 You could point at almost any major category in tech these days. TVs, phones, computers, and you could make the argument that the pace of technological advancement has slowed and they've gotten boring. But here's one that's really exciting. Sub $1,000 gaming laptops these days, compared to even models from a couple of years ago, are amazing. And the new generation of Nvidia graphics cards is a big part of the reason. So the GTX 1650 mobile GPU is actually priced the same as the outgoing 1050 Ti, but it's got a fair bit more power under the hood. So if you're a cheap gamer or even just someone who cares about getting good value for your dollar, we think you should give the Acer Nitro 7 and especially the Nitro 5 a really good look. So let's talk about what they did right and what they left out to keep these budget beasts affordable. The look of the Nitro 5 is a bit divisive. Although the overall feel of the machine is pretty good, and I appreciate the much smaller bezels, the red accents on the keyboard and the trackpad, along with loads of plastic, make the Nitro 5 look a bit toy-like. It's better endowed cousin, the Nitro 7, improves on this a bit with a slightly more premium screen backing and less red. But it still falls into the trap of looking like something that a high schooler might think looks pretty dope. On both models, you'll find heaps of I.O. They've got four USB ports, including one type C, along with headphones, full-size HDMI, and Ethernet, which you thankfully won't need too often since unlike the Zephyrus GA502, the 2019 Nitro lineup includes 2x2 Wi-Fi cards by default. Of course, those are minor details, and after that intro, what everyone wants to know is what kind of performance we can squeeze out of an $800 laptop. Well, good news. The GTX 1650 put on a really good show, easily doling out 60 FPS at 1080p in every game we tried without sacrificing too much eye candy. Compared to the GTX 1050 Ti, we're actually looking at about a 20% improvement across the board. Now, that's not enough to make for a completely different experience from last gen, but it is definitely noticeable. So games that previously were best played on medium settings can now comfortably be set to high. Those frames don't matter though if there isn't a good display panel to show them on, and at first, it seemed like the Nitro 7 was going to come away with an easy win here. Its 8-bit panel is brighter, has richer colors, and maybe even higher contrast than the 6-bit panel found on the Nitro 5. But, it turns out the Nitro 5 has an A-sepid sleeve. When we tried overclocking the display panels using custom resolution utility, the Nitro 7 tapped out where most laptops do, slightly above 60 Hz. The Nitro 5 on the other hand, just kept going and going all the way up to a whopping 90 Hz. Now, I don't want to guarantee that your Nitro 5 will be able to display that many frames per second. This is way beyond the official spec, and Acer could be sourcing panels from multiple vendors. But on ours, games like Overwatch or Rainbow Six Siege appear noticeably smoother for a tangible competitive advantage. Now, if you've got a mixed workload that includes some hobbyist level photo or video editing, the Nitro 7 would still be a better bet. But if you primarily plan on gaming, in our mind, the Nitro 5 is the clear choice here. Above the screens, you'll find a webcam, which Acer brands as Super High Dynamic Range. It looks a little something like this. I wouldn't exactly describe it as super, but hey, at least they've got one. Zing, Asus! What's more impressive though is the speakers, which got pretty loud and have a nice full sound. You know, that's another thing that has really improved a lot on budget gaming laptops, right? Actually Dell had really good ones a while ago, but they got worse. Okay, well. Back to performance. If you do plan on using either of these for content creation or professional purposes, the internal displays on either of them might not be perfect for that, but there's always the option of hooking up to an external one for color critical work. So we checked it out. The i5 processor in our Nitro 5 was very well behaved. It turboed up to about 4 GHz, settling in at 3 GHz on all four cores. That is well above base clock. But the i7 model was actually pretty disappointing. When we put it under an all core load, the thermals were fine, but it immediately ran up against a power limit and settled in below its base clock at 2.4 GHz when hit with the demanding load. Now thanks to its two extra cores and its higher boost, it's still the better processor out of the two, but if we're gonna call out Apple for under building their machines, then Acer needs to expect the same treatment. Silver lining, at least this lack of adequate power delivery means that neither laptop gets exceptionally loud under load. Both laptops are equipped with the same keyboard, and it's fine. Just like it was two years ago. But in light of recent competition, we think that Acer needs to seriously think about upgrading their keyboards across the entire lineup. It's still not terrible, but the keystrokes are a bit on the heavy side with very little in the way of tactility. So if you're able to justify the price jump to a Zephyrus G502 or an Alienware M15, your fingers will thank you when you're writing long emails about why you couldn't finish your assignment because you were busy gaming. As for the trackpad, it's also fine. Fortunately, Acer is using the Windows Precision drivers, but the chassis flex around the trackpad makes the clicks feel a bit mushy. Again, an area where I'll accept it today, especially at this price point, but Acer needs to consider improving it for next year. The 55 watt-hour battery found in the Nitro 5 and 7 is about what you'd expect in this price range, and since the components aren't too power hungry, and actually the screens on both are a bit on the dim side, you can actually use the Nitro 5 away from the wall for close to eight hours if you're just surfing the web, with the Nitro 7 coming in closer to seven. Both laptops feature great upgradeability with easy access to RAM, two M.2 drive slots, and space for a two and a half inch drive, so we love this because it means you don't have to sweat it when you don't have a ton of money today, so you select an 8 gig RAM, 128 gig storage option, hoping that you'll have more money when you finish your program and you can expand it later. So then with that in mind, should you actually buy either of these laptops? Well the $830 price tag on the Nitro 5 is really hard to complain about, and if you want a game on a budget, the 90 Hertz display overclock will give you a surprisingly good experience if you get a golden unit like ours. So that one is coming out of this review with a full-blown recommendation. As for the Nitro 7, although the panel is better, it's a tougher sell given that the i7 model struggles with performance crippling power issues. Now it's possible that everything else at this price point will have the same problems, so I'm gonna end up saying, well pick your poison. But I kind of doubt it, and we're gonna know for certain soon enough when Dell sends over their new G3. So thanks for watching guys, if this video sucked, you know what to do, but if it was awesome, hit like, get subscribed, or maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff we featured at the link below. Also down there is our merch store, which finally has the stealth hoodie, this one that I'm wearing right now, and our community forum, which you should totally join.