Last year, the Nitro 5 was one among the primary notebooks to introduce the then newly announced Turing graphics cards from NVIDIA. Now, it’s the processors that are upgraded, and with Comet Lake-H, the new Nitro 5 (AN515-55) will attempt to assault the budget gaming market. Get details in Acer Nitro 5 Gaming Laptop 10th Gen Intel Core I5-10300H Review.
However, it’s a daunting competitor within the face of the ASUS TUF A15 (FA506) and its crazy fast Ryzen 4000H processors. Thankfully, Acer is planning on AMD-equipped laptops from the Nitro family, as well, but until that happens, we are “stuck” with what Intel has got to offer.
Specs – Acer Nitro 5 Gaming Laptop 10th Gen Intel Core I5-10300H
CPU Intel Core i5-10300H 48
GPU NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 (Laptop) 51
Display
15.6”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), IPS
15.6”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), 144 Hz, IPS
15.6”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), 120 Hz, IPS
HDD/SSD up to 1000GB SSD + up to 2000GB HDD
M.2 Slot 2x 2280 PCIe NVMe 3.0 x4 RAID 0 See photo
RAM up to 32GB
OS Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Pro
Battery 3560 mAh, 4-cell, 57Wh, 4-cell, 53Wh, 4-cell
Dimensions 363.4 x 255 x 23.9 mm (14.31″ x 10.04″ x 0.94″)
Weight 2.30 kg (5.1 lbs)
Body material Plastic / Polycarbonate
What’s within the box?
Besides the mandatory paper manuals, inside the package, we found a 135W power brick and a few stickers. Yep, everybody is boarding this new trend. Interestingly, everybody could apply stickers to their notebook, but once you have some inside the box, it quite takes faraway from the personalization effect, doesn’t it? Nevertheless, they’re free, so how can something free be bad, right?
Acer Nitro 5 Gaming Laptop 10th Gen Intel Core I5-10300H Review
Design and construction
Last year, Nitro 5 was one among the foremost non-obnoxious Nitros to ever hit the market. Well, if you don’t mind the red hints just about everywhere round the body. And now, during a similar fashion, Acer is trying to form it even sleeker than before, with a body of 23.9mm (2mm thinner than its predecessor), while maintaining the two .30 kg weight. Surely, the build is entirely plastic, but honestly, its quality is pretty decent.
In contrast to the philosophy on the last-years device, the Nitro 5 (AN515-55) now doesn’t have a flat lid cover. Instead, you’ll find two distinctive details on either side. Additionally, you’ll open the lid with one hand, and searching at the bezels, we see thin side ones and a rather thick top and bottom ones. Thankfully, the camera remains above the display, which suggests there won’t be any weird nose angles.
Now, once we said that the Nitro 5 follows a non-obnoxious route, we didn’t mean it manages to realize it, altogether. Huge opposition thereto is that the keyboard with its red accents and (again) red backlight. Although we found some RGB-equipped backlights out there, we still think that the solid color one would be the well-liked choice, because of its lower cost handicap.
Keyboard
As of the keyboard, itself, it’s a rather long key travel with clicky feedback, and therefore the keycaps actually feel very stable. As you’ll see, the WASD and therefore the arrow keys are highlighted, and more importantly – equal in size. However, the proximity to the NumberPad would still annoy some people. Here, the touchpad seems good, although the tracking isn’t the simplest out there. However, its big area and cozy clicking mechanism would be enjoyed by non-gamers (effectively, any gamer would be employing a dedicated mouse, regardless of how good the touchpad is).
How about ventilation? Well, this time, we see a special configuration, thanks to the new fan location – more thereon later. this suggests that not only it draws air more efficiently from rock bottom panel, but it dissipates it through four different vents.
Ports
In terms of ports, there’s an RJ-45 connector, two USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) ports and an audio jack on the left, while on the proper , you’ll find an HDMI connector, another USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) port, and a USB Type-C 3.1 (Gen. 2) port. Its power connector, however, is found at the rear .
Disassembly, upgrade options and maintenance
Since there are not any service lids here, you would like to get rid of the whole bottom panel to access the internals. First, remove all 11 Phillips-head screws. Then pry the panel with a plastic tool and lift it away. It’s as easy as that.
And what a surprise, the cooling is just about an equivalent we saw on the Predator Triton 300 (PT315-52). There are three heat pipes and 4 heat spreaders, and therefore the only difference between the 2 laptops is that the Nitro 5 uses two plastic fans, whereas the Triton 300 features a plastic and a metal one. Additionally, there are two cooling plates, located above the video memory and therefore the VRMs.
In terms of memory, this device supports up to 32GB of DDR4 RAM with a maximum frequency of 2933 MHz. However, the storage compartment is more impressive. You get two M.2 slots which will add RAID 0 mode. they’re designated by numbers on the motherboard, stating that no 1 supports PCIe drives only, while number 2 can hold both PCIe and SATA drives. Not within the last place, there’s a 2.5″ SATA drive bay for your gaming libraries.
Here, the battery is slightly downgraded from last year. it’s a capacity of 57.47Wh, compared to 58.75Wh for its predecessor, roughly leading to the whopping 1Wh decrease year on year.
Display quality – Acer Nitro 5 Gaming Laptop 10th Gen Intel Core I5-10300H Review
Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-55) comes with a Full HD IPS panel, model number LG LP156WFC-SPD5 (LGD065А). Its diagonal is 15.6″ (39.62 cm), and therefore the resolution – 1920 х 1080p. Additionally, the screen ratio is 16:9, the pixel density – 142 ppi, their pitch – 0.18 x 0.18 mm. The screen are often considered Retina when viewed from a minimum of 60 cm (from this distance, the typical human eye can’t see the individual pixels).
Viewing angles are good. we provide images at different angles to guage the standard .
The maximum measured brightness is 270 nits (cd/m2) within the middle of the screen and 252 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 10%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 6690K (average) – slightly colder than the 6500K optimum for sRGB.
In the illustration below you’ll see how the display performs from uniformity perspective. The illustration below shows how matters are for operational brightness levels (approximately 140 nits) – during this particular case at 54% Brightness (White level = 139 cd/m2, Black level = 0.13 cd/m2).
Values of dE2000 over 4.0 shouldn’t occur, and this parameter is one among the primary you ought to check if you plan to use the laptop for color-sensitive work (a maximum tolerance of two .0 ). The contrast ratio is sweet – 1070:1.
To make sure we are on an equivalent page, we might wish to offer you a touch introduction to the sRGB color gamut and therefore the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colours by the human eye, supplying you with a far better perception of the colour gamut coverage and therefore the color accuracy.
Inside the black triangle, you’ll see the quality color gamut (sRGB) that’s getting used by many people in HDTV and on the online . As for the Adobe RGB, this is often utilized in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are employed by everyone and this is often the essential a part of the colour quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.
Still, we’ve included other color spaces just like the famous DCI-P3 standard employed by movie studios, also because the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, remains a thing of the longer term and it’s difficult for today’s displays to hide that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colours that naturally occur around us a day .
The yellow line shows Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-55)’s color gamut coverage.
Its display is restricted just to 53% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.
Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.
We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. you’ll inspect the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.
Below you’ll compare the many Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-55) with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).
The next figure shows how well the display is in a position to breed really dark parts of a picture , which is important when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.
The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the proper one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you’ll find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the 2 graphs below you’ll easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but confine mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and therefore the surrounding light conditions.
Response time (Gaming capabilities)
We test the response time of the pixels with the standard “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and the other way around .
We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 25 ms.
Health impact – PWM / Blue Light
PWM (Screen flickering)
Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is a simple thanks to control monitor brightness. once you lower the brightness, the sunshine intensity of the backlight isn’t lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. you’ll read more that in our dedicated article on PWM.
Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-55)’s backlight isn’t PW-modulated at any luminosity . This ensures comfort to the eyes during this aspect.
Blue light emissions
Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colours of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not conversant in the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin, and your whole body. you’ll find more information that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.
Conclusions
Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-55)’s IPS panel features a Full HD resolution, comfortable viewing angles, good contrast ratio, and a non-flickering backlight. Its disadvantages include a narrow color coverage (53% of sRGB), and slow reaction time from the 60Hz panel, making it an unlikely option for gamers.
Acer Nitro 5 Gaming Laptop 10th Gen Intel Core I5-10300H customer Review
Fantastic gaming laptop, I love this machine!
The Acer Nitro 5 is an amazing value. If you are budget minded but want a gaming laptop, this laptop is an excellent option. I’ve read a couple of reviews jabbing the Nvidia GTX 1650 gpu saying it is a very small increase in performance when compared to the previous generation. What many fail to recognize is the decrease in power consumption , making for better mobile performance. The GTX 1650 paired with the intel i5 processor is a very good combination for mobile gaming. I’m averaging 3 to 4 hours of battery life while gaming. I would recommend always plugging the laptop in while gaming so that the computer can run in high performance mode and you’ll get noticeably better frame rates and graphics quality while gaming. Acer has some pretty smart battery / power optimizing software installed in this laptop and it has performed well in my testing. It runs quiet and stays fairly cool, even when playing the latest Resident Evil 2 in full 1080P at 60 fps. This laptop can handle most recent titles at full 1080P 60fps. I tested Resident Evil 2, Battlefield V, Star Wars battlefront 2, Super Mega Baseball 2 and they all run flawlessly at 1080p. I let the nvidia geforce experience app auto optimize the games and then I go in and tweak it to my liking to maintain a steady and stable 60 frames per second.
The 17.3 inch BEZELESS IPS panel is pretty awesome. Colors are vivid, contrast is great and viewing angles are excellent. Games look great on the screen, and its large enough to sit back comfortably on your couch or desk with an xbox controller connected.
The included SSD is lightning fast and windows boots up almost instantly. The machine is up and I’m loaded up in Resident Evil 2 within a minute. Literally! AWESOME! Acer makes it super easy to upgrade your storage and include the screws you need to add a second m.2 ssd and they also provide the cable necessary to mount an additional 2.5 inch HDD or SDD for even more game storage. The laptop has a single 8gb stick of Ram, allowing you to upgrade to 12 or 16gb of ram if you would like. I find that the 8gb of ram is sufficient for most titles I own on Steam.
The laptop has a very good cooling system and design. It runs fairly quiet considering and has not gotten extremely hot on me yet. The on board speakers sound surprisingly good and get loud enough for me. Although I usually prefer to game with a headset on for the immersive experience. But I can honestly say that the speakers are good enough for use on the fly / go.
They keyboard is also very well built, the red back light is very cool touch. They keys are well spaced and have great travel. I have large hands and it is comfortable and very nice to game / type on. The touch pad isn’t very great for mobile gaming, obviously you should always bring a mouse with you for easier and more accurate mouse cursor control! I prefer to plug in a wired Xbox One controller for the games that support it. For those of you that are curious, the laptop does have 3 USB ports, 2 which are USB 3.0 and also a USB C port. it also has a fullsize hdmi port and headphone jack.
I give the Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop a well deserved 5 out of 5 stars!
Pros; Big, vibrant, and bright IPS panel with almost no Bezels. Powerful enough to run many titles at 1080p 60fps Easy to upgrade storage and ram Comfortable / Tactile backlit keyboard Runs quiet and cool
Cons; The huge screen is a little heavy. Take care when adjusting it. I almost had it fall backward on me once.
By Ponskippa at Best Buy
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