Acer Nitro 5 is the new entry in the Nitro series. This is the review of the AMD build. This is a sub 800 USD ( Rs.56k) lap, it gets even cheaper during sales. This is a go to lap at this price point because at this price point u get a MX150 or even worse GPU while this one packs RX560X ( or 1050 if u choose the Intel build) which is far better than MX150. At launch , this model (AN515-42) had some driver issues since Ryzen is still at its young age when compared to Intel’s matured core series line up but those issues were taken care of at the time of this review. This lap comes with  few bloatwares which I deleted immediately like Acer Collections,etc. It even comes with a 30 days trial Norton antivirus which I deleted.

I used this for more than a week  and here is my review:

Display

This is the part of the lap which u stare at the most. It is a 15.6 inch FHD IPS 60Hz Panel, yea it is 60Hz, well it is standard at this price point. It is adequately sharp for a 15 inch screen. It is not the most colour accurate panel out there but it gets job done. For gamers , the colour accuracy doesn’t matter. It is a bit warmer for my taste, but it is ok. This is the same panel used in the higher end models. Brightness is also good and I usually lower a bit to work or game inside the house.

In short , if colour accuracy is your priority then you might have to skip this one.    

Build Quality

The build quality is quite good , it is better than my expectation. It is built entirely of plastic but it is rigid. There is a little bit of flex in the keyboard but you won notice it until you press the keys a harder than usual say you are playing a racing game and still believe that pressing the keys harder will make the car go faster. The back of the lap has a textured finish and an Acer logo . Since it is textured , fingerprints won’t show up but it is not the case on the touchpad and the palm rest.

It is 2.4 Kg and has enough to open without lifting the device itself. It’s dimensions are 
390 mm x 266 mm x 26.75 mm. It has an exhaust a the back.

Long story short, Build quality is good.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard in this laptop is good but for a gaming machine it lacks the ‘clicky’ feel that many gamers want, it is a bit softer than an average gaming keyboard you would find on other Gaming laptops. It is backlit but only has one colour that is Red , you can’t change the colour or the brightness of the light , you can only turn on or off the light. It has  a numpad too.

The touchpad in this laptop is good, it is smooth and it uses Windows Precision drivers.  It is not very clicky but there is a clicky feel to it. There is no separate buttons for left and right buttons as you can see in the above pics. My only complaint is when I use the right click , there is a double click which I have never encountered before in any other device.

In short , it has a good keyboard but you cannot change the brightness or colour of the backlight and a good touchpad but has a double clicky feel when the right click is pressed.

Ports

It has a good selection of ports, pretty good for a 2018 budget gaming laptop. On the right it has a 3.5 mm combined audio jack , 2 USB 2.0, charging port. And on the left you get one USB 3.0 , a USB Type C ,a SD Card Reader, a HDMI Port , a lock and an Ethernet port.

Specification and Performance

It is powered by AMD Ryzen 5 2500U which has a base clock of 2 GHz with a boost clock of 3.6 GHz with Vega 8 integrated graphics which is far better than the integrated graphics of Intel Core Series , almost twice that of Intel’s UHD620 graphics. The GPU of this lap is AMD Radeon RX560X which is a improved version of RX560. 8GB DDR4 RAM and 1 TB 5400 RPM HDD.

The performance of the GPU lies between Nvidia GTX 1050 and 1050Ti. The graphic processing switches between the iGPU and the discrete GPU seamlessly when using it, it uses iGPU as default and changes to discrete GPU under heavy graphical load. 

This is a very good eSports gaming Lap. I have only played only a handful of a games during this week and the results were pretty positive it ran better than I expected. You will get 60+FPS in many games in 1080p with high or medium settings but wont go lower in settings because it has a 60Hz screen. The performance of this device is much superior when compared to devices at this price range.

In order to compare , Antutu benchmark score of this lap is around 440k.

It is quite upgradable  , it has 2 RAM slots and 1 HDD slot in the back which can be easily accessible. There is also a SSD slot when you unscrew all the screws in the back and open it. It supports upto 32 GB of RAM.

Battery is a 45Wh battery which they claim will last around 5 Hrs in real life usage it lasted a bit less than 4 Hrs.

Heating won’t be an issue in this lap , since the hardware isn’t that powerful to superheat it and cooling solution is also good. You can also control the fan speed with an application called ‘Nitro Sense’ and it comes with CoolBoost technology which bumps up the maximum fan speed by a bit. The fans are quiet when idle and even under heavy load. Even if you want to hear the fans for some purpose you have to crank up he fan speed to 5172 RPM in Nitro Sense.

The dual speakers in the lap are good and  it enough to fill a small to medium sized room. There are 2 built-in Microphones too.

For connectivity , it has a Gigabit Ethernet port , Bluetooth 5.0 and WiFi.

The worst part of the laptop like all other laps is it’s camera. It is a 720p camera and i is even bad for a 720p camera. When I used it the first time , I thought I had smudged the camera while opening the lap but no it was not smudged. It is very poor. 

Verdict

Acer Nitro 5 Ryzen 5 Version ( AN-515-42) is a very good budget gaming under 800 USD with very low compromises. It become even more compelling when it’s price drops down a  lot in sales. This is an excellent back to school Laptop to those who needs some gaming too.

PROS:
Good Performance
Great value for money
Decent Battery Life
Good Selection of Ports

Cons:
Not so accurate display
Double click in the right click
Poor Camera