The Acer Nitro 5 Gaming Laptop Review: Absolutely AMD - Ryzen Plus Polaris
by Brett Howse on February 15, 2019 8:30 AM ESTFinal Words
AMD’s Ryzen launch has transformed the company, and really brought proper competition to the CPU space that we’ve not seen in the x86 world for a long time. But Ryzen was first and foremost a desktop competitor, and even though AMD did eventually release a laptop version, it’s not had the same success as its desktop counterpart. The biggest issue is the idle power draw, which is quite high, rendering it less than ideal in an Ultrabook. However the Acer Nitro 5 is not an Ultrabook, but rather a gaming laptop, where the expectations are different and portability is closer to a desktop replacement than a laptop that needs to run off a battery all day long.
Being coupled with an AMD GPU makes the Acer Nitro 5 even more unique. The laptop world has been dominated by NVIDIA's products, so it’s rare to find laptops with AMD GPUs, and even more rare for them to be paired with an AMD CPU. It’s great to see this as an option again, and as we’ve seen, the laptop is competitive as well.
Although the shell of the Nitro 5 is completely plastic, Acer has done a nice job with the styling, and the faux carbon fibre adds some texture and character to a laptop which would otherwise be just flat black plastic. The laptop is plenty strong as well.
There’s also a great cooling system inside, and it never has to work too hard to keep the thermals in check. The CPU didn’t even reach 70°C, and the GPU was only 71°C after a full hour of gaming, and during that hour the sound level only peaked at about 46 dB(A), which is well under some larger gaming laptops. Acer also offers a CoolBoost setting if you want extra cooling, but from what we observed, there’s little reason to ever turn that on. Even better, at idle and light workloads, the laptop is completely silent, since it’s now got a big gaming cooling system to only deal with a U series Ryzen processor.
In terms of performance, the Nitro 5 does very well, especially when you look at the price. It offers far more performance than any Ultrabook, Ryzen equipped or not, and the RX 560X in terms of pure GPU performance can go toe to toe with the GTX 1050. On the CPU side, the Ryzen 5 2500U can’t quite match the 45-Watt Intel quad-cores, but the performance is still quite good.
Clearly Acer had to cut some items to reach their price point, and the display was one of those areas, but even though it can’t do 100% of the sRGB gamut, and even though it’s likely the least accurate IPS display we have ever tested, at the end of the day it is still a 1920x1080 IPS panel, offering good viewing angles, and a good resolution for a gaming laptop of this performance level. Really the only valid criticism of the display on a device like this is that it doesn’t support 1600x900 or 1366x768, both of which would be valuable resolutions for full-screen gaming. With just 1920x1080 or 1280x720 as available 16:9 options, there’s a big jump there in resolution which might be the difference between unplayable and playable.
Even with the shortcomings, the Acer Nitro 5 is still a great value. The AMD powered model is even more so. At $669.99 as a starting price, it’s well under most Ultrabooks in terms of cost, yet delivers far more performance. And with the 256GB SSD model running just another $30, it’s a much better 15.6-inch laptop than many you see on the market with 1366x768 displays and 500 GB spinning drives. If you are after a gaming laptop and you’re on a budget, definitely check this model out.
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cfenton - Saturday, February 16, 2019 - link
I think it's pretty important if you're used to looking at color accurate screens. Since many popular phones are now finally getting this right, you might notice your monitor looks funky in comparison. I agree that the difference between, say, the Matebook and the Surface Book isn't all that important. Both are so accurate you'd have trouble telling the difference. But this Acer screen isn't even close. Look at the colorchecker chart on a calibrated display and it's crazy how bad anything that contains blue looks.Brett Howse - Saturday, February 16, 2019 - link
It's all about target market. This screen is terrible but I doubt that would play into many people's thoughts when they are after a budget gaming laptop. I'm still glad it's IPS though at least it doesn't get worse off-angle.GreenReaper - Wednesday, February 20, 2019 - link
It's kinda important on a laptop because you can't trivially swap out a screen like you can a drive; while in some cases it's technically possible, in practice it's more like soldered-in RAM. Adding a extra one (while feasible in many use-cases) means you have to lug it around or have it where you want to use the laptop. Plus you usually still pay the power cost for the existing one.For something you look at all the time, quality matters. But for goods sold over the Internet, it's it's an easy cost-cutting area because you can't really see the difference in the way that you can for, say, a CPU - even though this may be deceptive due to a deficient cooling system, etc.
lakedude - Friday, February 15, 2019 - link
I've got the i5 1050ti with SSD version. Paid $650. I keep it docked to a keyboard/mouse/monitor most of the time. Best laptop ever! It is much lighter than previous desktop replacements, sips far less power and is much faster to boot. That is was the cheapest by far helps as well. Of course I'm comparing to my previous laptops but the Nitro 5 is a great value even compared to modern laptops. The screen does not bother me but I'm only looking at it a few times a year while on the road. I suggest checking on out in person to see if you can live with the screen.Also having 1x memory stick makes for an easy upgrade, just pop in another stick.
Annnonymmous - Sunday, February 17, 2019 - link
How's the noise on the version? I considered the 1050Ti version (was more expensive for me) but chose not to get it due to noise complaints. The last thing I want is a leaf blower. The All AMD version is dead silent for all operations except gaming, and then it's a mild hum (very quiet).tkalfaoglu - Saturday, February 16, 2019 - link
i just got this laptop with AMD cpu and GPU. very happy. Linux dual boot took a few attempts to find the correct boot parameters but it now works great. It handles games much more effortlessly than my other amd machines and it stays cool..ads295 - Saturday, February 16, 2019 - link
"Acer ships the Nitro 5 with a 135-Watt AC adapter. However, they don’t dedicate much of the power to battery charging."Can you include some numbers to back this up? Would be interested to know if they limited the charging rate on purpose, it's beneficial for battery life. I own an Acer E5-553-T4PT with an AMD A10 and it ships with a puny 45W charger that charges at 15% an hour if I'm gaming.
(Side note: Acer put in 2x2GB DDR4 modules out of the box in a laptop that costs US$380 approx so I really don't know WTH is going on with this one.)
Brett Howse - Saturday, February 16, 2019 - link
The recharge rate is almost always limited. Going crazy on charge time can overheat the battery. But you can see the Acer needs 2.65 hours to charge and the battery is about 47 Wh, so it's averaging about 17 Watts for charge rate. Obviously this isn't an apples to apples comparison to your Acer E5 since that one doesn't have a GPU that can draw 75 Watts on its own.ads295 - Sunday, February 17, 2019 - link
17-20 watts is my charge rate when I'm not doing anything on it... What was the load on the laptop when it was charging?ASUS goes bonkers on their charge rates, seen this with two laptops... They charge at a percent per minute.
hanselltc - Saturday, February 16, 2019 - link
As expected, not great but cheap. I'll be convinced Ryzen Mobile is legit when AMD manages to get out one single device that can compete toe to toe with a XPS 15, 9570 or 9575, but before then I'll enjoy it on my desktop.