70 PCWorld DECEMBER 2020REVIEWS ACER NITRO 5
The Nitro 5 snagged an excellent battery life score
given its 57.5 watt-hour battery.When maxing out Destiny 2’s graphical
settings and turning vsync off, the Nitro 5
managed framerates in the 50-60 range,
including during a hectic “the enemy is
moving against each other” episode with
dozens of Fallen and Cabal. That’s pretty
good considering the Nitro 5’s GTX 1650
GPU, but there was also frequent screen
tearing due to the 60Hz display on our Nitro
5 review unit.
Once I washed its video settings through
the GeForce Experience optimizer (which, in
the Nitro 5’s case, dials down such settings
as foliage distance, shadow quality, and
screen space ambient occlusion) and turned
vsync back on, Destiny 2 on the Nitro 5
looked fantastic, with nearly rock-solid 60
fps (including during a chaotic Taken Blight
public event) and no screen tearingwhatsoever. So if you were thinking of
snapping up a Nitro 5 to feed your Destiny 2
habit, and you don’t mind giving up a few
bells and whistles (who’s looking at foliage
when there’s a Taken Captain in your face?),
you’ll be pretty happy.BATTERY LIFE
We test battery life on laptops by looping a
4K video with screen brightness set to about
250 nits and the volume at 50 percent,
with headphones plugged in.
Generally speaking, we don’t expect
much from gaming laptops when it comes
to battery life. Given its midsized 57.5
watt-hour battery, the Nitro 5 isn’t exactly
poised to knock anyone’s socks off.
And yet, the Nitro 5 lands a solid
second place, right behind the MicrosoftVideo rundown test
Minutes
Microsoft Surface Book 3Core i7-1065G7
Acer Nitro 5 AN515-44-R99q Ryzen 5 4600H
Lenovo Yoga C940 15Core i7-9750H
Acer Nitro 5 AN515-54-51M5Core i5-9300H
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Ryzen 9 4900HS
Acer Predator Triton 500Core i7-8750H
HP Pavilion Gaming LaptopCore i7-9750H
Acer Predator Triton 500Core i7-10750H
LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE7 17414545342633354435228