Acer Nitro 5 Review (2020): Upgraded with Superior Hardware

Apart from investing in office and graphic laptops, Acer has not forgotten to offer the best budget gaming laptop. Recently, Acer has officially launched the Acer Nitro 5 (2020) (AN515-55-53AG) with power outpacing its predecessor. The hardware was a strong accent, but the design also underwent a major change. Let’s not say much, and immediately introduce this Acer Nitro 5 review (2020).

Acer Nitro 5 review

Performance

Obviously this is a laptop for gaming, so our users will be particularly interested in the performance of the machine. But first, the laptop must have impressive specifications and be interesting to users. Realizing that Acer Nitro 5 laptop has not disappointed fans when equipped with hardware parameters that are not inferior to rivals in the price range:

  • CPU: Intel Core i5-10300H
  • RAM: DDR4 8 GB (2 slots)
  • Hard drive: SSD 512 GB M.2 PCIe, support M.2 PCIe SSD slot, support SATA HDD slot
  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 4GB

With the powerful Intel Gen 10 H-Series chip, the Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop promises excellent performance and accessibility. You do not need to wait long because we have downloaded League of Legends and MSI Afterburner to know its gaming performance. With a custom graphics setting, the FPS fluctuates rapidly from 137–156 FPS and brings very high stability.

After that, we set the graphics level to high again and this time, the FPS still reached an appreciable level, 97–121 FPS. In the team fight phase, the FPS dropped to only 86 fps, but then accelerated and remained high.

In addition, Acer Nitro 5 can be turned into a useful tool for graphic work such as engine design in Auto CAD and using Photoshop 3D. Acer wants to deliver a complete product in the gaming laptop 2020 segment to meet the needs of more and more users.

In addition to reviewing through practical experience, of course, we also tested the performance through familiar scoring software. In this article, we will use two software, GeekBench 5 and CineBench.

  • GeekBench 5: Performance scores reach over 35,000 points (35,363 points)
  • CineBench: 1,591 points are the score this software dedicates to the performance of Acer Nitro 5

These are all impressive results and through this, your mind will probably get enough, right? Compared to the previous Acer Nitro 5 Gen 8, this new Acer gaming laptop is a good value for money and this factor makes the product more prominent in the price segment. The CPU was impressive, but even more attractive was the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 4GB graphics card.

Looking at the results above, you can see that this discrete graphics card gives an impressive FPS. Not only that, but this discrete graphics card also brings beautiful images and unforgettable game experience. Acer hasn’t stopped there as it continues to upgrade the laptop’s hard drive. Although the SSD is still 512GB M.2 PCIe, this is the best gaming laptop 2020 version that not only supports the SATA HDD slot but also supports the M.2 PCIe SSD slot.

We used the Crystal DiscMark software to measure the read and write speeds of a 512GB SSD and got the following results:

  • Read speed: 2,172 MB/s
  • Write speed: 757 MB/s

Another point we really liked is the ability to quickly open various software on the Acer Nitro 5. Specifically, we measured computer opening speed, Chrome opening speed, Adobe, Lightroom, and Photoshop’s time to launch two commonly used software, the time to open Office applications: PowerPoint, Word, Excel. We have the statistical results table as follows:

One of the worthwhile upgrades on the Acer Nitro 5 (2020) is the cooling system. Realizing that gaming laptops should work with high productivity and that the machine is prone to overheating, Acer has added up to 4 heat sinks to regulate hardware temperatures and extending its lifespan as well as allow the CPU to work as much as possible.

We used AIDA 64 software to measure CPU temperature on the Acer Nitro 5. During one hour of use, AIDA64 results in a CPU temperature of 69°C and it is the average temperature. However, when we used more than 3 hours, the temperature started to rise rapidly and reached up to 92°C.

When we saw the heat rise, we were really worried and were struggling to find a solution. And then we remembered that Acer Nitro 5 has a Nitro Sense feature which allows you to adjust the speed of the cooling fan inside the laptop. After only 10 minutes, the temperature was now reduced to 51°C, but the intensity of our work is still very high. Noteworthy, it is not noticeable!

Design

As we said above, the exterior design is a major change in this 2020 version. In a previous variant, the laptop had a dorsal surface designed with a mesh dense pattern that helps to hold the arm more firmly. Perhaps, Acer is trying to get a simpler style and closer to the user. Not only that, the center of the back is no longer a pattern, but rather quiet and modern lines. The similarity of this 2020 version with the previous 2019 version is that Acer’s logo is still engraved in the middle of the back.

Dressed in a strong red and black tone, the Acer Nitro 5 2020 still exudes the masculinity and inner quality of a true gaming laptop. We really liked this color scheme of Acer and we do not want to change this red and black color of the Acer Nitro series.

With this price range, the Acer Nitro 5 is still made of complete plastic, but still, it does not affect the beauty of the laptop. If you look a little more carefully, you will see a change in the charging port. Instead of being placed to the right-side like the Nitro 5 2019, the charging port on the Nitro 5 2020 is at the back. And the machine has been expanded to 4 heat slots, with two slots at the back and one heat sink at the left-side and one at the right side.

Regarding connectivity, Acer has never disappointed his fans when fully equipped with ports on the Acer Nitro 5 (2020). In particular, on the left-side, you will see the laptop has a locking port, LAN port, 2 USB ports, and 3.5 mm audio jack. Meanwhile, on the right side, the device has an HDMI port, USB port, and USB-C integrated.

Don’t wonder where the power port is now located, in the design area, we said that the power port is located behind the keyboard. Have you forgotten about it? It’s not just you, even we often forget.

Display

Acer understands that configuration and robust performance alone is not enough as users still need a good screen, as well as smooth performance. Therefore, the company has equipped a 15.6-inch panel with Full HD resolution similar to the previous 2019 version, but still produces images with clear quality and true colors.

With this price range, Nitro 5 only has an integrated IPS LCD panel, but still has many valuable advantages such as wide viewing angle and higher brightness than gamer laptops using conventional TFT panels. And yet, Nitro 5 has a built-in Acer ComfyView technology that provides useful anti-glare support so that it can be easily used outdoors.

Keyboard and Trackpad

The keyboard owns a relatively long key travel and has a num-pad on the right to help you enter data easily. These keys are not very wide, but not too close, if you use it for a week or more, you will gradually get accustomed to using this laptop.

Because of these laptops for gaming, Acer has focused on keys dedicated to moving characters in most games on the market. This is probably why many youngsters today are very fond of this product line of Acer.

Acer Nitro 5 also features a Nitro Sense keyboard shortcut for gamers to quickly open software to customize the parameters and fan level of the heatsink. We often use this feature to adjust the fan speed when playing games, sometimes playing with it and adjusting the key color.

The touchpad is set to the left, so we had no problem using it. So, you can freely drag left and right, zoom in and out, swipe up and down, and click smoothly.

Battery and Audio

When it comes to battery life, we expected the Acer Nitro 5 (2020) to last approximately 3-4 hours. But to know its exact duration, we have to test through practical experience and use additional BatteryMon software to support it. As long as the screen brightness is 80%, sound 100%, WiFi and notifications are continuing on, the battery usage time reaches approximately one and a half hours (ie 1 hour 17 minutes).

For this result, we used this laptop to work with over 20 Chrome tabs, used familiar tools to design and edit photos as Lightroom + Photoshop, and also opened League of Legends. With so many heavy tasks started up and used at the same time, Acer Nitro 5 is sure to be incredibly tired of having to operate at full capacity to provide operational stability.

Although the battery is a bit weak for top gaming laptops like the Acer Nitro 5 2020, it is not a major problem. Because when you play games, you need to plug in the charger, so you should always bring your charger and plugin regularly to make it work as stable as possible.

Speaking of audio, the speaker is located in the lower corner below the laptop. This style is probably not new to readers here and it is designed that helps you to provide better sound.

Final line

So after holding and experiencing the Acer Nitro 5 (2020), we realized that the upgrade brings better usage, such as new appearance, Intel Core i5 Gen 10 H series CPU, powerful NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 4GB graphics card and up to 4 heat sink slots.

Thanks to these worthwhile upgrades, the Acer Nitro 5 (2020) is even more valuable and deserves to be one of the proper choices in the segment. It’s pricing starts from $699.99 for the version with Intel Core i5, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650, and 256GB SSD on BestBuy.com online store.

Do you think the above upgrades are worth it? Leave your comments below and let us know.

About Ankeet Solanki

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