A Mid-Range Gaming Machine?
While they may have been lagging behind their competitors in the past, Acer has been making strides in recent years to be able to catch up in hopes of getting the lion’s share when it comes to their sales number. While its Predator gaming sub-brand may be hogging most of the spotlight, they have other laptops that are worth a look as well. One of those notebooks is their Nitro 5 lineup, which has all the brawns of its brethren with a few concessions to keep costs at a minimum. We’ve been using this notebook on the regular for a couple of months now so it’s time to see if this mid-range gaming laptop is worth considering.
Acer Nitro 5 AN515-51 Specs
- Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor
- 8GB of DDR4 RAM
- 15.6-inch Full HD IPS display with Acer ComfyView
- 126GB SSD + 1TH HDD
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti with 4GB VRAM
- 4-cell 48Wh battery
- Windows 10 Home Edition
Looks are on the Down-Low
In terms of looks, the Nitro 5 is unquestionably on the conservative side when compared to any Predator series notebook. The lid has a plain brushed aluminum finish that simply bears that brand’s name with a light touch of red at its hinge to break up the monotony of its color palette and even that is a little muted. No bright red accents or flashy logos here and we quite like that about the Nitro 5.
The build quality is excellent as well. It’s been our daily driver for most of our trips out of the country and it’s withstood the trips with no signs of wear. There’s very little flex to its display, just enough to give it a little give to absorb a bit of impact and the bottom, while made of plastic, it quite solid as well.
One thing we liked about the Nitro 5 is that it was lighter than our usual laptop. I usually have to lug around a ton of stuff in my backpack but the heaviest thing still happens to be the notebook I bring with me so it was nice to have something a little lighter to ease the back of this #titolennial.
So-So Display; Audio Meant for Sharing
The display for the Acer Nitro 5 is 15.6 -inch Full HD IPS panel equipped with Acer ComfyView. It’s got 280 nits of brightness and a decent amount of color accuracy for typical use in the office or at home but professionals need to be a little wary if you really need everything to be on point. It’s got great viewing angles if you and your buds need to huddle around the notebook as you brainstorm for a presentation or watching a few shows on Netflix.
The speakers on the Nitro 5 are located on the bottom of the unit and, on their own, they give out a decent amount of volume. It gets a bit of a boost from Dolby Audio Premium to make things sound a little better with little to no distortion when sharing but we wouldn’t recommend having it blare out at maximum volume to keep the speakers intact.
Thumbs Up for the Keyboard and Trackpad
The keyboard of the Nitro 5 is pretty darn good. It has a excellent travel and we’ve busted out quite a number of articles since we’ve gotten this bad boy for review. A little gamer aesthetic shines through with backlit keys in red but it’s not RGB so it’s still not quite as loud and flashy.
The trackpad is also very accurate and has been great when I’ve had to be without a mouse.
Great for Day-to-Day
Acer is set to upgrade the Nitro 5 with the latest 8th generation Intel processors but the unit we’ve had with us is running on an i7-7700HQ processor with 8GB of DDR4 RAM, 128GB of SSD storage, plus a 1TB HDD, and an NVIDIA GTX 1050Ti with 4GB of VRAM. Generally, we’ve had no complaints about its performance. I’ve been using it mainly for editing our YouTube videos and, while my workflow might be lighter compared to the work I’ve seen done by people who do SDE’s, it handled the 4K clips quite smoothly with our typical 4-minute review rendered in a little less than 10 minutes.
Here’s a look at a couple of synthetic benchmarks.
Wall Hugging Needed
Powering the Asus Nitro 5 is a 4-cell 48Wh battery and just like laptops with some sort of gaming pedigree, don’t expect it to have much lasting power when under heavy load. It lasts a little over four hours when we’ve had to go without a power outlet when covering events but should last at least twice as long if you’re just going to be watching movies. If you’re out for the whole day then bringing the power brick with you is an absolute must as you may find yourself with a dead notebook for your presentation in the middle of the day.
Decent 1080p Gaming… In Short Spurts
In terms of gaming, you can get a fair bit done with the Nitro 5 but don’t expect to play all the latest triple-A titles on the highest settings.
Grand Theft Auto V may be a little past its prime but a lot of people still use the open world game to test out laptops and the Nitro 5 managed an average of 57 frames per second using the in-game benchmark, though there were times where we would notice more frame rate drops in actual gameplay.
PlayerUknown’s Battleground is still a very popular title that received a ton of optimization in recent patches. At very high settings at 1080p, it got an average of 52 frames per second during the few matches I played. It was pretty smooth throughout with a few tiny hiccups here and there.
Moving on to some of the recent big name titles. This is where you’ll have to dial things back a lot.
Playing Middle-Earth: Shadow of War at 1080p on Medium got as an average of 56 frames per second, which sounds good but you’ve got a minimum frame rate of 4 fps. You’ll want to drop it down a little lower to make sure you maintain smoother frame rates during your gaming session.
Benchmarks on Far Cry 5 at 1080p using the Lowest Settings gave us an average of 59 frames per second but, again, we noticed that frames would come to a noticeable halt when playing the game.
The main culprit here is the cooling of the device that doesn’t seem to be able to keep up with the temps built up in the chassis during prolonged sessions. If you’re going to play a few matches of Overwatch during a short break or maybe a mission or two on GTA V and you’ll be golden but don’t expect it to run smoothly if you want to go for prolonged periods of play.
The fans will definitely let you know when it’s time to kinda take a break from playing. Yes, testing was done in an air-conditioned room or when we were freezing our butts off in Barcelona.
Verdict: A Good Choice If You Game Sporadically
The Acer Nitro 5 is a pretty competent machine and has been a dependable companion for taking work and a bit of gaming on the go. If you find yourself needing a short break from the grind to game as a respite then this notebook could possibly be a good fit for you. If you’re looking for a gaming machine to take to your friends’ house for prolonged sessions, then you might want to consider saving up a little bit for Acer’s notebooks in the Predator line.
The Acer Nitro 5 AN515-51 is priced at Php 59,999.
Check out the Avengers: Infinity War Themed Notebooks by clicking on the links below:
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