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The Acer Nitro V ANV15-52-76NK is yet another gaming laptop from the popular brand that promises solid performance for a relatively modest price. We’ve tested many gaming laptops under $1,000, and while some meet performance expectations and include required features, others fall short. Acer’s Nitro V checks most of those boxes, and it does so without costing too much.
Our review model is the ANV15-52-76NK, offering an Intel Core i7 CPU and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU for under a grand. It’s fairly well-built with good connectivity and upgradability. It rocks a fairly muted design, although the lines and Nitro symbol on the lid hint at its gaming breed.
While it’s not as well-built or as powerful as the best gaming laptops, such as the Lenovo Legion 5i, its performance is more than sufficient for solid 1080p gaming. You’ll get around 60 fps or above at high settings in select AAA titles. And if you don’t want to spend top dollar for the latest tech, the Nitro V can stand proud as a reasonably priced gaming laptop worth the money.
About the Acer Nitro V
Here are the specs on the gaming laptop in this review:
- Processor: Intel Core i5-13620H
- Graphics: Nvidia RTX 4050
- RAM: 16GB 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: 4.7 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 Acer Nitro V ANV15-52-76NK 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 look beautiful in the right lighting. The abstract grey and blue streaks up top breathe 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 ANV15-52-76NK 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 Nitro ANV15-52-76NK’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 165Hz 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 165Hz 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 250 nits, 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 make do with a few sacrifices like half-sized numpad keys and tiny Shift, Tab, Control, and Caps Lock keys.
Still, the Nitro ANV15-52-76NK is a large laptop, and there’s a lot 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.
Gaming & Graphics Performance
The Acer Nitro V ANV15-52-76NK is an inexpensive gaming laptop and cuts a few corners to achieve this price. Intel’s Core i5-13620H 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 16GB of RAM and a 512GB solid-state drive (SSD).
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 Acer Nitro V ANV15-52-76NK delivers great performance for the price – as long as you keep it at 1080p.
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.
Acer Nitro V ANV15-52-76NK Review: Bottom line
The Acer Nitro V ANV15-52-76NK 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, display brightness, 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. Overall, the Acer Nitro V 16 is among our top picks for a budget gaming laptop and is money well spent.
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