Gaming on a budget can be a tricky balance. While many gaming laptops are available for under $1,000, you still have to make lots of sacrifices to achieve that three-digit price, and that’s particularly common with recent machines. The Acer Nitro V ANV15-51-51H9 carries its fair share of tradeoffs to hit an MSRP of less than $800 (can be had for much less on offer), but game performance remains intact.
Beyond gaming performance, the Nitro V boasts a robust port selection and the build quality is fairly good, especially compared to other gaming laptops in this price range. What you don’t get, however, is quiet operation and the NitroSense software can slow down things a bit.
Acer makes up for those compromises with a light and compact design, and the Nvidia RTX 4060 GPU, Intel Core i5-13420H processor, and 144Hz display are nice additions to help deliver a surprisingly immersive gaming experience. While it’s a budget laptop through and through, these three aspects make it feel like a decent choice for anyone just getting into PC gaming. Still, pro gamers should look at other alternatives, like the Asus ROG Strix G16 our Editors’ Choice for midrange gaming laptops.
About the Acer Nitro V
Here are the specs on the gaming laptop in this review:
- Processor: Intel Core i5-13420H
- Graphics: Nvidia RTX 4050
- RAM: 8GB DDR5 SDRAM
- Storage: 512GB
- Display: 1920 x 1080p @ 144Hz display
- Ports: 1 x HDMI; 1 x USB-C; 4 x USB-A; 1 x Ethernet; 1 x Headphone jack
- Wireless connectivity: Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2
- Webcam: 720p
- Battery: 230 W battery charger
- Weight: 4.66 pounds
- Size: 14.26 x 0.93 x 9.44 inches
Though hardly a powerhouse, the Nvidia RTX 4050 is a modern Nvidia GPU that supports the 40-series’ full range of features. Only a handful of competitors like the MSI GF63 Thin Series offer the RTX at a similar price.
Design & Features
The Nitro V ANV15 may not be the best-looking laptop, but it’s not basic. As far as gaming laptops go, this one is more modest, though it does have some design flourishes on the lid that looks beautiful in the right lighting. The abstract grey and blue steak up top breathes some air of sophistication, and the lack of LEDs ensures that it can be used for work and play.
It’s a smart design approach because this laptop is compact and light enough to take on a daily commute; it won’t take up a lot of space at the coffee shop, the office, or the library. That’s great if you’re the type who likes to use a single laptop for work and still need to play some games later in the day. Unlike the Dell G15 which is available in various colors, the Nitro ANV15-51-51H9 and all its variations are only available in black with the aforementioned grey and blue streaks.
Plus, it has a generous number of ports for its size and price: three USB-A ports, one USB-C port, an Ethernet port, a 3.5mm audio jack, and a single HDMI port. Most of these ports are located on the right side, with only a single USB-A port and the audio jack on the right side. Practically, an additional USB-C port on the right side would have been nice, but it isn’t a deal breaker.
Display, Keyboard, and Touchpad
The 144Hz refresh rate on the Acer ANV15-51-73B9’s 16:9 FHD display is one of the compelling reasons to spend your money on this laptop. We’ve reviewed notebooks with 165Hz refresh rates or higher, and 16:10 aspect ratios, but 144Hz is pretty fast to deliver immersive gameplay, and it’s something considered a gold standard in the midrange category.
That said, the Nitro V’s 144Hz refresh rate has little use when it comes to productivity. This is 100% gaming-focused, and along with support for Nvidia G-Sync, it means that games incrementally look great, whether you’re running an old favorite or a blazing modern hit.
Granted the panel isn’t overly bright, maxing at 250nits, but it’s not easy to tell the difference unless you have a color monitor handy or another monitor with higher brightness to compare with.
Acer crammed a keyboard with a numpad inside the Nitro V 15’s frame. It doesn’t fit well, meaning you have to do with a few sacrifices like half-sized numpad keys and tiny Shift, Tab, Control, and Caps Lock keys. Still, the Nitro ANV15-51-51H9 is a large laptop and there’s lots of palm rest space below the keyboard. The Nitro V’s touchpad isn’t great either. It has the same cheap, simple feel common to most gaming laptops, but it’s reasonably large to easily accommodate multi-touch gestures.
Performance
The Acer Nitro V is an inexpensive gaming laptop and cuts a few corners to achieve this price. Intel’s Core i5-13420H processor is a good example – simply an eight-core processor with four performance cores, and a max Turbo Boost of 4.6GHz. Most gaming laptops above the Nitro V use the more powerful Intel Core i7-13700H, which boasts 14 cores and a maximum Turbo Boost of 5GHz. Acer also equips it with a mere 8GB of RAM and a meager 512GB solid-state drive.
The Acer Nitro V’s processor performance is just ok, arguably at par with most other budget machines. Gaming is what matters. Nvidia’s RTX 4050 6GB is the showstopper at this price and offers maximum graphics power of 75 watts, which is right in the middle of the 35-to-115-watt range it can support.
Running Cyberpunk 2077 on Ultra graphics settings at 1080p results in an average frame rate of 51 frames per second (fps). When ray tracing and DLSS are turned off, Cyberpunk 2077 improves hovering around 63 FPS when playing mostly high settings.
Aside from Cyberpunk 2077, Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla is yet another game that’s unforgiving to graphics cards. With settings set to high, the game plays at an average of 70 FPS. When playing older titles like Metro Exodus Enhanced and Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the Nitro V averages 60 FPS on high settings and 73 FPS on medium settings, respectively.
The only thing you’ll find limiting is NitroSense which often forces you to lower settings or wait when attempting to play graphically demanding games. For instance, when you want to play Fortnite, with settings set to high with DLSS, you’ll be locked onto the balanced power plan, making the game run slowly. Lowering the settings doesn’t help either, in fact, the fluctuations in framerate are so drastic that you might have to exit the game.
The idea of locking performance mode until reaching 40% is terrible. Manufacturers shouldn’t throttle performance without a means of overriding the command as it undermines the customers’ desire to do with the hardware as they please. Beyond that, the machine handles 1080p games fluently, something you’re not getting in most sub-$1000 gaming laptops.
Budget gaming laptops tend to struggle with battery life, and the Nitro V is no exception. It lasts slightly more than four hours, which isn’t terrible, but still not enough to manage a full workday or a cross-country flight. In that case, you’ll want to pack the power brick.
Should you buy the Acer Nitro V?
YES, it is affordable and provides good gaming performance.
The Acer Nitro V ANV15-51-51H9 is a laptop built first and foremost for gamers. Its high-refresh display, powerful graphics card, and compact design give it the performance necessary to play games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider at high framerates without slowing down.
However, if you’re looking for a laptop that’s fluent for more than gaming, you could feel ensnared by the Nitro V’s less stellar processor performance, meager RAM, and short battery life, but the same is true for most inexpensive gaming laptops.
At the end of the day, your buying decision will hinge on price and gaming performance. The Acer Nitro V ANV15-51-51H9 is solid but not spectacular, so look for a sale.
Recommended Configuration
Acer Nitro V Gaming Laptop | Intel Core i5-13420H Processor
$649.99 in stock
The Review
Acer Nitro V ANV15-51-51H9
The Acer Nitro V ANV15-51-51H9 is a fine value for a budget gaming laptop driving over 60fps at 1080p on most games, but it does very little to shine over competitors with the same RTX 4050 graphics card and a below $1000 price point.
PROS
- Attractive price
- Decent for 1080p gaming
- Wide selection of ports
- Solid build quality
CONS
- Lagging processor performance
- Limited 512GB SSD
Review Breakdown
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ARS SCORE
