Acer Nitro 5 AN515 (15.6-inch, 2018)

Value for money ; Solid performance ; Strong connectivity options

Can get supersonic ; Poor battery life

If you're not into consoles, the Acer Nitro 5 is a brilliant gaming laptop alternative. As long as you keep it plugged in and aren't looking to go crazy with settings, you'll have no problems running the latest games and playing at a steady framerate....

Impressive graphics performance for the price ; Boasts Coffee Lake Core i5 CPU with Hyper-Threading ; Comfy keyboard with above-average speakers

Bulky and heavy ; Middling battery life ; Relatively dim, non-touch display ; Falls short of 60-fps visuals at maxed graphics settings

Budget gaming laptops don't get as much of a break as their mainstream cousins. They still face intense pressure to deliver. The Acer Nitro 5 is big and heavy, with so-so battery life and a fairly dim screen. But if you're shopping for a gaming laptop...

User controllable fans ; Good battery life ; Decent gaming performance for price

Too much travel on trackpad ; Thick display bezel ; Speakers produce painful highs

We could forgive the cheap plastic back cover, the basic keyboard, and the heavy weight. But for a gaming laptop, there’s hardly any excuse for the tacky trackpad and the average screen. Budget gamers will rejoice on the price, but hardcore ones will...

Inexpensive. Capable 1080p gaming performance for the price. Roomy 1TB hard drive. Decent display.

Finicky touchpad. GTX 1050's performance ceiling with demanding games is limited.

Bottom Line: The Acer Nitro 5 won't blow you away with its performance or design, but it is a perfectly competent gaming laptop without any deal-breaking flaws for an aggressive price.

Priced aggressively ; It can actually play games! ; Has a backlit keyboard with hardware monitoring software

Flimsy lid ; It’s flexible ; Upper portions of keyboard get warm ; It’s heavy

After all, if you’re sharpening your skills and eliminating foes in multiplayer games, does it really matter how much eye candy you have?

Long battery life. Lighter than some 15-inch gaming laptops. Impressive graphics performance for the price.

Middling performance on everyday computing tasks. Lackluster build quality in some areas. Single-color keyboard backlight. Hard-to-read keys.

Bottom Line: The Acer Nitro 5 is an inexpensive gaming laptop that promises a good gaming experience even at full HD resolution, but it cuts some corners on build quality and everyday computing performance.

15.6-inch, 1440p 165Hz panel ; Ultra-fast video transcoding ; Incredible AMD performance ; Good color accuracy

Dim display ; Quiet speakers ; Atypical keyboard layout ; Pricey

The Acer Nitro 5 is packed with an ultra-powerful CPU and a dynamite GPU, but it still has to put up one hell of a fight against its beastly rivals.

Even with the shortcomings, the Acer Nitro 5 is still a great value. The AMD powered model is even more so. At $669.99 as a starting price, it’s well under most Ultrabooks in terms of cost, yet delivers far more performance. And with the 256GB SSD...