Acer Nitro 5 Real User Verdict: Built to Last If You Tweak It

I got it way back in 2020 when the pandemic happened. I immediately poured love into this thing. Take care of 'em like a vintage car and they won't give you much trouble. I've been calling this platform the Nissan Altima/Honda Civic of the gaming laptop world.

Ignore the pointless Internet hate. Mine has been solid as a rock for 2.5 years now. Still amazed at how well it's handling new games. i5-9300, 1650gtx, 16gb ram. Outputting to a 144hz gaming monitor. Very satisfied with the set up. Get a USB-powered cooling pad and you're set.

I think you demonstrated a huge factor in the lifespan and perceived quality of a laptop…taking care of it. I see a lot of pics on here and some of these things are worse for wear. Take care of your stuff and it will last a lot longer.

Make sure to remove the preinstalled antivirus (either McAfee or Norton). Microsoft Defender is fine. You should also disable OneDrive from starting on boot, update your graphics in the Nvidia app, and remove unused apps (keep NitroSense).

Set it to performance mode while playing games and keep it plugged in.

I have the same one and it works perfectly fine to this day. I upgraded the RAM on it and it made a really big difference, I suggest doing the same. It comes with 8 GB standard which is not enough.

Keep it cool and clean the vents often. Don't use it in your bed or carpet floor. Set your charging limit to 85%. Set on performance only if you will be gaming.

No need to use performance mode as the other comments are suggesting while gaming — balanced is fine, it will also make less noise. Use performance mode when you actually need it.

Keep it on a laptop stand. Not necessarily a cooling pad. Any elevation with ventilation beneath the laptop. I've always used the laptop plugged in. It's been plugged in since I bought it and I only unplug it when moving around.

RTX 3050 and 8gb RAM? That's not even entry level. Gonna be super laggy. In my country there is a Lenovo Legion 5 (Ryzen 5 5600H, FHD 17 inch, RTX 3060, 16GB ram) for the same price.

I still have my acer nitro 2020 model with the specs of i5-10300H, GTX 1650Ti, 16GB DDR4 that I bought in late 2021, so it is 4+ years old as of now. Played a lot of PC games and emulators during and after the covid pandemic. So far I only had to replace the original LCD because it died; other than that it still going strong.

Go for the 7535hs RTX 3050 6gb Nitro V15, it's better and available for a better price. Make sure to compare specs carefully before deciding between models.

I've tested the thermals with the nitrosense command panel while playing gta 5 on high settings. CPU got a max temperature of 75c with coolboost turned off and the GPU got a max temperature of 58c. With coolboost the temps drop even further.

Always use this with some elevation. Acer Nitro is notoriously known for heating issues — mine did poorly (2020 version). Make sure you check for dead pixels on the screen by putting up a complete white background and checking if any random black spots are there.

I truly think this is one of the best budget gaming laptops out. The AMD CPU is worth the price.

Mine was manufactured late 2020, I've been using it for over an year now with zero issues. Just take care of it to the best of your ability and enjoy it instead of worrying over what'd happen to it with time.

I'll be completely honest with you as an owner of the 3060/10300H model that I bought new two months ago; these laptops could be a lot better even though they're marketed as budget gaming laptops. Thermal issues aside, there's a slew of other issues that seem to plague these machines.

Pro tips if you want thermal lows: never use performance mode in NitroSense, it fries your CPU and GPU on temps. Keep it on balance — it's just a 1-8fps difference for a 20-40 temp difference. Trust me, your laptop will thank you in the long run.

Just bought mine last week and the performance mode is making my CPU go to 95-100 degrees Celsius, but it's 70-85 on balanced. Why did Acer make the performance mode if it fries your CPU?

Mine is also a 2020. It has the I5 10300h and the gtx 1650. Came with 512nvme and I upgraded the ram. It came with a 120hz screen... I'm playing almost every AAA game in medium settings anywhere from 60-120fps. Best laptop for the price I've ever seen.

I've had 2 acer nitro 5's and the last one lasted me 3 years no issues! And I sold it for half the price. If you're buying it cause you don't have a place to put a desktop and travel a lot it's a good laptop. I game on mines heavily and it runs good.

I bought a nitro V with RTX4050 and my GPU temps are abysmal, almost always 90c even on indie games. So I repasted it, and now it's fine. Other than that I bought another 1tb of SSD.

My 2020 nitro 5 AN515-55 with 10300H and 1650ti is still going strong. Heck, the battery even lasts for 2-3 hours of normal usage after 5 whole years. I upgraded it to 16gb dual channel and it has never let me down — countless hours of gaming (5000+ hours) and intense 3D modelling and ANSYS analysis. Repasted it twice and changed mobo once.

Still got mine even though I upgraded. That thing put in work! Great laptop. Made like Walmart designed it but great performance.

I've had mine over a year and it's perfect, I can even run VFX software like Blender while listening to music and it works perfectly. It's a great computer for the price.

I've got mine for 1 year and 5 months. Never had any issues with it. Ryzen 5600H, 3060 95W, Win10, 16GB, 17.3'' FULL HD with Freesync screen, 512 GB SSD. Performs perfectly. Cleaned it a couple of times with compressed air to blow out the dust. Thermals excellent.

I would guess that the people who hate on the nitro 5 have never owned one. I've had mine about 18 months now and had no issues with heat or performance, only thing I've done is increase ram to 16gb and put 1tb of storage in.

It is the worst laptop I ever had...I was on vacation in Thailand and it broke down....they kind of repaired it there but nvidia ain't working and also the battery is dead after 1 year....the keyboard pins broke immediately when I took off one key. I will keep away from Acer garbage for the rest of my life.

When I was 13 and broke, I scraped together enough to buy an Acer Nitro 5 (i7 7th gen, 1050 Ti, 16GB RAM). Hands down the best financial decision I've ever made — that thing carried me through thousands of hours of gaming. I've used it so much the shift key literally has a worn-out dent.

I've had a total of 5 nitro laptops through my life. Currently still using my 2021 model as my main and it's running beautifully — AMD Ryzen 7 5800H with RTX 3060 and 32gb ram. I use a rubber keyboard cover and my keyboard still looks brand new.

I'm also running with a Nitro 5, and I'm surprised at how well its playing KCD 2 at maximum settings.

The 2019 acer nitro 5 was my FIRST ever gaming laptop bought with my hard earned money. What a disappointment it was with the 9th gen core i7 cpu that had a manufacturing defect and would reach temps of 90 - 100°C when gaming AAA titles. I sold that laptop and never looked back to buying a gaming laptop again.

I didn't understand why people bought these over the Helios. 8gb of ram isn't enough to game. Hell, 16 isn't anymore. The screens are worse and if I remember correctly they used the Q series of GPU's which are even worse than a standard laptop gaming GPU. I paid $1350 for a 1660ti which is equivalent to a desktop 1660 regular.

I got mine in 2019 to use for my master's in aero engineering so that I could run design and modeling software. Now it's just my dedicated pc for gaming and general use with an ssd for extra memory. Was planning on getting a desktop after I graduated, but mine's running so solid I'm just going to make it my permanent setup. I recommend the nitro 5 to anyone who will listen. Great value.

My acer nitro 5 is 4 years old and it works fine as heck. I've been using it for heavy gaming and work too (software engineering). At this point, it's just internet hate.

Running cyberpunk on a gtx 1650 with intel i9 9300h. It's not great, terrain generation and environments loading takes time, but it runs cyberpunk. I honestly don't see why the nitro5 gets any hate at all.

I tested a Ryzen 5 5600H with RTX 3060 and a Ryzen 7 5800H with RTX 3070 Nitro 5. Both had upper wattage versions of the GPU as opposed to other laptops who provide the lower wattage for the same price. Temps in both GPUs never exceeded 70-75 Celsius — that is good even for a desktop GPU.

These are ok as long as you don't play games or use them all the time. The fans clog easily and growl. The fans do not cool efficiently — my cpu is constantly over 90C so the cpu slows and appears to have lag.

I regret buying this laptop. So many issues and it can never bring up the wifi. Plus the usb ports died in the first six months. Spend money and buy elsewhere, the nitro 5 isn't it.

I have an acer AN515-55 that I bought in 2021. First 2 years no problem, only WASD letters starting to fade and the audio jack wouldn't work most of the time. Then on the 3rd year the screen started getting black lines that slowly increased until the whole screen was black. Now in the fourth year the battery dies quickly even after a full charge.

I have had the Acer Nitro 5 15-58-57Y8 for over a year now with an I5 12500H CPU and 3050ti GPU and as long as you upgrade the RAM to 2x8 GBs of RAM, you will be ok with this budget gaming laptop. I upgraded mine to 64gbs which is basically overkill for this model but it has run well.

I've owned 2 nitro 5's in my lifetime. My first one I broke from dropping it and the one I own now has been staying solid for 3 years at this point. Amazing computer that can handle a lot of games. I've only gotten one instance with the blue screen of death but it still runs like a champ!!