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Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-57)’s display (CMN1521) is PWM-free which is definitely good for your health no matter how long you plan to stay in front of the laptop. Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-57) is equipped with a Full HD IPS panel, model number Innolux N156HRA-EA1 (CMN1521). Its diagonal is 15.6″ (39.62 cm), and the resolution is 1920 х 1080 pixels. The screen ratio is 16:9, and we are looking at a pixel density of – 142 ppi, and a pitch of 0.18 х 0.18 mm. The screen turns into Retina when viewed at a distance equal to or greater than 60cm (24″) (from this distance one’s eye stops differentiating the separate pixels, and it is normal for looking at a laptop). In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering. As expected, the Intel platform is not as efficient as the AMD models tested earlier, and when paired with the small battery, the runtimes end up this short. The fact that the screen runs at 144 Hz on battery and does not switch to 60 Hz takes a toll as well, so you might want to manually switch it over to further increase the runtimes. All in all, don’t expect more than 2-4 hours of daily use on a charge on this Nitro 5 model. In short, the refreshed AN515-57 devices can be configured with Intel Tiger Lake 45H and NVIDIA Ampere GPUs – that sounds modern enough no matter if you’re going to use it for gaming, office, some productivity task, or something else. As always, the base configurations are a bit shy when it comes to power but the best possible one sounds intriguing for a Nitro 5 chassis (and perhaps it’ll be challenging for the cooling as well) – an Intel Core i7-11800H and GeForce RTX 3070 (100W). We think that’s the first time when a Nitro device can house such a powerful graphics solution.
Collecting the old product which is officially counted as WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment). These products are separated into the correct waste flow at our local depots and send directly to government approved WEEE recycling plants. As a White Goods manufacturer, we take our WEEE obligations very seriously and actively encourage our customers to use the most environmentally friendly recycling scheme available in the UK Acer offers the 2021 Nitro 5 series in a multitude of configurations and in either 15 to 17-inch screen sizes. As for whether to go Intel or AMD on the 2021 Nitro 5, I’d go with the Intel configurations if I’d be primarily looking for a gaming machine or work laptop for applications that are favored by the Intel platform, such as content creation in the Adobe suite. However, I’d stay away from the base-level FHD 144Hz screen that we had on our test unit, and try to get the better quality 144Hz BOE panel instead, or even reach out for the sharper QHD option. In terms of upgradability, this laptop left is speechless – for that kind of a price tag, it has two SODIMMs, two M.2 slots (one for PCIe drives and the other can handle both PCIe and SATA standards) and a regular SATA port – thumbs up! When it comes to comfort, this one offers a normal experience during load – not too silent but not too loud at the same time.
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As for the storage, Acer puts a WD SN530 on this Nitro 5, a mid-range PCIe SSD. PCIe gen4 SSDs are also supported by the Intel 11th gen platform if you’re looking to upgrade to faster storage, although this included one is plenty fast for daily use. Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – light emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin, and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light. Conclusion Both are very competitive multi-purpose laptops, with the 3050Ti configurations at around the 1000 USD/EUR mark and the 3060s as the superior performers at around 1200-1400. They do have to face tough competition from the likes of the Lenovo Legion 5 ( also reviewed here in a different variant), HP Omen 15, or the Asus TUF Gaming A15/F15 series, but based on local availability and pricing, these Nitros could be the best options among these in some regions. Follow this link for a more detailed looked at the best gaming laptops of the moment at various price ranges and classes. Far Cry 5, Middle Earth, Strange Brigade, Red Dead Redemption 2, Tomb Raider games – recorded with the included Benchmark utilities;
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective. In other words, the leakage of light from the light source. Spec-wise, this 2021 Acer Nitro 5 variant is built on the latest Intel 11th gen Tiger Lake Core H platform, with an option for the 8Core i7-11800H that we have here, or a 6Core i5-11400H on lesser configurations. Both are fast processors with a design TDP of 45W, but the ability to run at higher power in this chassis in sustained loads. Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode. The display is a mixed bag – it’s a PWM-free panel which is good for your eyes during long gaming sessions. Also, it has a good contrast ratio and comfortable viewing angles. On the other hand, the color coverage is too narrow which isn’t a big problem if you use it mainly for games but if you want to do some color-sensitive work you should look somewhere else for a machine with a better panel. Unfortunately, the pixel response time is on the slow side so if you want to play fast-paced online shooters probably you’ll spot that. It’s also slightly shifted to the left side of the laptop and centered under the Space key, which might take some time to get used to, especially if you’re coming from a centered layout without a NumPad.Here’s what we got on our review unit, with the screen’s brightness set at around 120 nits (~70 brightness). Still, given the AMD AN515-45 Nitro 5 has been available in stores for a while now, you might find it for less than a matching AN515-57 configuration, which would leave you enough to upgrade the RAM within the same total cost. However, don’t forget that most of the laptops in this class ship with single-rank memory, and that’s going to quite significantly impact the performance of those AMD configurations, especially in some combined workloads and games.
All in all, this i7+RTX 3070 configuration of the Nitro 5 AN515-57 is an excellent performer in games, even if it doesn’t offer a MUX and the display is connected via the iGPU. The impact of Optimus or the fact that Acer puts dual-channel SR memory on this series seems to be considerably more reduced here than on the AMD variants, something to keep in mind if gaming sits high at the top of your priorities’ list. I would advise straying away from this AU Optronics panel though and try to find a configuration with the superior BOE FHD 144hz panel instead. Noise, Heat, Connectivity, speakers, and others You also never have to 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.With daily use, the fan noise (on the Balance and Power Saver modes) is limited and only audible in a quiet room, especially when using the laptop unplugged. The two fans are always active though, so never go idle. For people who don’t need so much power, there are a lot more not-so-powerful and wallet-punishing setups. In the past, some Nitro laptops were suffering from high CPU and GPU temperatures during heavy loads but right now things are changed. The inefficient and hot Intel Coffee Lake and Comet Lake-H CPUs are gone for good and the refreshed laptops with the Intel Tiger Lake-H CPUs don’t heat too much as the previous-gen devices thanks to the newer CPU chips. So, let’s see how capable the new one is. The popularity of Acer’s Nitro series is undeniable. The main reason for this is the fact that these devices combine decent hardware with a reasonable price tag. The Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-57) is a typical representation of what you can expect from a new Nitro laptop – every year the laptops get some refresh treatment. Expectedly the improvements for the new devices take place under the shell of the notebooks. The looks of this particular device seem (almost) unchanged compared to what we saw last year. The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.
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