Acer Nitro 5 2020 edition gaming laptop review: Damn good for gamers

Acer has been building laptops since ages now and every year they end up surprising us with the latest tech and over the top features, especially in their gaming range. We recently got our hands on the latest from its camp called Acer Nitro 5. This is the 2020 edition of the laptop and here is what we think of the top of the line gaming laptop.

Design and Display

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Out of the box, Acer Nitro 5 2020 looks similar to the previous generation with changes on the lid and the rear. The Acer logo can be seen in the middle part of the lid, which has sharp protruding edges. These give the gaming essence to the laptop when seen from afar. Also, the rear exhaust system has been given red accents around it, which again makes it stand out of the crowd.

The overall mix of hard plastic and metal around the body keeps the weight light yet sturdy (2.3Kg). We would have been happier if thicker plastic was used on the lid as right now it is on the flimsier side. This might have been done to keep the weight on the lower side, but one does not mind a few extra grams for protection.

When you open the Acer Nitro 5 2020 you are greeted with a 15.6-inch FHD 144Hz display with regular bezels and a webcam on top. On the bottom part, you get a fairly large RGB light-driven full QWERTY keyboard with Numpad. The off-centre trackpad is right under the keyboard, which on most counts works well. But since this is a gaming laptop, you would hardly be using it. The keys on the keyboard are large and very decent for gaming. However, we must say we have seen better coming from the brand Acer.

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The display is very good for gaming and we loved our experience with it, while playing games like DOTA 2 or Counter-Strike: GO. Both ran very well at 120 FPS without breaking a sweat. The speakers on the system are down-firing and at 2W each they bring the movie experience to life, but for gaming, our recommendation is to keep the headphones handy. On the sides, users will find three USB 3.2 gen 2 ports, one 3.5mm audio port, Ethernet jack, USB type-c and an HDMI out port. The charging port is located at the back.

Performance

Before we deep dive into how this machine performed overall, let’s quickly tell you about its insides. Available in Intel Core i5 and Core i7 (10th gen) configurations, we reviewed the latter. This one has a clock speed of up to 2.6GHz and is a quad-core CPU. With that, it had 8GB RAM and 128GB of SSD storage along with 1TB HDD space.

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For graphics, the Acer Nitro 5 2020 has NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 graphic card, which is its a mid-end graphic card of the series but does a very good job in playing games like PUBG, COD at high settings. The GPU also has 4GB dedicated RAM on it.

Together this makes up for one of the best gaming experiences. Over that, with WiFi 6 onboard and Killer E2600, Acer Nitro 5 2020 makes sure that you do not face any lag during gameplay. The pings stay stable because of the same, no matter which ISP you are on. We tested it with both Act Fibrenet and Airtel WiFi connections and the laptop did not give us any hard time.

When it comes to cooling, this is an aspect that could have been better. When gaming, the laptop does become hot after prolonged use. But it cools down as quickly when you stop gaming. The twin fans do help a lot in keeping the system cool. Switching over to its battery life, we extracted 4.5 hours of backup when not gaming. But when gaming one would want to keep the charger attached since that will supply the right wattage for the graphic card and CPU, so that you can play games at full potential.

Verdict

All in all, Acer Nitro 5 2020 is one of the best gaming machines launched this year. At Rs 1,05,000 (price on the box) this machine does seem to be on the higher side. However, there are a lot of discounts available on it and you can easily get it for Rs 10,000-15,000 cheaper online.

Pros

Excellent gaming experience

Superb display

Latest configuration

Cons

Lid a little flimsy

Gets a bit hot when gaming

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