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Here’s how I picked out my next gaming laptop

If you're thinking about buying a new gaming laptop, read this first.

Fergus Halliday
Dec 02, 2022
Icon Time To Read4 min read

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I just bought my first gaming laptop in over a decade. Here’s the low down on what I bought, how I decided on it and what some of the runner-up options looked like.

Over the past few years, I’ve reviewed gaming laptops of all shapes and sizes. I’ve written about portable powerhouses built by every brand from ASUS to Razer. I’ve weighed in on 16-inch desktop replacements and 13-inch ultraportables. To my surprise, the gaming laptop I ultimately ended up pulling the trigger on came from a manufacturer that I usually don’t rate all that highly. 

What I picked: Acer Nitro 5

Acer Nitro 5
Acer Nitro 5
From
$1499
pro 11th Gen i9 Processor
pro Nvidia RTX 3060
con Only 16GB of RAM

Pricing and availability only accurate as of last page update.

During this year’s Black Friday sales, I picked up the Acer Nitro 5.

I got the model with an Intel Core i9-11900H processor, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, an Nvidia RTX 3060 graphic card, 512GB of SSD storage and a QHD resolution screen clocked at 165Hz. I very almost bought it through Bing Lee for $1899, but then looked around and found a better deal on it through Centre Com.

RTX 4090 header

Nvidia RTX 40 vs RTX 30 vs RTX 20 series side-by-side showdown

One GPU to rule them all.

How I decided

While I’ve plenty of nostalgia for the Predator gaming rigs of the mid-2000s, I can’t really say that much of what Acer has recently put into the market has done all that much for me. With the exception of its nifty Concept D line, most of what the brand has put out has seemed, to put it kindly, forgettable and generic.

To be clear, this sentiment isn’t even necessarily a knock on Acer. I’ve been following the world of gaming laptops long enough to know that standing out in a category where most of the players tend to be building similar products with the same parts is really difficult. 

It’s a testament to what the likes of Alienware and ROG have done with the formula that they can manage to overcome this tendency towards similarity. Unfortunately, not every gaming laptop maker rises to this level. Most don’t, and more often than not I’ve found that Acer falls into that bucket.

Fortunately, as I set out on my journey into the world of buying gaming laptops, I found myself less and less caught up on the things that make more exceptional gaming laptops shine. 

If it came down to it, a thin and light form factor or a bespoke design would be nicer than the alternative. However, when I think about the ways in which I’m expecting to use my laptop, those strengths don’t count for as much as they would otherwise.

Coming off using an Intel Hades Canyon NUC as my main PC for several years and a work-issued MacBook Pro as its replacement once it broke, I knew that I could probably approach my next gaming laptop with the expectation that I’d probably be using it at my desk most of the time. 

While the 15.6-inch QHD screen found on the Nitro 5 is pretty respectable, courtesy of the 165Hz refresh rate, I wouldn’t have been all that bothered if it was only 1080p. For most of the gaming I plan to do on this thing, it’s probably going to be plugged into a monitor. 

Likewise, since my mouse, keyboard and headphones can be handled by the connected dock, the fact that the Nitro 5 only has a single USB Type-C port alongside a trio of USB Type-A ports isn’t nearly as much of a constraint as it might be. 

In the stricter and vacuum-like context of a review, these limitations are much harder to forgive than they are in reality. It’s much the same story when it comes to factors like battery life. 

For longer play sessions, I’m expecting to use the Nitro 5 at a desk with a power supply connected to it. Having the extra bit of portability in a pinch that a bigger battery would provide might be nice, but it’s not a necessity that it makes sense for me to pay extra for.

Acer Intel Nvidia laptop

All that said, the detail that really did push me over the line here was the specs. Wading into the world of gaming laptops for the first time in over a decade, I was itching to find something powered by AMD’s Ryzen processors, but snagging last generation’s overkill Intel chipset is a more than worthy alternative. 

Likewise, when it came to the graphics involved I know that I’m always happy to compromise on fidelity if it means a smoother frame rate. More often than not, I end up playing most games in 1080p. While I do like to dabble with more demanding titles like Cyberpunk 2077 from time to time, most of the best games I end up playing on my PC are either a few years old, an indie game or a multiplayer-oriented title with more modest requirements like Overwatch 2 or Valorant.

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 inside the Acer Nitro 5 isn’t going to last me forever, but it’s probably going to last me long enough for the price I’m paying. A GeForce GTX 1650 might skirt on the side of not quite powerful enough and graduating to something like a 3070 would probably mean paying more than I wanted to.

In the past, I've knocked points off laptops and smartphones for not having enough storage or RAM, and it's true that what the Nitro 5 offers in both departments is a little less than satisfying. However, as opposed to the video card or CPU, upgrading either later down the line is a very real possibility.

I do regret that I couldn't manage to find a gaming laptop that was one generation of silicon closer to the cutting edge, but I don't regret prioritising the details that can't be worked around or upgraded later down the line over the things that can.

Even if you don't end up buying the same Acer-branded machine I did, that's someone that anyone in the market for a new gaming laptop may want to consider.

Other great gaming laptops I considered

Lenovo IdeaPad 3i gaming laptop
Lenovo IdeaPad 3i
Starts at
$1699
pro Slim design
pro Nvidia RTX 3050
con 11th Gen Core i5 processor

Pricing and availability only accurate as of last page update.

HP Victus 2022 gaming laptop
HP Victus 15 (2022)
Starts at
$1599
pro Ryzne 5800H processor
pro 1TB of SSD storage
pro 32GB of RAM
con Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti

Pricing and availability only accurate as of last page update.

Lenovo Legion 5i gaming laptop
Lenovo Legion 5i
Starts at
$2399
pro 12th Gen Core-i5 Processor
pro Nvidia RTX 3050
pro 16GB of DDR5 RAM
con More expensive

Pricing and availability only accurate as of last page update.

Allied Tomcat A16 gaming laptop
Allied Tomcat A16 Ryzen gaming laptop
Starts at
$2099
pro Ryzen 5900HX processor
pro Nvidia RTX 3060
pro 32GB of RAM
con Larger than I needed it to be

Pricing and availability only accurate as of last page update.

Fergus Halliday
Written by
Fergus Halliday
Fergus Halliday is a journalist and editor for Reviews.org. He’s written about technology, telecommunications, gaming and more for over a decade. He got his start writing in high school and began his full-time career as the Editor of PC World Australia. Fergus has made the MCV 30 Under 30 list, been a finalist for seven categories at the IT Journalism Awards and won Most Controversial Writer at the 2022 Consensus Awards. He has been published in Gizmodo, Kotaku, GamesHub, Press Start, Screen Rant, Superjump, Nestegg and more.

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