The Acer Nitro 5 Review: Renoir And Turing On A Budget
by Brett Howse on October 9, 2020 8:00 AM ESTFinal Words
So how much of a gaming laptop can you get for $669.99 USD? It turns out, you can get quite a bit. Acer’s Nitro 5, with a refreshed look, and upgraded internals, offers a surprisingly competent gaming system for targeting 1920x1080. The combination of the Ryzen 5 4600H with NVIDIA’s Turing-based GTX 1650 can handle most modern games at or near peak settings and still be playable at 1920x1080. On a few of the more demanding games, you may have to sacrifice the graphical fidelity to achieve the best framerate, but considering how little of your wallet you need to sacrifice, that is going to be an easy trade-off for many.
The new Nitro 5 design is a definite improvement over the older model. Gone is the faux carbon fibre, replaced by a cool to the touch metal top and keyboard deck. You will not be fooled into thinking this is a top-tier premium gaming system with the changes, but it does improve the looks and in-hand feel of the Nitro 5.
Acer has long been one of AMD’s strongest partners, and that partnership has reaped some large benefits for Acer in 2020. AMD’s Ryzen 4000 series laptop processors offer a tremendous value, with strong performance from the Zen 2 cores, and without the burden of the high idle power draw of past designs. Despite this device shipping with “only” the Ryzen 5, it is still a six-core, twelve-thread processor, and offers plenty of power for most tasks. Acer does sell this laptop with the Ryzen 7 as well, with an upgraded GPU, but for a significant price jump, so really the Ryzen 5 is a solid value. Some will lament the lack of dual-channel memory in the Nitro 5, but for a lot of consumers, it is going to be a more cost-effective way to upgrade to 16 GB if necessary, since they can simply add one SODIMM, rather than replace two. Since the Nitro 5 ships with a GPU with its own memory, the dual-channel is less important as well, since that really impacts the integrated graphics more than CPU compute.
NVIDIA’s GTX 1650 is a really nice step up as the new entry point on low-cost laptops. In our tests, it was mostly able to maintain the 60 FPS mark in most games, although some tweaking may be required. The real sweet spot for 1080p gaming is the GTX 1660 Ti, but that card is much larger, more power hungry, and far more expensive, so for the cost difference, the 1650 really held its own.
There is really not a lot missing on this system, despite the low entry price. It offers the current best Wi-Fi option, with the Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 NIC. There is USB Type-C, although no Thunderbolt support. There is Gigabit Ethernet, if you would prefer to run a wired connection, and there is enough USB to keep most people happy.
If there was a sore spot on the Nitro 5, it would be the less than stellar display. Although a 1920x1080 IPS panel, Acer has cost-cut the backlighting significantly, so the display does not reach even close to the sRGB color gamut. This was a concern on previous models of the Nitro 5 as well, but it has not been addressed. The higher-tier models of this laptop do offer a 144 Hz display, compared to the 60 Hz in the base model, and it is possible it is an overall better display, but it is also possible it offers the same poor backlighting and just a higher refresh rate, so don’t count on that fixing anything.
The chassis is nice, but clearly inexpensive, since it is plastic. The display is mediocre at best. But, if you are looking for a gaming laptop and are on a serious budget, the Nitro 5 delivers where it matters. It offers good performance, ships with just enough RAM and storage, and offers the upgradability that is lacking in almost all thin and light notebooks. At $669.99 USD, the Acer Nitro 5 is definitely a great value.
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Crazyeyeskillah - Sunday, October 11, 2020 - link
The keys themselves are reasonably, with good resistance and travel.Editors: We can do better than this anandtech, really been trying to be loyal despite the drop in quality.
Calista - Monday, October 12, 2020 - link
Obviously built to a budget, but for the money few complains can be raised. $700 give us a decent gaming laptop with no fatal flaws. Sure, the screen could have been better. But a lot of people just don't care all that much when it comes to PQ, and even a bad IPS screen tend to be a good enough.AMDSuperFan - Monday, October 12, 2020 - link
I am not sure if I am still banned.AMDSuperFan - Monday, October 12, 2020 - link
I was banned for the big AMD announcements. But since I am back for now, I ask that people do not ask that I be banned for opinions and dialogue. You will note that I never curse or harass others. I simply provide noteworthy opinions on the articles, from my personal perspective of a Super Fan of the AMD company. Why would my personal opinions generate such angst from the community while others say curse words upon one another and engage in angry discourse?I am not angry. I am happy and go lucky. Allow me to be!
All that said, I am super excited about this new budget offering from AMD. AMD may not be the fastest but it is good for those of us on a tight budget. Let the rich fat cats buy the Intel products that are faster with better features. AMD fans like me enjoy a bargain and will give up quality in every aspect of a product for a good deal that is almost as good at some things!
lefty2 - Tuesday, October 13, 2020 - link
mentions no noise at idle, but says nothing about noise at low load. nor does he mention noise levels when coolboost is turned offJohnstron1980 - Friday, December 4, 2020 - link
I agree with the other commenters! I was SOO close to buying the Nitro 5 2020 with a Ryzen 4800H but then... the screen is so poor. WHYYY?? It seems like a trend to put crappy panels on great Ryzen machines to save the manufacturer a buck. But it does not make sense. I would gladly pay a bit more for a better screen, but the next step up in screen quality on the market is MUCH more expensive. Surely it does not cost the manufacturer that much more to go to the next step up in screen quality?Rec2020 - Monday, July 19, 2021 - link
I got into photography a few months after getting this laptop. I edit photos on it, but something made it feel flat, and other devices always made my photos look more saturated. Despite calibrating the screen with the built in utility + using a few other on-screen gradient charts etc and having fairly accurate looking hues the saturation has always been an issue. Did some digging just to find this thing only has a 61% of sRGB gamut? Jesus! sRGB is the smallest gamut even used for ANYTHING. It's THOROUGHLY outdated, even the old analog NTSC color space from 1953 is larger than sRGB (which came out in 1993 I think). How do you manage to manufacture something in the 2020s that could be outdone by a 1950s high end CRT TV? Absolutely pathetic.Rec2020 - Monday, July 19, 2021 - link
Oh, and by the way this laptop's screen also has uneven lighting at the top from the backlights. They point outwards in a ^ shape from the top center. Not sure if it's a widespread issue, but I've seen an in store display for a slightly more recent version of this with that too. Not an issue unless darker content is displayed on screen but worth mentioning.Altuzza - Monday, August 23, 2021 - link
Even those with a stable income source and are regularly paid salaries can face an emergency when they need cash quickly. I recently used https://oncredit.vn . It literally saved me. There was no money at all. The popularity of payday loans is at its peak today. I don't see anything wrong with that.Maurice Hawkins - Wednesday, February 16, 2022 - link
It's awesome, I'm looking forward to it. I will go to https://apkcima.com/ to download the game and test it on this laptop