Acer Unveils Nitro 5: 15.6-inch Gaming Laptop with AMD Ryzen Mobile & Radeon RX560
by Anton Shilov on January 10, 2018 12:00 PM ESTLAS VEGAS, NV — Acer this week announced its first modern laptop that uses an AMD processor and an AMD Radeon discrete graphics chip. The Nitro 5 is a multimedia-focused notebook that will be available this April in various configurations targeted at people with different budgets and needs.
AMD’s renaissance in mobile is starting to gain traction. Over the past couple of months, Acer and HP released their mainstream laptops based on AMD's Ryzen Mobile APUs, whereas ASUS set the stakes high with its ROG Strix GL702ZC gaming machine packing desktop-class Ryzen 7 and a discrete Radeon RX580. Acer’s Nitro 5 will sit between mainstream and high-end gaming machines, offering affordability of the former and providing higher performance levels when equipped with a discrete GPU.
The Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-42) comes in black plastic chassis with multiple red accents and a carbon fiber texture on the back to emphasize its gaming nature. The laptop is outfitted with a 15.6” IPS FHD display, which is the most popular resolution among gamers, based on Steam Hardware Survey as of December 2017. Acer does not talk about dimensions or weight, but the laptop looks rather bulky.
Inside, the Nitro 5 features an AMD Ryzen Mobile processor with up to four x86 cores and AMD Vega iGPU (192 – 640 stream processors) as well as a Radeon RX560 discrete GPU with up to 4 GB of GDDR5 (select SKUs only). The APU and GPU will be accompanied by up to 32 GB of DDR4 RAM and a 512 GB SSD, but the manufacturer does not elaborate on exact data transfer rates and models. In fact, when it comes to details, this is what Acer’s press release is a bit short of because the Nitro 5 is three months away and the manufacturer does not announce all the specs just now. It is noteworthy that to enable monitoring and performance tweaking of processor and graphics, Acer will pre-install its NitroSense software.
As for connectivity, everything looks pretty standard on the Nitro 5: a 2×2 802.11ac Wi-Fi + Bluetooth module, one USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C port, one USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A connector, two USB 2.0 headers, a GbE port, an HDMI output and an SD card reader. The audio sub-system of the Acer Nitro 5 is comprised of a TRRS connector, stereo speakers as well as Acer TrueHarmony and Dolby Audio Premium software enhancements.
Acer Nitro 5 Laptops at a Glance | |||
AN515-42 | |||
Display | Diagonal | 15.6" | |
Resolution | 1920×1080 | ||
Type | IPS | ||
CPU | AMD Ryzen Mobile with up to four cores | ||
Graphics | Integrated | AMD Vega | |
Discrete | AMD Radeon RX560 (Polaris) (select SKUs only) | ||
RAM | Capacity | up to 32 GB | |
Type | DDR4 (frequency unknown) | ||
Storage | up to 512 GB SSD | ||
Wi-Fi | 802.11ac Wi-Fi module (unknown vendor) | ||
Bluetooth | 4.x | ||
USB | 1 × USB 3.0 Type-A 2 × USB 2.0 Type-A 1 × USB 3.0 Type-C |
||
Other I/O | HDMI 2.0a, webcam, TRRS connector for audio, speakers, microphone, SD card reader | ||
Price | Starting from $799 in the U.S., €1099 in EMEA |
As reported above, the Acer Nitro 5 will be available in Europe and North America in April. In EMEA, prices of the laptop will start at €1099, whereas in the U.S. the cheapest model will retail for $799. Considering such a huge difference between prices in America and Europe, expect a significant difference in configurations as well.
Related Reading:
- Ryzen Mobile is Launched: AMD APUs for Laptops, with Vega and Updated Zen
- Ryzen Mobile Now On Sale: HP’s ENVY X360
- More Ryzen Mobile: Acer Swift 3 with 2700U and 2500U Listed, From $750
- AMD Makes a Surprise Appearance: Ryzen Mobile with Qualcomm LTE
- ASUS Launches ROG Strix GL702ZC: 17.3-inch, Eight-Core AMD Ryzen 7, Radeon RX580
Source: Acer
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Benman2785 - Tuesday, May 15, 2018 - link
haha1. 4k for a gaming LAPTOP? dumm?
2. i would even prefer 1366x768@144hz 1ms with FreeSync - still nice dpi for 15", enough resolution (for my eyes) and bloody fast
DerFalke - Tuesday, January 29, 2019 - link
Show me one laptop with this price and a 4k resultion. Next thing, show me an Intel laptop where you're able to play games at FullHD and acceptable fps. You can't even fulfill one of these. Buy a fancy 4K resolution without gaming ability and be happy.Chicken76 - Wednesday, January 10, 2018 - link
800 dollars in the US and 1100 Eur in Europe? Does that sound right?kgardas - Wednesday, January 10, 2018 - link
Does not look like, but please consider different warranty conditions? i.e. 2 years in EU IIRC and not so much in US. That also means based on the price difference you can judge product quality -- lower quality, higher price difference. :-)Death666Angel - Wednesday, January 10, 2018 - link
The warranty you are talking about only applies to the retailer, not to the manufacturer. The other warranty is a voluntary offer from the manufacturer and should be the same all over the world. And the legal 2 year warranty is in most cases only a 6 month one, since after that you have to prove that the defect was present when buying the item, which you can't without spending a ton of money. During the first 6 months the retailer has to prove that the defect _wasn't_ present when you bought it, which he usually can't do either.Nagorak - Wednesday, January 10, 2018 - link
Maybe taking into account that US prices are quoted before tax (which we still pay), while European prices are quoted after VAT which tends to be higher . That makes the difference a bit smaller.deksman2 - Thursday, January 11, 2018 - link
Would be interesting to know if this laptop comes with a removable APU which could be replaced with a better one that's faster/more efficient once AMD makes an these APU's on 7nm.Also, is the RX 560 also replaceable (meaning is it MXM, or is it soldered to the motherboard)?
agenthunk - Thursday, May 10, 2018 - link
This is the final stop of the line for mobile gaming laptops,if you don't want desktop.ASUS ROG Strix GL702ZC-WB74
I have the Dell Inspiron 15 5576,my first one...I am happy for now..until,I save up and go ROG.where the bucks stops there.