Acer Nitro 5 (2022) Review - Cheap Gaming Laptop

Vemuda Techno - Gaming is still kind of expensive with laptops but today we have Acer’s 2022 version of their Nitro 5 laptop that aspires to deliver a balance of a nice gaming experience, and a price tag that is not too high.

Hey guys I am Andi, and this new version starts at around 78,000 Indian Rupees, which is around 1000 US dollars, so let’s see how good it is.

1. Design

The design of this year’s Nitro 5 isn’t anything  to write home about, because it is quite plain and simple, but that doesn’t have to be a bad  thing.

It does look like a gaming laptop, and they have added some colored stripes to the lid which I have mixed feelings about, but we do have some nice looking vents for the excellent cooling system that we’ll be talking about later.

Source: pcmag.com

The build is kind of average though, and there is some flex in the lid. At almost 2.7 centimetres of thickness, that weighs 2.5 kilograms, this laptop isn’t trying to be thin and light, but I don’t think most gamers are going to really mind that.

2. Display

We have a 15.6 inch IPS display here, that sits on a decently thick bottom chin, and even the base variant starts at a Full HD display that runs at 144Hz, which I think is perfect for a  gaming laptop of this segment.

The display does go over 300 nits, so it will easily get bright enough for most indoor situations, and even though the colors don’t stand out as anything extraordinary, it is a nice IPS panel with good viewing angles, so you are going to enjoy gaming and watching content on this screen.

3. Speakers, Keyboard and Mousepad

The downfiring onboard speakers don’t have a lot of low end, but they do get decently loud, so you can easily watch video content or movies on them.

The keyboard feels great to type on with  its well spaced keys, you can be fast on it, and there is good tactile feedback.

I also like that they didn’t use too aggressive of a font on this, and the chiclet keys with unpainted sides look pretty cool. The WASD keys and the full sized Arrow keys are also highlighted nicely.

The backlight is 4 zone RGB  here, so no per key RGB, but the zones blend with each other nicely, so it looks great.

The mousepad is quite average though, because even though you won’t have any issues with tracking or the clicks, the size of the touchpad isn’t very large, and the plastic surface feels like a plastic surface.

4. Connectivity

We do have good connectivity on this laptop, on the left we have an Ethernet port, a USB port, and a combo audio jack, and on the opposite side, we have another 2 USB A ports. 

At the back you’ll find an HDMI 2.1 port, along with a Thunderbolt 4 port that supports DIsplayport over USB C, and you can also charge this laptop with its Type C port with support of up to 65 watts.

5. Upgradability

Getting inside the laptop can be a bit tricky, but you do get access to both of the RAM slots, and you can also see the 512GB Gen4 SSD here which makes this boot very quick, and you can also upgrade the Wi-Fi card, even though this already comes with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2.

You can also see extra space to  put a 2.5 inch HDD or SSD here, for which you also get the required cable in the box, and this is actually kind of cool because unlike laptops that only support SSD, you can add storage for cheap here, although you can see that it does take  up the space for a bigger battery.

6. Performance

Finally talking about performance, we do have an Intel 12th Generation Core i7 12700H on this variant, which has 14 Cores and 20 Threads, and this is a very powerful and excellent chip.

But it’s full potential is not unleashed on this model, as we got a Score of around 5500 in Cinebench R20 on thisl, while Acer’s Predator Triton 500 SE Scored almost 7000, and that laptop also has the same 12700H CPU.

Now the Predator model is of course much more expensive than this, so it’s not a surprise, and the score of 5500 is actually also pretty good for a laptop, it is higher than the AMD 6900HS chip we tested in the ROG Zephyrus G14.

So you shouldn’t worry too much about it, and the single core performance is almost as good as the Predator model, which is more important for gaming, and even for all kinds of multi tasking, this is going to be great.

The GPU starts at a 3050, and we have an Nvidia RTX 3060 on this model which has access to 140 watts of power, which makes it boost its clock really high.

We also have a MUX switch on this model, which does make a big difference in titles like CS GO, and Gaming performance is pretty good here, as we got 70 to 140 FPS in most Triple A games at high settings, and esport games like Rainbow Six Siege deliver 240 FPS, and even Ray Tracing performance was great with Control on 96 FPS.

Even the base model comes with 16 GB of RAM with a 512GB Gen4 SSD, and combined with its powerful processor and GPU, this is also going to be a really good device to edit videos on.  

There’s also a model with Core i5 and an RTX 3060, which could be a more balanced choice for gamers, and you can of course go with this i7 model which will be better at tasks like video editing.

7. Thermals/Acoustics

Coming to its thermals, if you don’t mind the fans being extremely loud, the laptop is able to push out tons of air, and it maintained a temperature of 79 degrees on the GPU, with the CPU at 73 after a 45 minutes gaming session, so we also saw almost no thermal throttling here, which is great news, and these temperatures are also very good.

However, the laptop does get extremely loud as its fans can go over 7000 RPM, which is crazy, and you can even feel the vibrations of the fans on the chassis, but the auto mode is better, and you can of course keep it quieter in other modes.

So you will have to find the balance of thermal performance and cooling that is suitable for you, but the thermal solution can work very well. The keyboard was also at just 34 degrees during gaming, which is also very cool for a gaming laptop.

8. Battery Life

Now the battery life on the Nitro 5 is also  average for a gaming laptop. I was able to get 4 hours of playback while streaming on Youtube with screen at 50% brightness and 144Hz refresh rate.

You could get slightly more runtime if you keep it at 60Hz, but the 56Wh battery isn’t that big, but again, for a gaming laptop with a 14 core CPU, this is fine.

The 230 Watt charging brick  is going to add another 700 grams if you need to carry this in your backpack.

9. Conclusion

So overall, this Acer Nitro 5 isn’t  going to blow your mind with its looks, but it is a fairly well balanced gaming laptop that does deliver well with its performance, which is the most important factor.

And that will be it for this post, thanks for reading, and I’ll see you, in the next one.

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