Acer Nitro 5 (17.3-inch) review: Immersive big-screen gaming on a budget

The 17.3-inch Acer Nitro 5 brings something extra to entry-level gaming laptops, and not just a larger display. The screen is certainly a big part of its appeal, though: Most sub-$1,000 gaming laptops have 15.6-inch displays, and the Acer’s larger screen lets you sink in and get lost in whatever world you’re in. 

Whether I was racing through the rain-soaked streets of Palm City at night in Need for Speed Heat, hiding out in a dumpster on Retail Row in Fortnite or picking off peggies in Far Cry 5, the extra real estate really does make gameplay feel more immersive. The screen is brighter than most at this price, with good off-angle viewing and decent color performance as well. 

It helps, too, that gaming performance is smooth at the display’s full 1080p resolution with quality set to high in the games I tried. I could actually set Fortnite beyond that at epic quality with no issues. Frame rates were just under 60 frames per second on more demanding games at high settings. But if you want more headroom for gaming into the future, I recommend looking for another gaming laptop with at least a GTX 1660 Ti or ideally a GeForce RTX 2060 — not something you’re likely to find at this price.

Acer’s 17.3-inch Nitro 5 delivers big-screen gaming on a budget

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While you can’t upgrade the graphics down the road, beefing up memory and storage isn’t a problem. You’ll need to remove about a dozen screws and carefully pry off the bottom, but once you do you can upgrade with up to 32GB of RAM and there’s a second PCIe M.2 SSD slot (Gen3 x4) as well as room for a hard drive using the included upgrade kit and cable. Plus, like any gaming laptop worth its salt, there are plenty of ports for external expansion. 

Unfortunately, the power jack is in an odd spot in the middle of the right side, so the power cord is always somewhat in the way. And you’ll pretty much always need to be plugged in, and not just for gaming, because battery life on our streaming video test was only 5 hours, 40 minutes. 

The rest of the laptop’s design is OK, at least considering the price. It’s relatively thin and light for a 17-inch gaming laptop — note this is still nearly 6 pounds and an inch thick — and it’s mostly made of plastic. The keyboard feels good for typing and gaming, but the red markings on the black keys can be tough to read without the red backlight on. Acer moved some of the keys around from a typical layout, so you might need time to adjust including finding the power button, which is hidden in plain sight at the top-right corner.  

Acer did add a dedicated key to launch its NitroSense software (it’s where the number pad’s number-lock key would normally be). Hit the button and you’ll have direct access to fan controls and power plans as well as system monitoring. You can also open it up to adjust audio profiles for different game types, music or movies, but you’ll probably still want headphones to hear over the fans when doing anything that taxes the system. 

If you’re looking for more screen for less money in a gaming laptop, Acer’s 17.3-inch Nitro 5 should be in the running. Again, there aren’t a lot of sub-$900 models with a big screen and these components, and it was only $780 at the time of this review, too, making it easier to recommend for immersive play on a budget.