Acer Nitro 5 AN515-55-53E5 Gaming Laptop | Intel Core i5-10300H | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 GPU | 15.6" FHD 144Hz IPS Display | 8GB DDR4 | 256GB NVMe SSD | Intel Wi-Fi 6 | Backlit Keyboard

- I can run most games on default settings and the ones I can't are made easily playable with a few minor adjustments. - Compared to other gaming PCs of similar capabilities, this laptop tends to be far cheaper, so it's great for a budget laptop. - The battery life isn't great, but isn't unusable. I tend to keep my laptop on the charger. It is a lot bulkier than most laptops. - The display is rather dim compared to most screens. - Sometimes the graphics mess up and text will disappear or black boxes will cover the window. This only happens to me in browsers and on Discord. The pros heavily outweigh the cons, especially if you're looking for a decent gaming laptop on a budget.

I have had this for 4 years now, purchased it without research after a year of planning and ordering from Dell yielded a piece of trash that never worked properly and couldn’t be salvaged by an expert. So, never again will I go that direction. This laptop cost far less on a holiday special, and has been awesome for work, crunching data, creating artwork, and gaming. It just does it all. It has been compatible with everything that I try to do, is very easy to type, and has survived periods of illness when I‘ve dropped it (I KNOW)!! It’s just been the best laptop that I‘ve ever had, and now that it’s time to start thinking of a replacement, I am only looking at the Acer Nitro series. It is fast, and high quality. I hope that this helps with your decision. Do let me know, and happy shopping!

I've own three Acer Nitro 5 AN515-55-53E5 Gaming Laptops, and I can confidently say that this model represents the best gaming laptop you can get on a budget from Amazon. Here's why: Performance: The heart of this laptop is the Intel Core i5-10300H, a quad-core processor with a base clock speed of 2.5 GHz that can turbo boost up to 4.5 GHz. Paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 GPU, which features 2nd Gen Ray Tracing Cores and 3rd Gen Tensor Cores, this laptop offers robust performance for gaming at 1080p. The RTX 3050 supports DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling), which significantly boosts frame rates without sacrificing visual quality. My experience shows that it handles modern games like "Cyberpunk 2077" and "Assassin's Creed Valhalla" at medium to high settings with very playable frame rates, often exceeding 60 FPS for less demanding titles. Cooling: One of the standout features is the cooling system. Acer's CoolBoost technology enhances fan speed by 10% and increases CPU/GPU cooling by 9% compared to auto mode, leading to a 25% overall boost in thermal performance. This means even during extended gaming sessions, the laptop maintains stable performance without thermal throttling. The dual fans, combined with a thoughtful chassis design that allows for good airflow, keep the system cool under pressure. Design: The Nitro 5's design is both functional and appealing. The chassis is made of matte black plastic with red accents, offering a subtle yet recognizable gaming aesthetic. It's sturdy for its price range, with just a slight flex on the keyboard deck and lid. The laptop weighs about 5.07 lbs (2.29 kg), which is reasonable for a 15.6-inch machine with these specifications. The keyboard features a red backlit design with a comfortable key travel, ideal for long gaming sessions. Display and Audio: The 15.6-inch Full HD IPS display has a 144Hz refresh rate, providing smooth visuals, which is crucial for gaming, especially in fast-paced environments. While the color gamut isn't the widest, the contrast and brightness are adequate for gaming and general use. Audio from the built-in speakers is surprisingly decent for this price point, though, as with most laptops, headphones or external speakers will enhance the experience. Battery Life and Connectivity: Battery life isn't the laptop’s strong suit, typically lasting around 3-4 hours on light usage and significantly less under gaming load. However, the convenience of features like USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, HDMI 2.0, and Wi-Fi 6 more than compensates for this. The inclusion of a Killer Ethernet E2600 for wired connections ensures low-latency gaming when possible. Personal Experience: Having three of these laptops, I've found them to be reliable workhorses for both gaming and productivity tasks. The upgradability, with easy access to RAM and storage, makes them future-proof to some extent. They've been flawless in operation, with no hardware issues to report, making them an excellent choice for gamers on a budget or anyone seeking a cost-effective, high-performance laptop. In summary, the Acer Nitro 5 AN515-55-53E5 stands out for its balance of performance, cooling efficiency, and design at a budget-friendly price, making it a top pick for anyone looking to dive into gaming without breaking the bank. Five stars for delivering beyond expectations.

I've had this laptop now since Aug of 2022 and I have to say that overall, it's been worth the money. For an everyday machine with a bit of extra kick it can do a lot. For a mid-level gamer or someone who does some lighter end video/photo editing it will get the job done. Since I purchased it I have made a new upgrades: I added additional ram for a total of 32gb and I added an additional 1TB SSD. I do A LOT of photo and video editing and play some more demanding games so I went into the purchase knowing that would be something I would eventually need to do for it to meet my needs, but since the overall bones of the machine were solid, it was a much better option than buying a machine that came with what I wanted out of the box and cost 3x as much. I will say there are two glaring issues with the laptop: the first being the hard drive. Being pitched as a gaming machine with only 256gb storage is a joke. A few meaty games are going to eat that up pretty quickly and you'll start struggling to manage your space. The second is the screen issue. The laptop does have an issue turning on from sleep (or rather it shuts itself off while in sleep, even when plugged in). It will only do this randomly so its a crap shoot on whether holding the power button will actually turn off the laptop and cycle it into a reboot because it was actually just asleep and the screen wasn't turning on, or will just turn it on because it powered itself down for some reason. Its definitely annoying, but I haven't had any issues with it failing to save work so it isn't a deal breaker. These two issues do knock it down a star though.

Bought in 2022, it’s 2025 and I’m still getting more than 120+ fps in most games after updates and with a few tweaks it goes higher, COD and Battlefield are playable but streaking will cause stuttering, I recommend pairing with a monitor for higher FPS quality, super fast and reliable WILL TEND TO GET HOT, nothing too crazy but you will want to turn up fan speeds and buy a riser for it to maximize airflow

Good sub-$1000 gaming laptops are hard to find, but The Nitro 5 gives great value without breaking the bank. The 10th Gen Core i5 processor is 2 generations old at this point, but it has plenty of power to run pretty much all modern games at a decent setting. The Nvidia RTX 3050 graphics processor is an entry level to the new Ray-Tracing sexiness that's the next big thing in graphics. On newer games you probably won't be able to get past the 60fps barrier at 1080p with the settings cranked, but dialing the details down a bit will give you better rates. The display is rated for 1080p and 144hz, and while it's not the brightest or most vibrant screen out there, it's fine for this price point. There is also a (full size) HDMI out, but I have not had occasion to connect this to an external monitor yet. The cooling fans do a good job of keeping this machine within temp specs... but do note they can get pretty loud under load (honestly that's almost inevitable on a gaming laptop, it's hard to keep things cool in such a small box. Anyone who games on a laptop should invest in a good headset IMHO.) I have opened this computer up to install a few upgrades (more on that below) and I will say I'm pretty impressed with the build quality for a computer in this segment. The components are reputable makes rather than mystery off-brands (WD for the SSD, looks like Micron on the single 8gb RAM stick.) All the panels fit together nice and go back together easily after disassembly, making upgrades something you don't have to dread. Speaking of those upgrades... for a computer at this price point you have to live with a few compromises and here is where they may be found. The storage this model comes with is a paltry 256gb m.2 drive... If you do plan on gaming on the Nitro, either be ready to upgrade this quickly or learn to love delete-ing and re-installing games and apps constantly. Fortunately, there is a second un-used m.2 PCIe slot on the motherboard to accommodate an upgrade (this processor and motherboard supports PCIe up to gen-3 speeds.) There is also an open 2.5 inch bay for an SSD. Memory-wise, this unit comes with a single 8gb DDR4 SODIMM RAM stick installed. This should be fine for most gaming- if you don't run big apps in the background- but since this has two slots total for an upgrade I removed it and installed 2 8gb sticks of Kingston FURY Impact DDR4 RAM, just for a bit of extra headroom (the max speed the i5 10300H will operate memory at is 2933 Mhz, so it's not worth it to spend more on faster RAM.) All in all, this is a fine machine for someone who's interested in a good no-fuss entryway into PC gaming, or a seasoned gamer who wants an inexpensive but capable machine to go mobile with. Highly Recommended!

It sounds silly, but there is one fatal flaw in this laptop design: the 'nitro' key. This key is positioned next to the Backspace key, and absolutely RUINS the user experience. It's so bad it makes me want to toss this laptop out the window and buy a different one (I don't have the money). Whoever designed this needs to be FIRED, and I don't say that lightly. I'm pro-worker! Pro-union! Extremely anti-nitro key. Definitely a fireable offense, I'm sorry. Terrible oversight. The should fire the designer's supervisor as well, and perhaps every product tester they employed. Just my 2-cents. Imagine you're typing up a paper for work or school. When you inevitably reach up to tap the Backspace key, your finger isn't perfectly centered. Maybe your nails are slightly too long, causing you fingertip to slip, or perhaps you were typing a bit too fast and your coordination lagged for a moment. It doesn't matter the reason, because the reality is that you're gonna hit that ridiculous "nitro" button, positioned immediately behind the Backspace key. After that you have approximately 2 seconds to close out of the start-up prompt before the computer fully engages the program, opening it over top of whatever important thing you were working on and turning your laptop's fans on jet engine mode (opening the program that manages this laptop's fans is apparently very taxing for the laptop????). Trust me, this WILL happen to you, and it will happen A LOT. SO MUCH. It's really driving me insane, but you cannot grasp just how often I open the annoying fan app on my laptop when all I want to do is fix my dang typos. And you gotta wait for the program to boot up, it's not like you have the time to keep typing while it loads. I begged my boyfriend (a computer science graduate) to help me turn off the sticky key, creating a dead useless nitro key that takes up space on my keyboard for no reason. He did, and everything was OK for a while, but guess what? Acer must've done some crazy update or something, BECAUSE THE NITRO KEY IS BACK and as annoying as ever. When you go to the Acer website, desperate for a way to get relief from the terrible nitro key, THE INSTRUCTIONS THEY PROVIDE ARE USELESS. The options that their example solution provides literally DO NOT EXIST. The fact they had to dedicate a page of their website to turning off their terrible nitro key says a lot, but the fact that their instructions to do so are completely wrong says even more. The nitro key is cursed I tell you! Cursed! DO NOT BUY THIS MODEL IF YOU WANT TO KEEP YOUR SANITY. DO. NOT. BUY. THIS. LAPTOP. If you're ignoring my warning and press on, I'll give an honest review on some other features: - anti-glare screen is actually very nice and useful, though I was a bit put off by it at first - key backlighting only works once you've pressed a key, not just from moving the mouse; good luck finding that first key in the dark lol. hopefully you don't accidentally press that nitro key... - battery dies fast; you get about 2.5 hours unplugged, even brand new out of the box - fans are way too loud. yeah, i get to play my favorite games, but I can't hear them unless I have my earbuds in and turned up to the point of damaging my poor cochleas - you cannot adjust fan settings. even if you drag the little dials that determine each fan's power, they literally do nothing. I think it's like when you're at a crosswalk and you press that little button to make it switch to pedestrian crossing faster but it doesn't really do anything except pacify you. that's what the fan settings on this laptop are like. - audio quality sucks noticeably, plus this laptop never gets loud enough to hear over its godforsaken fans - i like that this laptop has some weight to it, it doesn't feel super fragile and paper-thin like so many others on the market today Do not buy this laptop. Trust me. It's a piece of junk.

** UPDATE CHECK OUT MY BATTERY SETTINGS AT BOTTOM OF REVIEW! LEAVE A LIKE IF IT HELPED YOURS! Definitely Best Budget Laptop of 2022! The I-5 10 Series is a video editing and gaming killer! 💯 Great hardware to get you in to the 2020's! I've use Devinci Resolve 18 (Free) to edit my GoPro 9 and Sony FDR-X3000 vloggs. It even handles 4k editing which is expected with this powerful processor! 8GB RAM is decent but i put anotger 8GB into the machine, which was really easy to assemble and disassemble. 1080p editing is breeze! 💯👍 I also have Steam and a few games like War Thunder and I'm able to play with 60fps, easy, high graphics on every setting, no problem. I don't play the newest top notch games but this could handle it, unlike some other commebts kinda under dogging this machine. I boosted the storage with an extra 1TB M.2 Samsung SSD (amazon) for the extra storage capacity. PC fan run while plugged in can be a tad loud, nothing you have to talk over, graphics these days arnt Galaga, almost everything use CPU and RAM, best thing to do, make sure your ram and extra sroage have heatsink. Get a laptop stand but never run the extra fan. Just packs extra dust into the machine. I have one just as a base for better bresthing of my own laptop. The keyboard is also quite nice. I don't mind the short stokes, my fingers glade across like a gizzle. Just make sure to lower the keyboard brightness (helps with battery) Windows 11 isn't bad either, they did it right, has a Mac-ish feel, i like it. Quick and snappy! Win 11 also comes with a video editor as well which now lets you edit 1080p videos for free! Another Mac move 👍 Which is fine! Not complaining! The computer is super snappy, it's got a badass look to it, it's not heavy by any means! It's a low profile, not flat, it needs room for fans ect.. The battery great as long as you follow my settings advice. And think of this laptop like a manual car, you have to change settings constantly. If your just browsing on battery they have to be set one way. If your about to get on some video editing then set the other I'm very please, with extra parts my total was $967. Absolutely love my new Acer Nitro 5!! Battery Settings 1. Nvidia Control Panel - Manage 3D Battery Mode Preferred Graphics - Auto-select Gaming Mode Preferred Graphics - High Performance Graphics 2. Battery & Power Settings Battery Mode - Power Saver Gaming Mode - Acer 3. Nitro Sense Battery Mode - Disable CoolBoost Gaming Mode - Enable CoolBoost Set your profiles on bottom right, Acer - Plugged in Battery Saver - on battery 4. Intel Command Center Battery Mode - 60p Gaming Mode - 60p or 144p 5. Battery Saving Mode (Taskbar) Battery - On Gaming - Off 6. Windows Mobility Center Battery - Power Saver Gaming - Acer 7. Keyboard Backlite Fn + F9 (decrease to last setting) Battery on these settings = ~7hr 46 mins (Gaming Mode plugged into wall)