Overall, the new Acer Nitro 5 AN515-58 (2023) is a solid step up over its predecessors, with improved thermal performance and build quality. While it’s bulkier and heavier, this has helped improve overall stability, and we can take a gander that is has helped maintain better temps as well. The keyboard is still excellent but the display is average at best.
The Acer Nitro 5 has been a go-to for anyone looking for a budget gaming laptop. Acer’s primary budget gaming laptop has several configurations, even going into the not-so-budget segment. The configuration we’re reviewing here comes with a 12th gen Intel Core i7-12650H paired with the NVIDIA RTX 4050 Laptop GPU. At around Rs 90,000, this particular configuration is also competitively priced. With that out of the way, let’s dive into the review.
Acer has a new build and design with the new generation of Nitro 5. There are a lot of the blue accents we see in the Predator Helios line, but the trademark red keyboard with white accents is still around.
The new build is also bulkier and heavier. While this is a downside for those looking for a more portable gaming option there are benefits to this as well. For starters, the laptop feels very sturdy and stable. The overall build quality feels excellent, despite this being Acer’s budget laptop offering and featuring a mostly plastic build. The hinges on the Nitro 5 also feel fairly sturdy, with a little bounce when opening the lid. The lid can be opened with one hand quite easily thanks to the overall sturdyness we mentioned earlier.
As we mentioned above, the iconic red backlight keyboard is back, with accents around the WASD and Arrow keys. The Nitro 5 keyboard still feels great to use. The travel distance feels good, the spacing is good, and you get a numpad and large arrow keys.
Under the laptop, you have the speaker cutouts and the ventilation grills. There are a total of four exhaust vents to help with thermals and throttling. One on each side and two on the back. Even the keyboard draws in air. As we get to the performance, you will see that this has had an impact on the overall throttling performance of the laptop.
You have a good selection of ports on the Nitro 5. You have three USB-A 3 ports, an ethernet port, HDMI 2.1, and a Thunderbolt 4 port.
The display is one of the weaker specs of the Acer Nitro 5. It does get better with pricier configurations, but you want to go for the Predator lineup if you’re looking for a better display. Coming back to the Nitro 5, the laptop comes with a 15.6-inch FHD 144 Hz IPS display. We tested a peak average brightness of 277 nits which is around average. Not too bright but will get the job done. We tested an sRGB coverage of 59.7 percent and a DCI-P3 coverage of 42.5 percent. We have seen better displays in this price range.
Coming to the thermals, we saw average surface temperatures of just 32 degrees across the board, which is great. The hot spots went up to 37 degrees at most, while the rest of the laptop stayed consistent at around 28 degrees even after intense gaming sessions and workloads. We saw excellent throttling scores as well, with little to no decrease in performance over time.
With that, we come to gaming performance. The laptop we tested came with an NVIDIA RTX 4050 Laptop GPU with a TGP of 140W, which is the highest allowed by NVIDIA for the 4050 on laptops. In terms of numbers, it’s comparable to and even better than the RTX 3060 in certain titles, especially newer AAA titles. The 12th gen Intel Core i7-12650H, while not the latest available SoC, that would be the new 13th gen processors (now even 14th gen for desktops), is still a solid processor, especially for your gaming needs. Paired with the newer DDR5 RAM on board on the 2023 Acer Nitro 5, you can easily expect to get 60+ FPS on modern AAA titles at high settings on FHD resolutions. Running benchmarks across our usual suit of games, we saw that the Acer Nitro 5 doesn’t particularly stand out, but it doesn’t lag behind as well. We see this as an overall good thing considering its competitive pricing and its excellent thermal performance.
The same is reflected in synthetic benchmarks as well, with the Nitro 5 at the middle of the pack in terms of overall numbers. At least, when compared to laptops with 13th gen processors and similarly specced GPUs. The Nitro 5 is easily top of the pack when compared to other 12th gen processor gaming laptops.
Overall, the new Acer Nitro 5 AN515-58 (2023) is a solid step up over its predecessors, with improved thermal performance and build quality. While it’s bulkier and heavier, this has helped improve overall stability, and we can take a gander that is has helped maintain better temps as well. The keyboard is still excellent but the display is average at best.
