Best Acer Nitro 5 Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals & Sales 2020:

With the Nitro 5, Acer offers a gaming laptop with the correct configuration and sold at a reasonable price. Is it enough to play serenely? This is what we wanted to determine by passing it through our labs.

Presentation

If the Predator series represents the ultimate of Acer in gaming laptops, the brand offers other series for gamers. Indeed, the Taiwanese manufacturer also sells more modest gaming PCs through its Nitro line, including the Nitro 5 AN515-54. If it deserves its “gaming” designation thanks to its Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics card , it does not have the Predator chassis or their latest innovations.

These sacrifices allow the computer to be sold cheaper than its counterparts (less than € 1,000 for this model), intended for those who are looking for a PC to play without (too much) breaking the bank. Note that all variants of Nitro 5 do not necessarily come with a copy of Windows 10. Our test version was for example simply delivered with a Linux system installed by default. Those wishing to use Windows will need to obtain a license and install the system and the drivers on their own. Something not necessarily complicated, given that Acer makes all the pilots available on its official website.

Is the Acer Nitro 5 a consistent choice for a gaming PC? This is what we determine below – Acer Nitro 5 Black Friday

Best Acer Nitro 5 Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals & Sales 2020

1. Acer Nitro 5 Gaming Laptop, Intel Core i5-7300HQ, GeForce GTX 1050 Ti. 15.6″ Full HD, 8GB DDR4, 256GB SSD, AN515-51-55WL

2. Acer Nitro 5 AN515-54-51M5-15.6″ – i5-9300H – NVIDIA GTX 1650-8GB – 1TB HDD+128GB SSD

3. Newest ACER Nitro 5 15.6″ FHD IPS Premium Gaming Laptop, AMD Ryzen 5 Quad-Core 2500U, 8GB RAM. 1152 GB Hybrid Drive, Backlit Keyboard, AMD Radeon RX 560X 4GB. Windows 10 + Woov Laptop Sleeve Bundle

4. ACER Nitro 5 15.6″ FHD IPS Gaming Laptop | Intel Quad-Core i5-9300H Upto 4.1GHz | 8GB RAM. 512GB SSD | GTX 1050 3GB GDDR5 | Backlit Keyboard | Included: Sleeve | Windows 10

5. Acer Nitro 5 AN515 Laptop: Core i5-8300H, 15.6inch Full HD IPS Display. 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD, NVidia GTX 1050 4GB Graphics

Screen

The Acer Nitro 5 has a matte IPS panel with a size of 15.6 inches and a definition of 1,920 x 1,080 px. Acer did not bet on thin edges, but the screen / front ratio remains entirely acceptable, since it was measured by us at 76%. If the vertical edges are thin, those at the bottom and top of the slab are thicker. Finally, note that the panel has a refresh rate of 60 Hz on our model, but that some versions of Nitro 5 offer 144 Hz refresh.

Acer has chosen a very average quality panel on this PC. It certainly has strong points, such as a correct contrast for a PC screen measured at 1,330: 1 or a very fair temperature of 6,890 K. The latter approaches 6,500 K of the video standard and when a blank page is displayed, the panel does not draw towards red or blue. But that does not save the rest. Respect for colors is unfortunately not there, with an average delta E measured at 6.7. The colors displayed are thus far from the actual colors, light greens being fluorescent on the panel, for example.

With a reflectance of 25%, the matt slab is not too subject to reflections. However, with its brightness of only 262 cd / m², it will be impossible to use the Nitro 5 outside in good weather. But it’s the afterglow that disappoints the most. From 24 ms, it is high, especially for a PC dedicated to the game. During sudden movements on the screen, whether during a film or a game of Call of Duty , unpleasant blurred streaks will spoil the experience.

Performances

The Acer Nitro 5 AN515-54 tested has an Intel Core i5-9300H processor (4 cores, 8 threads) etched in 14 nm and with maximum frequency at 4.1 GHz. This processor is accompanied here by 8 GB of RAM (2,666 MHz in dual channel) and an SSD in M.2 format of 256 GB. As we saw above, it is very easy to expand the storage on this PC. 256 GB can be a bit tight for storing several games, videos or even photos galore.

No surprise when it comes to the performance of the Core i5-9300H, a chip that manufacturers are now used to integrating into their products – and which they therefore master. During our tests, the Nitro 5 reached the index of 75 on our scale of values. It shouldn’t be ashamed of models with a Core i7, even if it is logically less powerful. The good management of the heating of the components, if it is done at the expense of the noise nuisance, allows to reach a high frequency in full work. For example, we found an average of 3.2 GHz during a video encoding session on Handbrake, which is high. All software operations, even the most demanding, will therefore be operable and fast on this Nitro 5.

Games

Equipped with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics card with 6 GB of memory, the Nitro 5 has no problem running smoothly large games in 1080p, and it easily proved this in our tests. For example, in a game that draws on both the CPU and the GPU like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. We measured 45 fps. Other less greedy games have exceeded the sacrosanct cap of 60 fps while having the graphics pushed to the maximum.

If we compare the Acer Nitro 5 to the Asus ROG Strix G531 spent in our labs and also equipped with a GTX 1660 Ti, our test of the day is slightly above. This is explained by the frequency of the GPU, which reached the average of 1.8 GHz (against 1.7 GHz for the Asus). A difference that allows you to take a few images per second. Our tests were carried out with the “balanced” profile of the Nitro Sense software. With the “high performance” mode, the GPU gains 100 MHz, which slightly increases performance. For example, Assassin’s Creed Odysseygains 5 frames per second, which is not negligible. The Nitro 5 will therefore be more than enough to fully enjoy the games of the moment. It will however be necessary to make a cross on the technology of raytracing, the RTX cards being more suitable.

Audio

As usual on the brand’s PCs, MaxxAudio software is preinstalled (or downloads automatically during a Windows installation) on the Acer Nitro 5. We strongly recommend leaving it activated with the default settings. It allows you to save furniture by adding beneficial low mids. However, this addition has unfortunate consequences, such as the appearance of a box effect that shakes the chassis and an audible dynamic compression. Note also that the location of the speakers, at the front under the chassis, is not ideal.

CONCLUSION

The Nitro 5 is a good gaming PC, Acer having taken care of its copy with regard to the performance part. However, it does not avoid some pitfalls. Its screen, for example, deserved to be more neat, as well as its autonomy. But here we have a PC that holds the road and that will satisfy those who wish to play without breaking the bank and are ready for that to make some concessions.

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