Acer's Nitro 5 is a budget-friendly gamer that just makes the cut

Gamers under budget have a lot more laptop options these days and the Acer Nitro 5 is worth checking out if mobile performance and not all-around-perfection is your goal. It looks a bit understated for a gaming laptop. There are no big emblems or multicolored LEDs. But the Nitro 5's stylized vents and glowing red keyboard are just enough that it won't be confused for a business laptop. The full HD display, keyboard, and touchpad are all decent, but you can see where some corners were cut to get the laptop's price down under $700. For instance off angle viewing on the display is good but, colours look a little washed out. The keyboard is comfortable but, the red on black markings can be tough to read and there is a lot of flex here specially around the touch pad. For gaming you will probably hook up your own peripherals when you can, anyway and there are plenty of ports here to do just that Several configurations are available for the Nitro 5, but ours was well stocked for the money with an 8th gen Intel processor and Nvidia's GTX 1050 TVI GU. This combo provided enough power to smoothly play newer games at medium to high settings. You might wanna add more memory and storage down the road, but at least you can open it up and easily do it on your own. And like many gaming laptops, battery life is just okay running for 5.5 hours on our streaming video battery test. In general though, the Acer Nitro 5 is a good deal that should keep enjoying game after game for sometime to come.