Acer Nitro 5 AN517-54-77KG Gaming Laptop | Intel Core i7-11800H | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Laptop GPU | 17.3" FHD 144Hz IPS Display | 16GB DDR4 | 1TB NVMe SSD | Killer WiFi 6 | Backlit Keyboard

I ordered the Acer Nitro 5 in mid-November, 2021, and it arrived at my house in less than 48 hours. I plugged it in, turned it on, and it began setting itself up. In order to do this, I needed to know my Microsoft username and password, but I was able to recover them on another computer. Setup took less than 15 minutes. (Perhaps it would have taken longer if I had opted to upgrade to Windows 11.) The advantage of having to enter my Microsoft login info is that it recovered my Office 2016 from my old computer, without my having to reinstall it here.There were additional but less critical updates needed, but the computer allowed me to postpone installing these while I jumped into using the new toy. When I got to them a few days later, they installed in less than 10 minutes.I played around with the computer for a few days, installing programs and testing them to be sure there were no obvious issues.Satisfied that I wouldn’t be returning the computer, I removed the back and installed a Samsung Electronics 870 EVO 4TB 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal SSD in the open bay. Acer had provided the connecting cable and extra screws, which was nice because I dropped one of the Samsung-provided screws and never did find it.I also upgraded the memory with a Crucial RAM 32GB Kit (2x16GB) DDR4 3200MHz CL22 Laptop Memory CT2K16G4SFRA32A.Both installations were very easy, even for someone who hasn’t done a lot of this sort of thing. The hardest part was removing the back of the computer. (Other Acers have/had easy-open trapdoors.)Restoring 2 TB of music, videos, photos and documents from an external drive to the internal Samsung SSD was fast and easy.After eight months I’ve had no problems with the laptop. It’s fast and efficient. I like the way the power cord clicks into place. I’ve had other computers where the plug loosens over time, and it doesn’t seem like that will happen here.One minor complaint is the back-lit keyboard. To re-engage after it turns itself off, you have to hit a key. That means you typically have to hit two keys, one to light the keyboard, and another to reverse whatever key you just hit. With other keyboards you can reactivate the backlight by swiping across the touchpad, but that doesn’t work here. A workaround is to engage the CAPS LOCK key, This causes a small white light on the key to remain lit, even when the backlighting dims, making the key easy to find on a darkened keyboard. But you still have to turn CAPS LOCK off before typingI appreciate the multiple USB 3.2 ports, although with multiple cameras for OBS Studio, a wireless mouse and Bose NC 700 headphones, I can fill them pretty easily. Fortunately it also has the USB Type-C port which allows me to add a multiport hub.

My jaw dropped when I was going over the specs in this laptop while shopping for a new computer for the wife. The GPU was crazy, it had a decent size HD, everything about it jumped out as a steal. The first thing I asked was, "There HAS to be a catch somewhere in this computer. They HAD to have been cheap on SOMETHING to give this type of tech at this price."I'm here to tell you it's the sound card. The built-in speakers are mediocre at best, and it operates with RealTek's trash driver. Let's just say using a headset (yes, with a built-in microphone,) will give you ENTIRELY too many headaches as you scour the internet just to find out it's a common problem and that the only REAL workaround is to use a jack to USB adapter and plug your headset in that way.So what's the actual problem?Plug in a headset. You adjust the settings for it to register as a headset, not headphones. Your bass goes out the window and all of your output sounds like it's coming through blown speakers. Flat and boring. All of it.Instead you set it as headphones. Now you have okay bass, but the only microphone you can use now is the internal on the laptop, which is usually not ideal for most people (because that means everyone will hear almost every noise you make and everything around you instead of just your voice.)NOW, you're seeing I rated this 5 stars even though I have this issue. Yes, you're absolutely right. Even with the sound card being some trash ordered straight off of Wish, the rest of the laptop is amazing. This thing loads games up snappy fast, the graphics are gorgeous, the keyboard is responsive, no overheats, high FPS, I could go on and on about everything but the sound, which, as I said, can be worked around without much issue. I highly recommend this laptop for this price at the time of this posting ($1200.)

I’ve had my laptop for a few months now and I have to say I have no real complaints. Despite some of the other reviews, I received exactly what I ordered new in box. The seal on the box had been broken but only for them to add their flyer in the box. None of the screws had tooling marks and upon startup there was no evidence the machine had ever been turned on. Even when you factory reset a comp there are traces left behind.The machine is fast and I’ve had no issues running any games that I have played on it, although this was not primarily purchased to be a gaming laptop.Minor complaints; The speaker sound is horrendous. Use a Bluetooth speaker if wanting to use the speakers otherwise you’re not going to hear much and definitely no quality. The fans being on the bottom of the laptop require there to be a lip underneath to ensure sufficient airflow. Acer could have done a better job. Use a laptop stand with airflow ports or make one yourself.Aside from that, when it comes to the performance of the machine, I have no complaints.