The battery life is a definite plus for this laptop, even if some of the alternatives lasted longer. Budget systems and larger laptops are often either short on runtime or power-hungry, but the Nitro 5 clears a long enough threshold to be a positive. Seven hours off the charger (though your runtime will vary, especially if you play games on battery power) is enough to keep you from worrying about the next time you'll be near a wall outlet. All that raw power dramatically takes its toll on the Nitro 5’s unplugged stamina, though, which is further exacerbated by its small 58Whr capacity battery. In our video rundown test, the Nitro lasted for just 6hrs 30mins before running out of juice. It’s actually a little bit thinner and lighter than last year’s Nitro 5 model. This is thanks to some changes Acer has made to the design, most noticeably by slimming down the bezels around the screen. Acer tells us that the screen-to-body ratio is now 80%, with the bezels narrowed to 7.02mm. Not only does this allow Acer to shrink the overall size of the Nitro 5 (2021) without reducing the size of the screen, but it also makes the new Nitro 5 feel more modern and premium.

There’s also Acer Care Center, where you’ll update drivers, view your serial number and clear up disk space. DTS:X Ultra is a little extraneous, as it has the same audio control functions as NitroSense, but DTS Sound Unbound lets you enable DTS:X for your headphones. That's a useful feature, but this probably could have either been turned on from the start or rolled into another app. The Acer Nitro 5 took the lead in Grand Theft Auto V’s very high benchmark, running at 93 fps at 1080p and 55 fps at 1440p. The Alienware only hit 82 fps at 1080p, while the Zephyrus ran at 86 fps at 1080p and 50 fps at 1600p. The ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition actually found itself bringing up the rear here, with an fps of 71. The Acer Nitro 5 lasted 5 hours and 9 minute battery life in our benchmark, which continually runs OpenGL tests, browses the web and streams video at 150 nits of brightness. That’s respectable for a gaming laptop. By comparison, the Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition had a 3:29 battery life on the same test. The ROG Zephyrus M16 was somewhat longer-lasting with a 6:22 life, and the ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition had an unusually massive battery life for a gaming laptop at 10:14. Heat on the Acer Nitro 5

A stupendously powerful gaming laptop for less than £1,000, the Acer Nitro 5 is a no-brainer

We also found AMD Radeon Software on this device, which is a bit bizarre as it uses an Nvidia GPU. But you can still monitor performance and control graphics settings for certain games from here. Acer told us that this software is included on the device to help control the CPU's integrated Radeon graphics, should you choose to use them. I booted up Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and ran through the roaming fields of England, but the greens and yellows of the land looked as dull and dry as the place that Eivor tried to escape. However, it didn’t look so bad when I had to climb into dark areas, as the bright display guided me through. And the high refresh rate made combat smooth as a Kinder chocolate when I turned down the graphics.

As for look and feel, there’s a lot to be desired with the Acer Nitro 5. That’s not to say it’s plain bad – in fact, there are things we appreciate about it.

A competent laptop for budget gamers

Excluding the Predator, this is a tight grouping, with the Nitro 5 appropriately within a few seconds of the lead. Graphics and Gaming Tests Next up is a pair of CPU-crunching tests: Cinebench R15 stresses all available processor cores and threads while rendering a complex image, while in our Handbrake test, we time systems while they transcode a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution. The Acer Nitro 5 is a solid performer (but not a looker), and it’s got a screen and audio that are accurate if not exemplary. Its keyboard is probably the ugliest part of the laptop, but I was able to hit my typical word count on it. On the Grand Theft Auto V benchmark (Very High, 1080p), the Acer Nitro 5 averaged 61 fps (86 fps with RTX 3060), which matched the budget gaming laptop average (61 fps). It landed in the middle of the Katana GF66’s RTX 3060 (84 fps), the Inspiron 16’s RTX 3050 (55) and the Victus 16’s RTX 3060 (78 fps). The absence of per-key RGB is a bit annoying and the battery life is short, but I’d take those shortcomings given the performance per pound on offer here.