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The Nitro 5’s 15.6in matte finish IPS display isn’t the greatest. The maximum brightness of 257cd/m² and sRGB gamut volume of 61.4% are both quite poor, and the screen’s average Delta E (colour accuracy) was badly adrift too, at a depressingly high 6.97. One thing to note is that there are a lot more configurations with the AMD model compared to the Intel one, which makes us feel like the AMD one is Acer’s preferred version. Never worry about lagging or drop-outs when gaming on the Nitro 5, thanks to the combination of the latest Wi-Fi 6 support, offering speeds up to 3 times faster than previous generations; plus Killer Ethernet for gigabit speeds and reduced latency. The final test in this section is photo editing. We use an early 2018 release of Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud to apply 10 complex filters and effects to a standard JPEG image, timing each operation and adding up the total. This test is not as CPU-focused as Cinebench or Handbrake, bringing the performance of the storage subsystem, memory, and GPU into play. A good portion of more premium laptops' cost goes toward a thin design, but a chunkier chassis like this is much cheaper. The Acer measures 1.06 by 14.1 by 10.7 inches (HWD) and weighs 5.51 pounds, reasonably mobile as gaming laptops go but heftier than a modern daily driver. It may not be the first machine you'd want to take with you everywhere, but it's acceptably trim for a budget gaming rig.
The screen itself didn't seem as bright as the 300 nits as advertised. It became more evident when playing the demo of wonderfully colorful Sable, where I was consistently trying to make the screen brighter to no avail as I was looking for parts for my cool hoverbike. The color was great, just not as bright as I hoped it would be. Upgradability is one of the Nitro 5's strengths. Behind the bottom panel are two M.2 slots (one occupied by the 1TB solid-state drive) plus a 2.5-inch drive bay; screws for the latter are in the box. As I noted, the memory is also upgradable; both SO-DIMM slots are occupied in my unit by DDR4-3200 modules. (Photo: Molly Flores) That’s about it for direct competition with an RTX 30 series GPU. Over at HP, you’ll find a choice of Omen gaming laptops, but they all come with the previous-generation RTX 2060 GPU (which admittedly still supports ray-traced visuals). Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-45) review: Design and key featuresAll that raw power dramatically takes its toll on the Nitro 5’s unplugged stamina, though, which is further exacerbated by its small 58Whr capacity battery. In our video rundown test, the Nitro lasted for just 6hrs 30mins before running out of juice. The laptop’s sound is a little hyped on the high-end and very echoey, though you could personalize it with the equalizer in the Dolby Audio software. In short, it’s yet another laptop with subpar audio – par for the course, basically (unless you’re Origin). The new Acer Nitro 5 looks like it could really redefine what we expect from a mid-range gaming laptop. If Acer nails the performance and build quality, while keeping the price (relatively) low, then it could be on to a real winner.
These three things we’re lukewarm about. The camera, which offers video recording at 720p 30fps at its highest setting, is grainy. It’s just fine for web chats, but don’t expect much quality imagery produced here.Finally, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 will show you what paying up for a smaller, more powerful system will do, and whether the performance gap is worth hundreds of dollars more. Expect it to lead most if not all of these tests, as it's the most expensive contestant. Productivity Tests There’s no point beating about the bush, since this thing goes like the clappers. Our standard 4K media-processing test returned the second-highest score we’ve ever seen from a laptop, with a total of 323 points.
One final note, however, is that the RTX 3060 Nitro 5 runs a lot cooler and quieter than the previous (GTX 1650Ti) model I tested. Even at max spin, the laptop’s fans aren’t particularly loud. Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-45) review: Verdict Oddly, our review unit was equipped with a 1TB Samsung PCI-E NVMe SSD, although the retail model only comes with 512GB of space. Regardless, the SSD I tested performed well in our sequential read and write test, with speeds of 2,127MB/s and 1,615MB/s respectively. Our final performance tests involve real games. We use the built-in 1080p benchmarks in Far Cry 5 (at its Normal and Ultra image-quality presets) and Rise of the Tomb Raider (at its Medium and Very High presets). Far Cry 5 uses DirectX 11, while we flip the Lara Croft adventure to DirectX 12. 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). Two more tests from GFXBench 5.0, run offscreen to allow for different display resolutions, wring out OpenGL operations.Make no mistake, the Nitro 5 redefines the sort of gaming performance you can expect for less than a thousand pounds. Combine that with the plethora of upgrade options, the surprisingly efficient and quiet cooling system and a pretty good keyboard, and the Nitro 5 is a surefire success. We use two gaming simulations to measure the 3D performance potential of a PC. In UL's 3DMark, we run two tests: Sky Diver (lightweight, capable of running on integrated graphics) and Fire Strike (more demanding, for high-end gaming PCs), both of them DirectX 11-based. Unigine Corp.'s Superposition is the other; it uses a different rendering engine to produce a complex 3D scene. Turning our attention to the Nitro 5’s gaming benchmarks, it became clear that the GTX 3060 is an ample performer, but it’s a long way from the output offered by its bigger brothers, the RTX 3070 and 3080. Indeed, the previous Nitro 5 from earlier this year had a different look, and red featured prominently. Its lid corners and rear vents were a bit more geometric, while this new edition has a squarer, cleaner look. The lid is unadorned and smooth, without the muscle lines of the early 2022 version.
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