Acer Nitro 5 (17-inch) Review

Acer's Nitro line of gaming laptops spans a range of sizes and prices. Most of the Nitros we've tested have been relatively affordable, while this new 17.3-inch Nitro 5 is on the high side at $2,099 (the updated 15-inch version starts at $1,599). Fortunately, the system justifies its price with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 GPU, AMD Ryzen 7 processor, and a 360Hz display for a powerful gaming experience. Less fortunately, the build is unremarkable, the chassis has some flex that premium competitors lack, and the screen is a little on the dull side. This Nitro 5 delivers the good value the line is known for, so you shouldn't overlook it, but it lacks the build quality and appeal of high-end rivals that can be similarly configured, such as the Razer Blade 15 and Lenovo Legion 7 Gen 6.

An Unassuming Style

The latest Nitro is not a major departure from previous designs. The styling is simple, entirely black accented only by the white edges of the keycaps. There are a couple of muscle lines on the lid to add a bit of personality, but it's otherwise a wide black slab.

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(Photo: Molly Flores)

How wide, you ask? As you'd expect from a 17-inch gaming rig, the Nitro 5 is no shrinking violet at 0.98 by 15.9 by 11 inches (HWD). It'll take up a fair amount of desk space, so don't count on it for a tight work area or small cafe table if you take it on the road. At 5.95 pounds, it's hardly the most portable PC, so you may not carry it often, but compared to the Alienware x17—which is slimmer but weighs a ponderous 7.05 pounds—the Acer looks ready to roll.

(Photo: Molly Flores)

The construction quality, as I said, is just okay, which may be why the Nitro is relatively lightweight. You'll notice some flex in the keyboard deck with even light pressure, and the same goes for the lid. The all-plastic build doesn't have the premium feel of the all-metal Razer Blade 15 and isn't as sturdy as the x17.

(Photo: Molly Flores)

I have generally more positive things to say about the keyboard. The keys have a nice bounce to them, with plenty of travel but little or no mushy feeling at the bottom of the press. There's a full numeric keypad at right for those taking a break from gaming to fill in a spreadsheet.

The touchpad is less remarkable, a simple and serviceable plastic surface. It's offset to the left, centered under the main area of the keyboard rather than both the keyboard and number pad. There's no real benefit to having more empty space on the right side; if you're using the WASD keys to play, your palm will partially rest on the touchpad. You can of course disable the pad, but it's a small annoyance when there's plenty of room to spare.

(Photo: Molly Flores)

Our Nitro 5 features a 17.3-inch display with full HD (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) resolution and a blisteringly fast 360Hz refresh rate. The screen quality is decent—1080p is sharp enough and colors are well saturated—though it's not especially bright, with our testing confirming its rated 300 nits. The combination is solid for gaming, as we'll see in the test results below, and you can argue that the top-of-the-line Nvidia GPU should be teamed with an even higher resolution.

(Photo: Molly Flores)

Rounding out the build is a moderate selection of ports. The left flank holds two USB 3.1 Type-A ports and an Ethernet jack (with Killer networking), a nice addition for gamers who frequently play competitive online titles. The right side offers another USB-A 3.1 port, a USB-C port, and an HDMI video output.

(Photo: Molly Flores)

Components and Testing

Acer applies the Nitro 5 name to both 15.6- and 17.3-inch versions of this laptop, with model numbers clarifying which unit you're looking at. For $2,099, our test unit is outfitted with some pretty impressive parts including an eight-core, 3.2GHz AMD Ryzen 7 5800H processor, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB solid-state drive, and the GeForce RTX 3080 GPU. The price is a fair deal for these high-end components, and maybe even a bit less than most competitors (though the latter, again, win in build quality).

(Photo: Molly Flores)

A quick word is needed about the graphics adapter. As we've discussed elsewhere, Nvidia's RTX 30 series mobile GPUs can be configured with a wide range of wattages or power output for varying laptop designs and thermal limitations, yielding considerably different performance from the same part number in different notebooks (for instance, an RTX 3070 delivering faster frame rates than an RTX 3080). Your best bet is to keep a close eye on gaming laptops' listed wattages and our real-world test results, which make more of a difference for the end user than the GPU name alone. The GeForce RTX 3080 in this Nitro 5 tops out at 95 watts.

To see how the Acer's components perform together, we matched it against four other gaming laptops—the Lenovo, Alienware, and Razer already mentioned plus the MSI GE76 Raider. You can see their basic specs in the table below.

The Acer is the least expensive machine here, so hanging close in or winning any benchmarks will be an impressive price/performance showing. As always, some system cost (or cost saving) goes toward build quality or features that don't necessarily impact performance, so it's not as simple as assuming the Nitro 5 will be the slowest laptop because it has the lowest price. The Core i9 and Ryzen 9 systems have an edge, but generally speaking, the Acer's RTX 3080 and eight-core CPU should keep it competitive.

Productivity Tests

The main benchmark of UL's PCMark 10 simulates a variety of real-world productivity and content-creation workflows to measure overall performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheeting, web browsing, and videoconferencing. We also run PCMark 10's Full System Drive test to assess the load time and throughput of a laptop's storage.

Three benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Primate Labs' Geekbench 5.4 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).

Our final productivity test is workstation maker Puget Systems‘ PugetBench for Photoshop, which uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe's famous image editor to rate a PC's performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It's an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.

The Nitro 5 never quite led in this suite of tests, but it never lagged far behind. Its storage speed (like the Lenovo's and Alienware's) didn't impress, but most of its scores were near the top or middle of this powerful bunch, proving the Acer to be a thoroughly capable media machine. If you're specifically looking for a gaming rig that you'll also use often for media editing or content creation, you'll probably prefer a Ryzen 9 or Core i9 system with 32GB of memory, but for occasional jobs or hobbyist sessions the Nitro 5 has the processing chops.

Graphics and Gaming Tests

We test Windows PCs' graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark: Night Raid (more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics), and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs).

We also run two tests from the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which stresses both low-level routines like texturing and high-level, game-like image rendering. The 1440p Aztec Ruins and 1080p Car Chase tests, rendered offscreen to accommodate different display resolutions, exercise graphics and compute shaders using the OpenGL programming interface and hardware tessellation respectively. In GFXBench, the more frames per second (fps), the better.

In addition, we run three real-world game tests using the built-in benchmarks of F1 2021, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and Rainbow Six Siege. These represent simulation, open-world action-adventure, and competitive esports shooter games respectively. Valhalla and Siege are run twice (Valhalla at its Medium and Ultra quality presets, Siege at Low and Ultra quality), while we run F1 2021 twice at maximum settings, once with Nvidia's performance-boosting DLSS anti-aliasing turned on.

You can see what several hundred more dollars can do here—the powerhouse systems had a definite edge across these titles. That said, the Nitro 5 held its own, matching or beating the pricier Razer. A beefier system will get you extra frames per second, but won't make a world of difference: In a practical sense, 64fps versus 78fps in Assassin's Creed Valhalla at max settings doesn't mean the slowest system is unplayable, especially considering that the faster one costs $1,200 more and is markedly less portable.

Judged on the merits, the Acer delivered fine performance in the most strenuous games, clearing the desired 60fps hurdle even in demanding titles like Valhalla. Among the other concerns about Nvidia's mobile RTX 30 GPUs is the fact that they represent a steep drop-off compared to their desktop counterparts; for now, you simply aren't going to soar over 100fps in these types of games.

Battery and Display Tests

We test laptops' battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100% until the system quits. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.

We also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its software to measure a laptop screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its brightness in nits (candelas per square meter) at the screen's 50% and peak settings.

The Nitro 5 showed good stamina, lasting nearly seven hours in our battery rundown test. As you can see, that's a couple of hours more than some rivals, and about the best you can expect from a 17-inch gaming laptop. Even most 15-inch gaming rigs don't last drastically longer. The bottom line is, even though the Acer's not the most portable machine, you can take it with you without it dying as soon as you're out of reach of a wall outlet.

As in our subjective eye test earlier, the Nitro's display proved just so-so in our hardware measurements. Its color gamut coverage is average, and its brightness (while fulfilling its promised 300 nits) is subpar. It's not bad enough to be a deal-breaker, but does look duller than some standout displays.

A Fair Value for High-End Gaming

The latest 17.3-inch Acer Nitro 5 has the performance chops you'd want in a high-end laptop, even offering a better deal than most $2,000-plus gaming rigs. That, plus sufficient storage and a fast display panel, are its biggest upsides. Beyond those points, it's a fairly unremarkable system—the design is plain, the build has some flex, and its display quality is a bit below average.

(Photo: Molly Flores)

Also, while it's largely an esthetic and consumer satisfaction issue, the Nitro 5 lacks some of the style, build quality, and premium experience that you might expect from a laptop in its price range. You can bring the abovementioned competitors' prices down with lesser configurations and get a nicer build without sacrificing much power. To be sure, the Acer is a fair deal for what it offers, but we have tested more appealing options in this price tier, with our pick probably going to the Lenovo Legion 7 Gen 6.