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The Acer Nitro 5 is a series of powerful gaming laptops that promise top-tier performance for an affordable price. Models are available with Intel or AMD processors and various Nvidia RTX graphics cards. Depending on which configuration you buy, you can get an RTX 4050 for under $1,000 — that’s fantastic value. Even lower-priced models can play nearly any popular game at a smooth and stable frame rate, which make them solid options to consider when shopping for the best gaming laptop on a budget.
But even for a gaming laptop, raw graphics power is only one part of the equation. I’ve been using an Acer Nitro 5 as my everyday computer for four weeks now, and although it’s fantastic for gaming, it has a few key design flaws that really frustrate me, including its bulky size and dim screen.
The Acer Nitro 5 is a powerful budget gaming laptop that can play most modern games with ease, but also suffers from a dim screen and cramped trackpad. Models are available in a variety of configurations with different Intel and AMD chips.
The Acer Nitro 5 handles modern games surprisingly well
For its price, the Nitro 5 is a gaming powerhouse. The cheapest model Acer sells costs $750 with an RTX 3060 and an Intel i5 CPU. The Acer store’s most expensive Nitro 5 costs $1,800 with an RTX 3070 and AMD Ryzer 7 CPU, but you can find even beefier models at other retailers.
The specific Nitro 5 I tested is the AN517-42-R85S, which is priced at around $1,000 and represents a good middle ground between the series’ most affordable and high-end options. This build has an RTX 3060 GPU, an AMD Ryzen 7 CPU, and a 17.3-inch display. These aren’t the newest or most powerful components out there, but they’re more than enough to run most popular games without any issue, even at high settings and high-definition (HD) resolutions.
And sure enough, games like PUBG, Fortnite, and Rocket League played at a stable 60 frames per second (FPS) or higher. League of Legends and Valorant ran at about 230 FPS at max settings.
One of my most intensive games, Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, never dipped below 55 FPS at High settings, even while swinging through New York City at top speeds. At Very High settings, it never dropped below 50 FPS. And Microsoft Flight Simulator, a notoriously demanding game, managed to stay above 40 FPS at all times. Not mind-blowing, but a good showing from a laptop this inexpensive.
Not all games fared as well, of course. Elden Ring only managed to hit 60 FPS at Low settings, and even then it was choppy. Overwatch 2 ran fine on its own, but lagged when I had a YouTube video playing alongside it. And Cyberpunk 2077 opened once, crashed, and then refused to run again, even after a fresh install.
The RTX 3060 supports ray tracing — an advanced graphical feature that makes light and shadow look more realistic — but it’s spotty. Ray tracing worked great in Spider-Man Remastered and Halo Infinite, but turning it on in Elden Ring immediately crashed the game.
Despite a few issues with more demanding features and titles, an RTX 30 Series graphics card is going to be enough to run all but the most intensive games for at least the next three or four years. And considering how expensive Nvidia cards have gotten recently, the Acer Nitro 5 is a good way to unlock great graphics on a budget.
Built-in fan controls keep the Nitro 5 cool but loud
The Nitro 5 stays cool to the touch at all times, even while in the middle of a game or multitasking. This is surprising, considering that the preinstalled NitroSense app tells me that the CPU and GPU both regularly hit temperatures upwards of 150 degrees while gaming. But it never felt uncomfortable, even when using it directly on my lap.
I credit this to the Nitro 5’s powerful ventilation systems. It has dedicated fans for the CPU and GPU, and it’s covered in air vents. These can get loud when gaming, but not to a distracting level, especially with headphones on.
NitroSense is a great app. Not only does it tell you exactly how hot your hardware is running, but it also gives you massive control over how fast your fans are spinning, almost down to the exact rotation speed. The Default preset has been more than enough to keep my model cool, but there’s also a Performance mode that cranks the fans up, making the laptop sound like a jet engine.
NitroSense is also where you customize the keyboard’s built-in RGB lighting. There are loads of options here, and it won’t be hard to make your laptop match any RGB setup.
Massive size, short battery life, and a dim screen make the Acer Nitro 5 difficult to travel with
The first thing you’ll notice about the Nitro 5 is its bulk. It’s a massive device, and even looks a bit intimidating when it’s balanced on top of a typical laptop stand. Big hinges lift the screen far away from the RGB keyboard. And on the back, there’s a sort of bumper that juts out behind the screen, containing the big exhaust vents.
My Acer Nitro 5 model weighs in at six pounds, and the 230W charger adds another pound. Call me a weakling, but this is a heavy laptop. Carrying it around in my messenger bag for three weeks (along with my iPad Air, a thin notebook, and a thinner book) put heavy strain on my shoulder. This makes it difficult to recommend for everyday use — I can’t imagine the skeletal cost of commuting with this thing for years.
The Nitro 5’s biggest disappointment, though, is its screen. Maxing out at about 300 nits, brightness performance is only average, and too dim to really showcase high-end games, especially in brightly lit rooms. Even when it’s at peak brightness, I keep trying to raise it, thinking there must be some mistake. Connecting the laptop to a brighter external monitor is a must.
And because you constantly need to keep the laptop at peak brightness, the battery life takes a hit. I usually only got about three hours on a single charge, which isn’t terrible if you’re just hauling it around your office like me, but severely cuts its portability.
Lots of tiny errors, including a bad trackpad, drag the Acer Nitro 5 down
The Nitro 5’s trackpad mouse is pretty bad. It feels weirdly rigid, it has trouble telling left- and right-clicks apart, and the top of the trackpad doesn’t click at all. Trackpads don’t work well with most games in the first place, but this one is especially lackluster.
The placement of the trackpad doesn’t help. It’s big, but it sits almost directly under the WASD keys. This means that using both the trackpad and WASD keys — a requirement for nearly all modern games — is a cramped experience. It’d work much better if the trackpad was just another inch or two to the right.
The Nitro 5 has a lot of USB-A ports, which is great. But it only has one USB-C port, which is disappointing for a modern computer.
I also ran into a number of weird glitches while testing the laptop. At one point, I totally lost the ability to type capital letters. A few times, the laptop acted like I was holding the down arrow key, even when I’d never touched it. Whenever I had Bluetooth headphones connected, YouTube videos, Spotify, and other audio would freeze for a few seconds after pressing play. And as I was making final edits on this article, the USB-C port completely crapped out. For about 24 hours, it wouldn’t recognize anything I plugged into it.
I don’t know if these are chronic issues or exclusive to my laptop, but they were definitely frustrating.
Acer Nitro 5: Specs
Acer manufactures the Nitro 5 in a variety of styles, each with different specifications. There aren’t necessarily laptops available with every combination of these specs, but this table represents the range of options offered.
Bold text signifies the specifications that my review model had.
Should you buy the Acer Nitro 5?
The Acer Nitro 5 is worth buying, but with some caveats.
It’s a great budget gaming computer, but it’s not a great laptop. The best parts of the Acer Nitro 5 are internal components like the CPU, GPU, and fans. But everything that’s actually exclusive to the laptop’s design — the mediocre screen, the cramped trackpad, the bulky body — doesn’t hold up. This makes using it as an everyday laptop a disappointing experience.
The Nitro 5 works best not as a laptop, but as a portable PC tower: Keep it connected to its charger, along with another monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and you’ll have a fantastic multi-purpose computer. Its portability is just a bonus, to be used sparingly, if at all.
Comparing the Nitro 5’s price to actual gaming desktops reveals that a PC tower with the same GPU and CPU will usually cost at least $200 more. This makes the Nitro 5 a fantastic purchase for gamers on a budget.
I’ve had a blast using the Acer Nitro 5 as a makeshift gaming desktop. But if you’re looking for high-end gaming on-the-go, look elsewhere.
