Acer Nitro 5 (AMD) — Full Review and Benchmarks
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Laptop Mag Verdict
The Acer Nitro 5 (AMD) features a comfortable keyboard, but its slow performance and so-so speakers make it hard to recommend.
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The AMD version of the Acer Nitro 5 is a super-cheap gaming laptop at just $670, but it is severely underpowered compared with its Intel counterpart. Even if you ignore its subpar performance, this Nitro 5’s battery life is a little short, and the speakers leave a lot to be desired. Sure, it has a comfortable keyboard and a bunch of ports, but that’s not enough for us to fully recommend the AMD Nitro 5.
Price and Configuration Options
I tested the base model of the Nitro 5, which runs for $670 and comes outfitted with an AMD Ryzen 5 2500U processor, an AMD Radeon RX 560X GPU with 4GB of VRAM, 8GB of RAM and a 1TB 7,200-rpm HDD. For $699, you can get the same configuration with a 256GB SSD instead of a HDD.
There’s an 8th Gen Intel configuration that starts at $949 and is packed with a Core i7-8750H CPU, a GTX 1050 Ti GPU, 8GB of RAM and a 1TB HDD.
Meanwhile, the new Nitro 5 caps out at $879 and comes with a Core i5-9300H processor, a GTX 1650 GPU, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD.
Design
The Nitro 5 sports a sleek faux-aluminum finish over its curved, car-like plastic hood, which is accompanied by a black, glossy Acer logo as well as a red-accented hinge with an engraved Nitro logo. However, the lid flexed like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his body-building days when I put pressure on it.
Meanwhile, the interior of the Nitro 5 screams «budget gaming.
» Picture this: red keyboard font combined with red backlighting, a red-accented touchpad and a red hinge. Of course, the budget gaming design isn’t without incredibly thick bezels.
The Nitro 5’s lid flexed like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his body-building days when I put pressure on it.
At 5.2 pounds and 15.4 x 10.5 x 1.1 inches, the Nitro 5 is the same size as its Intel counterpart, but just slightly heavier, as the Intel Nitro 5 weighs 5.1 pounds. The Nitro 5 is also much larger than the Dell G3 15 (5.2 pounds, 15 x 10.2 x 0.9 inches) and the Asus TUF Gaming FX504 (5.1 pounds, 15.1 x 10.3 x 1 inches).
Ports
There’s a good amount of ports on the Nitro 5.
On the left, there’s a Kensington lock slot, an RJ45 Ethernet port, one USB Type-C port, an HDMI 2.0 port, one USB 3.0 port and an SD card slot, while the right side features the power jack, two USB 2.0 ports and a headphone jack.
Display
The Nitro 5’s 15.
6-inch, 1920 x 1080 display is relatively bright, but it could be more colorful, even for a budget gaming laptop.
I took a contract in Hitman 2, and when I landed on a beach in the dead of night, I was able to see the entire the sandy landscape, including the mountains behind the house of the person I was hired to gank. And as I crawled my way through beachgrass toward the house, I could spot each strand of the ammophila plant growing out of the sand. However, the grass and the lights coming from the house didn’t exactly bleed with color.
In the trailer for Doctor Sleep, the neon theater sign glowed a particular red that couldn’t really pop. Despite that, the screen was bright enough to capture most of the dark street outside the theater, including the license plate of a lone car. I could also spot the sharp strands of hair on Ewan McGregor’s head.
The Nitro 5’s 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080 display is relatively bright, but it could be more colorful.
According to our colorimeter, the Nitro 5’s panel covered 61% of the sRGB color gamut, which falls under the 69% budget gaming laptop average as well as the Intel Nitro 5’s 70%.
To be fair, the G3 15 and TUF Gaming FX504 produced only 61% and 66%, respectively.
MORE: Laptops with the Best Display Brightness
At 261 nits of brightness, the Nitro’s display surpassed the 247-nit category average, as well as the Intel Nitro 5 (257 nits), the G3 15 (231 nits) and the TUF Gaming FX504 (220 nits).
Keyboard and Touchpad
The Nitro 5’s keyboard doesn’t boast the most attractive design, with its red-on-red color palette. And while the keys don’t deliver the satisfying click of more premium gaming laptops, the keyboard was pretty comfortable to type on.
I nailed 75 words per minute on the 10fastfingers.com typing test, which is slightly faster than my usual 70 wpm average. The keys traveled at 1.5 millimeters and required 70 grams of force to actuate, well within our preferred range on both accounts.
The 4.1 x 3.1-inch touchpad is a decent enough size and offers a soft surface, but the entire touchpad looks like it’s sinking into the frame when I click on it.
Despite that, Windows 10 gestures like three-finger tabbing and two-finger scrolling work as intended.
Audio
While the Nitro 5’s bottom-firing speakers carried NF’s «Let You Down» through a small office, it could’ve been louder. The vocals sounded decent, but it was just sharp enough to be irritating when I listened closely. Most of the percussion sounded muddy, apart from the heavier beats, and the bass was subpar overall.
In the opening cutscene for Hitman 2, the waves featured in the background of the exposition were distorted and uncomfortable to listen to. Even when it transitioned to gameplay, I ran as far away from the ocean I could to get from it. Agent 47’s conversation with his handler was soft but articulate. The gunshots, however, sounded hollow and unsatisfying.
MORE: The Best Headsets for Immersive Gaming
You can customize the audio via the Dolby Audio app, which features presettings like Dynamic, Movie, Music, Game and Voice.
It also has a full equalizer that you can adjust yourself.
Gaming, Graphics and VR
Acer armed the Nitro 5 with an AMD Radeon RX 560X GPU with 4GB of VRAM, which don’t deliver a great gaming experience. I ran around in Hitman 2 attempting to locate my target in their super-expensive beach house, but the game ran at a choppy 38 frames per second on Medium settings at 1080p.
On our budget Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmark (Medium, 1080p), the Nitro 5 averaged 39 fps, which is just shy of the 46-fps budget gaming laptop average. The TUF Gaming FX504’s GTX 1050 GPU didn’t make the average either, but it still beat the Nitro 5 with 42 fps. Meanwhile, the GTX 1050 Ti GPU in the Intel Nitro 5 (51 fps) and G3 15 (50 fps) performed significantly better.
The Nitro 5 also scored worse than the rest on the Hitman benchmark (Ultra, 1080p), hitting 34 fps and dropping short of the 41-fps category average as well as the performance from the Intel Nitro 5 (42 fps) and G3 15 (41 fps).
MORE: The Best PC Games to Play Right Now
The 17 fps from the Nitro 5 basically made Grand Theft Auto V unplayable at Very High, 1080p. It scored nearly half of the budget gaming laptop average (32 fps), and couldn’t make it to the playable frame rates that the Intel Nitro 5 (31 fps) and the G3 15 (33 fps) displayed.
On the SteamVR Performance Test, the Nitro 5 was deemed Not Ready, scoring a 3 out of 11. While the Intel Nitro 5 (3.4) and G3 15 (3.5) couldn’t make the 3.6 category average, either, they were closer than the Nitro.
Performance
Packed with an AMD Ryzen 5 2500U and 8GB of RAM, the Nitro 5 slowed down after opening 20 Google Chrome tabs and one 1080p YouTube video while Hitman 2 ran in the background. If a gaming laptop can’t manage that, then it’s not much of a gaming laptop.
On the Geekbench 4.1 overall performance benchmark, the Nitro 5 scored 8,774, which is nearly half the budget gaming laptop average (14,507).
Sporting an Intel Core i5-8300H, Intel Nitro 5 (14,987) and the G3 15 (14,976) climbed over the average, while the TUF Gaming FX504 (12,716) trailed slightly.
MORE: Best Graphics Performance
The Nitro 5 took 18 minutes and 1 second to transcode a 4K video to 1080p on our HandBrake benchmark, well off the category average (14:57). The Intel Nitro 5 completed it a little faster (17:22), while the G3 15 (13:16) and TUF Gaming FX504 (11:15) went full speed ahead.
Acer’s 1TB HDD copied 4.97GB of data in an exhausting 1 minute and 39 seconds, translating to a measily 51 megabytes per second, which is three times less than the budget gaming laptop average (163 MBps). The Intel Nitro 5’s 256GB SSD nailed 318 MBps, while the G3 15’s 128GB SSD (121) and the TUF Gaming FX504’s 1TB HDD (95 MBps) fell behind the average.
Battery Life
The Nitro 5’s battery life isn’t bad for a gaming laptop, but it could be better. After it continuously surfed the web over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness, the battery life lasted 4 hours and 7 minutes, just below the 4:25 budget gaming laptop average.
While the TUF Gaming FX504 (3:57) didn’t do any better, the Intel Nitro 5 lasted almost 40 minutes longer, at 4:44, and the G3 15 hit a solid 6:37.
Webcam
As you might imagine, the Nitro 5’s 720p shooter doesn’t exactly cut it for streaming. My face looked like a pile of blotchy pixels. The blue color on my shirt actually came off well, but the heightened contrast made my skin look pale.
The webcam even blew up most of the ceiling due to the lighting. If you pick up the Nitro 5, make sure to grab yourself an external webcam.
Heat
Because of its plastic shell, the Nitro 5 doesn’t get too hot under pressure. After playing Hitman 2 for 15 minutes, the underside of the chassis measured 105 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 10 degrees above our 95-degree comfort zone. The center of the keyboard and touchpad hit 105 and 81 degrees, respectively. And the hottest the machine got was 127 degrees, on the underside’s vents near the hinge.
On our normal benchmark, which requires running a 15-minute HD video, the hottest that the Nitro 5’s underside got was 90 degrees. Meanwhile, the center of the keyboard hit 86 degrees and the touchpad made it to a mere 76 degrees.
Software and Warranty
Unlike some other budget gaming laptops, the Nitro 5 does have a gaming utility app, which monitors your CPU, GPU and fan speed. You can adjust the fans to auto or max, and you can even customize the speed with a simple slider. There’s also a CoolBoost setting, which increases the maximum fan speed. The app also lets you adjust the power plan to either Power Saver, Balance or High-Performance while it’s in AC or Battery mode.
The usual Acer fodder includes Acer Product Registration and Acer Collection S; the former is self-explanatory while the latter features apps that Acer thinks you should download, like Netflix and Hulu.
MORE: The Best Gaming Laptops
The machine also features the typical Windows 10 bloatware, such as Candy Crush Saga, Cooking Fever and Candy Crush Friends, because you can’t ever have enough Candy Crush in your life.
The Nitro 5 comes with a one-year limited warranty. See how Acer performed on our Tech Support Showdown, Best and Worst Brands and even Best and Worst Gaming Brands ranking.
Bottom Line
Even for $670, Acer’s AMD Nitro 5 is hard to recommend, mostly because of its underwhelming performance and graphics. To top it off, the battery life and speakers are equally subpar.
If you’re set on getting a Nitro 5, you might as well pick up the newest model , which starts at $729 and sports a 9th Gen Core i5 CPU and a GTX 1050 GPU. Even the Intel version of this model offers stronger performance and better battery life for $789 on NewEgg.
Overall, the Nitro 5 fails to hit the mark, even for a budget gaming laptop.
Credit: Laptop Mag
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| Bluetooth | Bluetooth 5.0 |
| Brand | Acer |
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 5 2500U |
| Card Slots | SD memory reader |
| Display Size | 15. 6 |
| Graphics Card | AMD Radeon RX 560X |
| Hard Drive Size | 1 TB |
| Hard Drive Speed | 7,200rpm |
| Hard Drive Type | HDD |
| Highest Available Resolution | 1920 x 1080 |
| Native Resolution | 1920×1080 |
| Operating System | Windows 10 |
| Ports (excluding USB) | RJ-45, Kensington Lock, Headphone/Mic, HDMI 2.0, USB Type-C, USB 3.0, USB 2.0 |
| RAM | 8GB |
| Size | 15.35 x 10.47 x 1.05 inches |
| Touchpad Size | 3.1 x 4.1-inch |
| USB Ports | 4 |
| Video Memory | 4GB |
| Warranty/Support | One-year limited warranty |
| Weight | 5.22 pounds |
| Wi-Fi | 802.11ac |
Less
Rami Tabari is an Editor for Laptop Mag. He reviews every shape and form of a laptop as well as all sorts of cool tech.
You can find him sitting at his desk surrounded by a hoarder’s dream of laptops, and when he navigates his way out to civilization, you can catch him watching really bad anime or playing some kind of painfully difficult game. He’s the best at every game and he just doesn’t lose. That’s why you’ll occasionally catch his byline attached to the latest Souls-like challenge.
Acer Nitro 5 review: A disappointing Ryzen-powered gaming laptop
A decent gaming laptop will set you back a pretty penny, which is why it’s understandable that so many seek out a cheaper alternative. Acer is capable of making terrific kit for gamers, but the Nitro 5 is a misstep, both as a gaming machine and as a budget option. Its performance is lacking, the design is flawed and the touchpad is almost unusable, but surely this £750 laptop is capable of doing something right?
READ NEXT: Acer Predator Helios 500 review
Acer Nitro 5 review: What you need to know
At first glance, the Acer Nitro 5 looks like a pretty standard entry-level gaming laptop.
It has a 15.6in, 1,920 x 1,080 IPS display with a 60Hz refresh rate, 8GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD (SATA) and 1TB HDD for storage.
Image 2 of 22
This particular model runs on a quad-core AMD Ryzen 5 2500U CPU, a low-end processor with a base clock speed of 2GHz, along with a dedicated AMD Radeon RX 560X GPU with 4GB of GDDR5 memory. The Nitro 5 also includes Acer’s own NitroSense software, which allows you to control the laptop’s fan speed, battery efficiency and overclock the CPU.
Acer Nitro 5 review: Price and competition
As mentioned previously, this review model of the Acer Nitro 5 costs £750. That’s actually rather cheap as far as gaming laptops go, although more expensive loadouts include a top-spec model for £1,299 with an Intel Core i7-8750H, 16GB of RAM and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card.
It’s not fair to compare this Nitro 5 model to other gaming laptops we’ve reviewed recently since they typically cost in excess of £1,500. Besides, the Nitro 5 doesn’t put out anywhere near the performance of most gaming laptops.
I haven’t reviewed any comparable notebooks around this price point, but for £799 you can pick up a base-spec HP Omen 15 which has a 144Hz Full HD display and an 8th-Gen Intel Core i5-8300H Processor.
Image 8 of 22
The Lenovo Yoga 530, which launched for £999 achieved similar gaming results to the Nitro 5 and is powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 2700U chip with integrated Radeon Vega 10 graphics. For £979 you could also pick up the base-spec Microsoft Surface Laptop 2, which is our current notebook favourite.
Acer Nitro 5 AN515-42 Gaming Notebook — (AMD Ryzen 5 2500U, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD + 1TB HDD, AMD Radeon RX 560X 4G, 15.6″ FHD IPS Display, Black)
Buy now
Acer Nitro 5 review: Design
With laptop manufacturers such as Razer and Dell moving away from garish-looking gaming devices, Acer hasn’t followed a similar trend with the Nitro 5. In fact, it’s a rather clunky beast: it weighs a back-breaking 2.7Kg (without the power brick) and has a large footprint of 390 x 266mm.
This is a bulky machine that takes up more space than its internal components ought to require.
Image 7 of 22
Acer has attempted to brighten up the boring red and black colour scheme with a shimmering chevron pattern on the lid and palm rest areas, but there’s no hiding behind its sub-standard build materials. The chassis is plasticky and feels rather cheap, and the bezels bordering the screen aren’t flush with the rest of the device.
Image 13 of 22
Considering its gaming laptop credentials, the Nitro 5 is lacking in ports. There aren’t any connections on the back edge of the Nitro 5 either, which is far from perfect if you’re trying to prevent cables clogging up your desk space.
Image 14 of 22
On the left edge is a regular-sized SD card reader, USB 3.0 slot, HDMI 2.0 output, USB-C, Gigabit Ethernet port and a Kensington Security slot. On the right, you’ll find a pair of USB 2.0 ports, a 3.5mm audio jack and the power cable socket.
Acer Nitro 5 AN515-42 Gaming Notebook — (AMD Ryzen 5 2500U, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD + 1TB HDD, AMD Radeon RX 560X 4G, 15.
6″ FHD IPS Display, Black)
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Acer Nitro 5 review: Keyboard and touchpad
Despite its many issues, the Nitro 5’s keyboard and touchpad are the worst of the lot. Typing is far from an enjoyable experience, regardless of whether you’re mashing the WASD cluster or performing the not-so adrenaline-pumping task of writing an email.
Image 22 of 22
Individual key presses feel spongy, and the overall keyboard layout is cobbled together. The laptop’s volume and brightness controls are incorporated into the arrow keys instead of the top row, which isn’t ideal, and the numpad takes up a lot of space to the right of the keyboard. Likewise, the blood-red RGB lighting can only be turned on/off and there are no colour customisation options or fancy effects.
Typing, in general, is hindered by the laptop’s overall sluggishness, so much so that it often failed to keep up and missed key presses. This is far from ideal while you’re trying to achieve that elusive chicken dinner on PUBG when even a single key press is the difference between life and death.
Image 19 of 22
Things aren’t much better when it comes to the Nitro 5’s touchpad. It failed to keep up with my finger flourishes most of the time and its surface isn’t particularly smooth, either. It also picks up grease quite easily and feels poorly fitted – simply press down and the touchpad drops down much further than I would have liked.
Acer Nitro 5 review: Display
A quality gaming experience requires a quality display. Unfortunately, this an area where the Nitro 5 fails to deliver. The 15.6in Full HD panel is only capable of a maximum brightness of 259cd/m2, so you can forget about playing games by a window or a brightly lit room. An overall sRGB colour gamut coverage of only 56.7% means that colour coverage is exceptionally undersaturated, and the screen looks very washed out as a result – especially with a low contrast ratio of 1159:1.
Image 4 of 22
A game like Metro: Last Light Redux, with the majority of levels set in dark environments, is difficult to play due to the lack of vibrancy, and the low contrast between dark and light colours makes it very tricky to see important details.
Lastly, because this is a 60Hz panel, all games will be capped at a maximum framerate of 60fps, unless you plug in an external monitor with a higher refresh rate.
Acer Nitro 5 review: Performance and battery life
A low-tier Ryzen 5-powered laptop was never going to compete in the same ring with four-figured gaming machines, although you’d still expect it to be reasonably adept at playing the latest titles. The Nitro 5 achieved a total score of 99 in our in-house performance benchmark, which assesses image and video rendering, as well as the laptop’s multitasking performance.
That’s actually rather good, coming in ahead of Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 2 and well clear of the Lenovo Yoga 530, as you can see below. For reference, higher-priced gaming laptops we’ve tested lately tend to score between 150 and 200 in the same test.
The Acer Nitro 5’s file sequencing speeds aren’t quite as nippy. The included 128GB SATA SSD only achieved read and write speeds of 477MB/s and 116MBs in the AS SSD benchmark, which lags far behind its rivals.
Ideally, gaming laptops should be capable of handling the latest games at a decent frame rate, even if you have to dial down a few settings. Sadly, the Nitro 5’s dedicated AMD Radeon RX 560X graphics chip simply isn’t up to the task, only managing an average of 14fps in the Dirt: Showdown benchmark at Full HD resolution at high graphics settings. Drop the resolution down to 720p and apply medium settings, however, and you’ll achieve an average of 58fps.
Acer Nitro 5 AN515-42 Gaming Notebook — (AMD Ryzen 5 2500U, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD + 1TB HDD, AMD Radeon RX 560X 4G, 15.6″ FHD IPS Display, Black)
Buy now
As for Metro: Last Light Redux at the same resolution, the Nitro 5 reached an average of only 17fps. Tinkering with Acer’s NitroSense software didn’t help the experience either, and in fact made things worse when I switched the laptop from ‘High performance’ to the ‘Maximum performance’ setting.
The Nitro 5’s GFXBench results aren’t even notably better than non-gaming laptops.
The Surface Laptop 2 actually matched the Nitro 5’s GFXBench Manhattan result of 41fps. If standard laptops can keep pace with the Nitro 5, then perhaps this isn’t a gaming laptop at all.
If the Acer Nitro 5 has one saving grace, however, it’s battery life. In our video playback test, the Nitro 5 lasted 5hrs and 21mins before needing to recharge, which is a pretty good result for a gaming laptop. Still, the Surface Laptop 2 lasted nearly 2 hours longer under the same conditions.
Acer Nitro 5 review: Verdict
Image 16 of 22
You have to be careful when shopping for a budget gaming laptop. If you spend half as much as a top-end notebook you might expect half the performance, but the Acer Nitro 5 doesn’t provide anything close. Not only does this budget gaming laptop fail to run games at playable frame rates, but the Nitro 5 falls short in every other area – and that’s a serious problem.
| Acer Nitro 5 specifications | ||
| Processor | RAM | 8GB (DDR4 SDRAM, 4GB X 2) |
| Additional memory slots | 0 | |
| Max. memory | 32GB | |
| Screen size | 15.6in | |
| Screen resolution | 1,920 x 1,080 (60Hz) | |
| Pixel density | 141.2 | |
| Screen type | IPS LCD | |
| Touchscreen | No | |
| Pointing devices | Touchpad | |
| Graphics adapter | AMD Radeon RX 560X | |
| Graphics outputs | Graphics memory | 4GB (GDDR5) |
| Storage | 128GB SSD (Serial ATA), 1TB HD (Serial ATA/600) |
|
| Optical drive | No | |
| Memory card slot | SD | |
| USB ports | USB 2.0 x 2, USB 3.0, USB-C | |
| Other ports | HDMI 2. RJ-45, Kensington Secuirty Slot, 3.5mm audio jack, power socket |
|
| Web Cam | Yes | |
| Speakers | Dual speakers | |
| 3.5mm headphone jack | Yes | |
| Wi-Fi | IEEE 802.11ac Wi-Fi | |
| Bluetooth | Yes | |
| NFC | No | |
| Dimensions (WDH) | Weight | 2.7kg |
| Operating system | Windows 10 Home | |
| Operating system restore option | Windows restore partition | |
| Battery size | 3320 mAh | |
Acer Nitro 5 AN515-42-R0HW (Ryzen 5 2500U, Radeon RX 560X, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, 1TB HDD) Laptop Review GreenTech_Reviews
42-R0HW / Acer Nitro 5 AN515-42-R0HW review / Acer Nitro 5 AN515-42-R0HW test / Acer Nitro 5 AN515-42-R0HW test / NH.Q3RER.006 / NH.Q3RER.006 review — admin
Overview and testing of the Acer Nitro 5 AN515-42-R0HW (NH. Q3RER.006) laptop
More recently, the phrase «and I have a laptop with an AMD processor and graphics card» would have sounded fantastic. But the «red giant» has done a great job on its products in recent years and now laptops with Ryzen processors and Radeon RX video cards are a reality. Today we have such a solution from Acer — Nitro 5 (AN515-42-R0HW, to be more precise — NH.Q3RER.006) under our gaze. It is based on the Ryzen 5 2500U processor, Radeon RX 560X graphics card, 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of solid state drive, which is complemented by a classic 1 TB hard drive. In this article, we will study the internal structure of this product, check the battery life, as well as see the heating and performance. nine0012 Contents:
1. Overview of the laptop, technical part
2. Software
3. Testing, conclusion
The laptop is delivered in a small black box, all information content of which comes down to the name of the manufacturer and the name of the series.
Delivery set includes all documents and external power supply.
The design of the Acer Nitro 5 directly tells us that this is a gaming solution. It is made in black with red inserts, one of which is visible from the back. nine0012
Lid body made of plastic, surface in carbon look.
In general, the design of the laptop can still be called strict — straight lines prevail, no multi-color inserts and special frills. But you can’t call it uninteresting either — it still has its own zest. In keeping with the name of the series (Nitro 5), there are references to sports cars with carbon fiber hoods.
Another interesting point is that this laptop did not fall under modern fashion trends — the frames around the display are quite thick, which already looks unusual. But there is an advantage to this — it allows you to fix the display itself more evenly, which favorably affects the uniformity of the backlight. But more on that later. nine0012 You can also notice that the sides of all keys are painted red. In the photo below, even the backlight is not turned on, but they are still bright.
Even with the backlight switched off, all key markings are clearly visible. The most popular «gaming» W-A-S-D keys are additionally highlighted, as is the touchpad.
Key travel is small, pressing force is average. The reviewer, as the owner of two different mechanical keyboards (one on MX Red, the second on MX Speed Silver), took a few minutes to get used to the laptop keyboard. nine0012
The case around the keyboard, although it has an image of a wicker surface, is absolutely smooth.
In the dark, the keys are clearly visible thanks to their backlight.
Marking is visible, Latin is slightly larger, Cyrillic is smaller.
Above the screen is a camera with an ambient light sensor and a noise-canceling microphone.
The screen housing is not very thin, but this gives rigidity to the structure, which is important for the image quality on the display itself. nine0012
The maximum level to which the display can be tilted is:
On the left side you can find:
— RJ-45 network port;
— USB Type-C;
— USB 3.0 Type-A;
— HDMI output;
— slot for SD memory cards.
On the right you can find two more USB ports, an audio jack for connecting a headset and a connector for connecting the power supply.
At the bottom of the case there are many ventilation holes through which air is drawn in by the fans. nine0012
Hot air is blown out from behind — for this one part of the body has large holes.
From the bottom there is quick access to installing or replacing a hard drive and RAM.
But we’ll go ahead and remove a dozen more screws and look inside.
The cooling system is the same for the processor and video card. Heat is removed from them using three large heat pipes and a radiator, which is blown by two fans at once, which can operate at speeds up to 5800 rpm. In addition, heat is also removed from the processor power subsystem, as well as the video card, as well as its video memory. nine0012
The solid state drive is in M.2 format and manufactured by SK hynix.
Wireless Module — Qualcomm Atheros QCNFA344A.
Li-Ion battery has a capacity of 48 Wh
64-Mbit BIOS chip — Windbond 25Q64FW.
The BIOS itself was assembled by Insyde, not AMI. The functionality is minimal, there is no Legacy mode, if necessary, booting into the UEFI Shell just won’t work.
Read more: software
Review and testing of Acer Nitro 5 laptop based on AMD Ryzen 7 2700U processor and Radeon RX 560X video card / Overclockers.ua
1 — Appearance. Internal organization
2 — Test results. findings
Display as one page
The laptop market continues to expand and innovate every year and Acer laptops are one of the participants in this ongoing race. Now we are witnessing a revival of competition in the market, because before, devices based on Intel processors actually dominated. But with the advent of the Zen architecture, the situation begins to level out, there are more possible combinations, which means that we have a wide choice of systems for your taste, requirements and budget. nine0005
Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-42)
Today, another modification of the Acer Nitro 5 we have examined more than once based on the AMD Ryzen 7 2700U processor and the Radeon RX560X video card, namely the AN515-42 model, will become experimental. It is really interesting to know how the «red» bunch will behave in real conditions.
| Model | Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-42) |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer website | acer.com |
| Processor | AMD Ryzen 7 2700U 2200MHz (up to 3800MHz Turbo) |
| RAM | 16 GB, DDR4-2400, single-channel |
| Display | 15. |
| Video card | AMD Radeon RX 560X |
| Drive Subsystem | SSD 128 GB Hynix HFS128G39TND-N210A, HDD 1000 GB Toshiba MQ04ABF100 |
| I/O ports | 1x USB 3.1 Type C (Gen1), 1x USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0, HDMI 2.0, LAN RJ-45, headphone out |
| Communications | WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.1 |
| Card Reader | SD (XC/HC) |
| Multimedia | Audio system 2.0, webcam |
| Battery, mAh | 3220 (min. 3090) |
| Power adapter W | 135 |
| Dimensions, mm | 390 x 266 x 25.75 |
| Weight, kg | 2.7 |
| Cost, $ | n/a |
Delivery set
Unfortunately, we got the sample without the factory packaging, so it is not possible to evaluate its quality. On the other hand, it is unlikely to be different from the previously reviewed modifications, so you can familiarize yourself with the packaging in our own reviews of Nitro 5.
The package, of course, cannot be called rich, it contains only the most necessary — only a charger. But market positioning does not imply anything extra in the kit of this laptop.
ADP-135KB power supply rated for 135W.
Appearance
Visually, the next representative of the Nitro line does not differ from its comrades. All the same restrained game design. The laptop feels very beaten down and strong, does not play anything and does not flex in both the folded and open states. nine0005
The back side is actually the “exhaust” of the cooling system, so the rich red design of the screen hinge is clearly in place. Well, the inscription Nitro reminds the owner of himself even with the screen open.
The «carbon» texture of the lid surface looks good and is quite successful in terms of performance. But it is worth noting the following — it is difficult to leave fingerprints on it, but if you have already managed to mark your laptop in this way, then it will be quite difficult to wipe it off and microfiber will obviously not be superfluous. nine0005
The bottom of the laptop is almost half done with ventilation grilles, which is great — the components will be provided with a good flow of outside air. Let’s pay attention to the present service windows, through which quick access to the second drive and RAM is provided. The impressive dimensions of the rubber feet hint that the stability of the laptop is all right.
The front face of the Nitro 5 does not carry a special functional load, except that additional grilles allow the sound from the speakers to spread not only down, but also directly towards the user. nine0005
The left side contains Kensington Lock, LAN RJ-45, USB 3.1 Type-C, HDMI, USB 3.0, and an SD card reader.
On the right side of the laptop is a four-pin 3. 5 mm audio jack for connecting a headset, two USB 3.0 ports and a charging port.
The keyboard is framed by the same «carbon» surface, and the layout is quite standard for laptops: long Shift, small Enter, full-sized NumPad, nothing unusual or stand out. As for the soiledness, everything written above about the surface of the lid is relevant here. nine0005
The key travel is quite short, kind of like a gamer, because it is really more convenient during games, and not when typing.
The edge of the WASD keys «climbs» a little on the top side of the buttons, and therefore the backlight is more noticeable, and even without it, the game unit stands out from the rest of the keyboard.
The backlight is very even and pleasant, absolutely does not draw attention to itself in conditions of poor or no lighting. After a few minutes of inactivity, the keyboard backlight goes out, conserving battery power and not interfering with, for example, watching movies. nine0005
The touchpad is placed directly below the space bar and aligned with the mouse buttons.
And of course, the camera module is classically located above the top of the screen.
Screen
Acer Nitro 5 AN515-42 uses LG Philips LP156WF6-SPK6 15.6″ AH-IPS panel. The working resolution is 1920×1080, which is good, because 4K will be excessive for a 15-inch laptop, and the video accelerator should be completely different. The refresh rate is 60Hz. The matrix has an anti-reflective coating, there is no touch control. nine0005
The brightness of the notebook is adjustable from 16 to 262 cd/m 2 , which is generally sufficient for working indoors in any light, but may not be enough when working in bright sunlight if you need to. But the stability of the contrast cannot but rejoice, because it keeps at the level of 1200:1 in the range of 30-100% brightness, and the minimum value sags only up to 1161:1, which is unlikely to be clearly noticeable.
LG Electronics factory settings of the matrix certainly leave much to be desired. On the face of insufficient color gamut according to the sRGB (58. 4%) and Adobe RGB (40.3%) standards, the triangle is clearly more shifted towards yellow. We see that the color temperature is generally close to the reference values, but the gamma curve shows noticeable discrepancies as the brightness changes. nine0005
DeltaE measurements using Argyll showed 4.51 avg and 16.63 peak. The only thing that did not fail is the white point, which is within the recommended value.
IPS-matrix means that there is no significant fading of the image when deviating from the screen. Below you can see that even at significant angles the image is still normally distinguishable, but in fairness, it is worth noting the manifestation of a parasitic yellow tint. nine0005
In general, the impressions are exactly the same as they should be from a budget IPS-matrix. Although the color reproduction is far from ideal, it is still much better than that of TN matrices. Simply, for example, when working with photographs, it is worth considering its features.
Internals
The cooling system in the Nitro 5 series has always pleased us with good performance. True, in the case of the bundle from AMD, we see not two large thermal pipes, but one large and two medium ones, which apparently allowed us to slightly increase the efficiency of heat dissipation. nine0005
Otherwise, the layout of the system does not differ from its counterparts in the model line. The battery is located in its compartment and of course it will not be possible to remove it indiscriminately. As always, I am pleased with the separate presence of a slot for a 2.5-inch drive, as well as an M.2 slot for connecting an SSD.
The Qualcomm Atheros QCNFA344A radio module supports WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac and Bluetooth 4.1.
Also, I think many will be pleased with the fact that the RAM is not filled with two, but with one Kingston ACR26D4S9 moduleD8MD-16. It is unlikely that anyone will notice a drawdown associated with a single-channel mode of operation in a laptop, but a free “growth” slot will definitely come in handy in the future.
As already mentioned several times in the review, this Nitro 5 is based on the AMD Ryzen 7 2700U processor on the Raven Ridge core. This CPU has four physical cores that process eight threads, and the third level cache is 4 MB. Base frequency 2.2 GHz with maximum values up to 3.8 GHz. The nominal TDP of this 14nm processor is very low at only 15W. nine0005
The laptop is equipped with two video adapters — built-in RX Vega 10 processor and discrete Radeon RX 560X. And here we are faced with the first questions. It would seem that if there are two adapters from the same «camp», there should not be problems with switchable graphics, but that was not the case. It is very difficult to force the system to choose exactly the video accelerator that you need. And it would be nice if this only concerned the office mode — the “embedding” just works correctly in it. The adventure begins when we get into the game, in the settings of which there is no choice of an accelerator, and RX Vega 10 was automatically assigned. In short, I had to turn off all possible energy-saving profiles in all, even the deepest and most secluded loopholes of Windows 10, in order to get the discrete accelerator in all games. nine0005
Well, it’s worth mentioning the nuance with the drivers. It may seem to someone that it is enough to go to the AMD website and download the last suitable package and, thereby, close the issue on two accelerators at once, but no. The video driver itself will be installed, but the Adrenaline accompanying it is not supported by the system. And it is he who is responsible for the switchable graphics. It is quite difficult to find the latest drivers for this modification of Nitro 5 on the Acer website. Therefore, the only true and correct solution at the moment is to update the drivers through Windows Update — the most current ones are really pulled up there. Well, perfectionists will have to put up with the presence of an outdated Catalyst in the system for the time being. We hope that AMD and Acer will resolve this issue, which personally reminds me of the transition from Windows XP to Windows Vista and the lack of official support for the latter from some particularly cunning laptop manufacturers. nine0005
To say that the Radeon RX 560X has tremendous performance is, of course, a dissemble. This is a budget-level graphics adapter and you should not expect more results from it. The operating frequency of the core is 1275 MHz, and the memory is only 5800 MHz. After 20 minutes under maximum load in Battlefield 1, the core temperature is still within comfortable limits and does not force resetting the frequencies.
Test results
Overall performance
As always, let’s start with benchmark results that show the overall performance of the system. nine0005
PCMark 8
Above Ryzen 5 2500U laptops, which is logical.
PCMark 10
The system results are not very good, but acceptable compared to other laptops based on the Ryzen 7 2700U.
Cinebench R11.5/R15
The results in Cinebench are quite consistent with the positioning of this processor in the AMD lineup. By the way, in the processor part, they are exactly two times lower than those of the eight-core and sixteen-thread Ryzen 7 1700. Cinebench 11.5 could not be made to work with a discrete video card, and R15 refused to run the video test at all. nine0005
x264 HD Benchmark
Very good results for Ryzen 7 2700U.
AIDA Cache & Memory Benchmark
The only stick of RAM runs at 2400 MHz with 18-18-18-39 CR1 timings. And of course, the reading and writing speeds are much lower than when working in dual-channel mode.
Disk Subsystem
CrystalDiskMark
HFS128G39 SSD readsTND-N210A is within the budget SSD results. But write speeds, especially sequential ones, are very low — only 134 MB / s.
The Toshiba MQ04ABF100 hard drive also does not shine with speed indicators. In principle, this is acceptable for an additional drive. But it is worth noting that at times you really notice a low speed. So, for example, when connecting a gigabit channel via cable, the speed in Steam rises to 45–60 MB / s, but then the download is interrupted and buffering occurs. As a result, the total download time is the same as for Wi-Fi, which gives a much lower speed and does not load the screw as much. nine0005
Gaming applications
3DMark
The poor results are quite obvious for the Radeon RX 560X.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Tom Clancy’s The Division
Far Cry 5
Battlefield 1
Divinity: Original Sin 2
War Thunder
As you can see, the results are quite obvious. The performance of the RX 560X graphics card will not be enough to comfortably play most top shooters and action games at medium settings. But RPGs are quite playable, as well as online projects with good optimization.
Cooling System Efficiency and Noise Level
The cooling system performance was tested in a room at 24°C. The temperature of the internal components and the laptop case was measured. For maximum load, the AIDA64 stress test was used. nine0005
Overall, the Nitro 5’s cooling system does a great job. The AIDA64 stress test often shows problematic moments in laptop cooling, but as you can see, all components are loaded, do not throttle and do not overheat. At the same time, the noise level, as for a laptop, is quite acceptable.
As a result, only the upper part of the case turns out to be hot, and this is expected, because this is where the cooling system is located. At the same time, the WASD zone, the touchpad, and the entire lower zone, where the hands are usually located, remain cool. nine0005
Battery life
Notebook battery life was tested according to an updated methodology. We used the Battery Eater Pro v2.70 utility and its built-in benchmarks: maximum system load and reading mode.