matter to gaming, e.g. the trackpad and the RAM. How do these compromises affect this laptop’s overall performance, and are they big enough to matter?
Price and Availability
The Acer Nitro 5 is one of the most affordable gaming laptops in the market today. With its $749 starting price, the same model that we tested, you get its most basic configuration. This exact configuration is available in the UK, though it does cost about £335 more.
This spec is, however, not available in Australia. The most basic configuration available there, according to the Acer website, is the AU$1,999 one that includes the Intel Core i7-8750H processor, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 with 4GB, 16GB of RAM, 1TB HDD and a 128GB SSD.
Several other configurations are on hand for the US market, the most expensive of which is the $1099. For that price, the laptop boasts an Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor, 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD, though its GPU and hard drive are the same.
Generally speaking, the Nitro 5 lines up against similarly priced and configured gaming laptops, like the Dell G3 15 and Lenovo Legion Y530, though user-controlled cooling is a first in this niche with this laptop.
Design
As for look and feel, there’s a lot to be desired with the Acer Nitro 5. That’s not to say it’s plain bad – in fact, there are things we appreciate about it.
We like the subdued gamer look, with its red trimmings on the keyboard, backlight, trackpad and the top rear bar. The display hinges feel sturdy and secure, and the amount of ports on hand is a boon. More importantly, the laptop has a comfortable keyboard, and a user-controllable cooling system (more on those two topics later.)
Having said that, the Acer Nitro 5 design is also nothing to write home about. It’s pretty underwhelming, and the fact that it is a budget laptop means there will be signs of cutbacks – and these are noticeable. The screen lid, for example, is made of cheap plastic. The top cover and the area around the keyboard track fingerprints like crazy, and the screen has almost an inch of bezel around it, all of which make us feel like we’re PC gaming in the early aughts.
Worst of all, though, is the laptop’s trackpad. One could argue that you shouldn’t expect much from a trackpad to satisfy your gaming needs, but we have to say that this model’s trackpad is just ridiculous.
Keyboard
Jumping back a moment, a major win for the Acer Nitro 5 is its keyboard. There’s nothing overtly special about it. Sure, the symbols are in red, the backlight – which, by the way, is only activated when plugged in, so the keys are hard to see in the dark when its not – is red, and the WASD keys are emboldened in red paint.
Overall, this is just your typical, middle-of-the-road keyboard. That said, we find it comfortable as well as quite reliable. It’s fast and responsive, and we haven’t experienced any lags, missed presses or accidental presses. Whether you’re typing or gaming, that’s all that matters.
Trackpad
Now, here’s where we found a major complaint. We agree that gaming laptop trackpads are generally frowned upon in PC gaming, especially for FPS, RPG and action games. But, this laptop’s trackpad is so substandard you won’t even want to use it for regular computer tasks.
The trackpad gives a lot of travel and it’s very stiff, which means that you have to really do some hard pressing for anything to register, resulting in early finger fatigue. Buttons 1 and 2, located in the front left and right sections of the trackpad, respectively, have it worse, resulting in many missed presses. We gave up on it after a day, and switched to a proper mouse.
Display, camera and sound
These three things we’re lukewarm about. The camera, which offers video recording at 720p 30fps at its highest setting, is grainy. It’s just fine for web chats, but don’t expect much quality imagery produced here.
The laptop’s sound is a little hyped on the high-end and very echoey, though you could personalize it with the equalizer in the Dolby Audio software. In short, it’s yet another laptop with subpar audio – par for the course, basically (unless you’re Origin).
Finally, the 1080p display, while still sharp and clear, is a little on the darker side (even at its brightest setting) and is practically the exact opposite of bezel-free. We’ve seen other gaming laptops at this price put a little more focus on the display, which we’d like to see here.
Knowing that it is a budget gaming machine, it’s safe to say that you shouldn’t expect a lot from the Acer Nitro 5. Limitations on its RAM, CPU and GPU mean that newer AAA games – the blockbuster titles in the gaming world – are most likely not going to run smoothly at their highest settings.
This is apparent with our benchmark tests on Total War: Warhammer II and Middle-Earth: Shadow of War. Frame rates are consistently below 30 frames per second (fps) at ultra settings. Especially with Total War, there is obvious stuttering, texture drops and drops in overall quality, which you would need at least 30fps and ideally 60 fps to avoid.
Since we know that something as big as Total War would be a pain to download with this laptop, we’ve more thoroughly tested it with the less demanding Nier: Automata instead. Though it performs well enough at ultra settings, we do experience frame drops that result in some stuttering and not-so-smooth animation. If it’s already struggling with Nier, then what more with a game as demanding as Total War?
To be fair, it performs well with the less-intense Quantum Break, which is a few years older than Nier. At the highest settings, this game runs smoothly with no visible frame rate drops or performance issues.
Budget gamers can get by and still use this gaming laptop to play the truly demanding games, but at lower settings. They’ll undoubtedly get better frame rates with no performance issues, but their gaming experience is definitely not going to be as high-end, as these games are not going to look as good.
Ventilation & cooling
Perhaps one of the best things about the Acer Nitro 5 is its dual-fan ventilation and cooling system, the vents of which are located in the rear part of the laptop. It’s loud, but not as loud as many gaming laptops.
Better yet,it is customizable, to an extent, with Acer’s NitroSense software that you can use to adjust fan speeds for both CPU and GPU. You can also use it to activate CoolBoost, which increases the fans’ max speeds for heavy usage.
Battery life
Surprisingly, the Acer Nitro 5’s battery life is better than you’d expect from a budget gaming laptop. Gaming laptops, in general, are notorious for their bad battery life, and we are not surprised that this guy only had 3 hours and 20 minutes worth of juice when we ran our Guardians of the Galaxy battery test at 50% brightness. Though it is worth mentioning that the more expensive and much-better-performing Asus Strix Scar Edition, which this writer reviewed prior, only reached 2 hours and 15 minutes.
There are, of course, many things to consider here. The Strix Scar Edition had a more demanding CPU and GPU combo, among other things. And the model we tested had a 7th generation Intel Core processor while the Nitro 5 has an 8th generation, which is better at energy consumption because it’s draws less power.
However, this still says something, which is that the Nitro 5 has a solid battery life to support the games you’ll be using it for.
Final verdict
Hardly the gaming laptop of your dreams, the Acer Nitro 5 doesn’t have enough firepower to handle the most demanding big-name games in the market, and because it is a budget laptop, it’s not built as solidly as you’d want. It also has its glaring deficiencies, the biggest of all being the trackpad, which we think is bad enough for everyday tasks let alone gaming.
However, let’s be fair here: in most cases, you get what you pay for. With a less than $800 price tag, you honestly can’t ask for a lot especially when it comes to computer components. An Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 alone can set you back hundreds in cash. The Nitro 5 at least tries, what with its dual-fan cooling system that you can control, a keyboard that is both comfortable and reliable, a high-res display and a battery life that is longer than you’d expect.
If you’re a hardcore gamer with hardcore demands, then look elsewhere. But if you’re on a budget – or just getting into PC gaming – and you’re willing to compromise on a few things, the Nitro 5 is definitely an option worth considering.
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