Acer Nitro 7 (AN715-51-76LS) Review

The New Acer Nitro 7  is coming soon

 Back in April, Acer refreshed its gaming portfolio of laptops and also introduced a few new models. One of them was the Nitro 7, a new series in the Nitro gaming laptop family, designed to offer a more premium experience compared to the Nitro 5, for the casual gaming crowd.

This new model features a slightly tweaked design, narrow display bezels, and a metal-covered body, which help it stand out from its sibling. With the latest Intel 9th generation Core CPU and Nvidia's GeForce GTX 16-series GPU on board, does the Nitro 7 offer a good bang for the buck? Let's find out.

Acer Nitro 7 (AN715-51-76LS) design

The Acer Nitro 7 doesn't have a flashy design, which is something we like. The monolithic build looks slick, and the black paint job doesn't attract smudges very easily. The lid has an aluminium layer, which gives the display some added protection. We noticed some flex in the lid but nothing that caused the display to start warping. You don't get any backlit logos or RGB LEDs; instead, there are some simple glossy diagonal stripes on the lid. The dual-hinge design feels sturdy and the display can extend to about 170 degrees outwards.

The 15.6-inch IPS display has a full-HD resolution (1920x1080) and a 144Hz refresh rate. The model we're reviewing also has Acer's ComfyView display feature, which is to say it has a matte anti-reflective treatment which should be less distracting when gaming. We found the brightness to be more than adequate for indoor use. The Nitro 7 also has slim bezels on the left and right of the display, but slightly thicker ones on the top and bottom. We don't mind this as it means the webcam is in its traditional position, above the display.

The metal layering extends to the palm rest area, which adds to the premium feel of using this laptop The chiclet-style keyboard keys are well spaced and have good travel, which makes them responsive for typing. There aren't very noisy either, which is something we liked. Acer has managed to squeeze in a number pad, due to which the rest of the keys and trackpad are off-centre. It took a while to get used to this positioning before we could comfortably type at our regular pace. The keys have red backlighting, with four levels of brightness. Some keys such as the WASD and the direction buttons have red borders, to make them stand out from the rest.

For connectivity, the Nitro 7 offers a decent selection of ports. You get three full-sized USB Type-A (2x USB 3.1, 1x USB 2.0) ports and a USB Type-C port (USB 3.1 Gen1). There's also HDMI 2.0, a Gigabit Ethernet port, a microphone and headphone combo port, and a charging port. The Nitro 7 also has two LEDs on the right, for power and charging status. There aren't any ports at the back of the laptop, which only features trapezoidal exhaust vents. Surprisingly, there's no SD card slot, not even a microSD one.

The bottom has more vents and a bunch of thick rubber feet for grip, which also elevate the laptop for better air circulation. The Nitro 7 doesn't offer easy access to the RAM and storage, so you'll have to remove the entire base, which is held in place by Philips screws.

Overall, the Acer Nitro 7 has a cool, understated look which means you could potentially bring it into a workplace without drawing too much attention to yourself. At its thinnest point, it measures around 19mm in thickness but it is on the heavier side at 2.5kg. Thankfully, it is relatively compact for a 15.6-inch laptop, and getting it into a backpack wasn't any trouble for us. According to Acer India's website, the Nitro 7 comes with a 1-year International Travelers warranty. In the box, you get a 180W adapter and a user manual.

Acer Nitro 7 (AN715-51-76LS) specifications and software

The Acer Nitro 7 is available in many configurations in India, and the one we have is the top-end variant. This includes an Intel Core i7-9750H Hexa-core CPU with HyperThreading, 8GB of DDR4 RAM, 1TB SSD storage (2x 512GB NVMe SSDs in RAID 0), and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GPU with 6GB of GDDR6 RAM. The laptop has a second free RAM slot, so you can double the amount it ships with. Acer also has some variants in India which have a combination of an SSD and a mechanical drive. On our unit, the 2.5-inch hard drive slot was unused, so you could add a mechanical drive or another SSD for more storage space.

Other specifications include Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5, Gigabit Ethernet with a Killer Networks controller, and an HD webcam. The image quality from the camera is decent under indoor, ambient lighting, but not great. The laptop also features a 4-cell, 55WHr battery, which according to Acer, should be able to deliver a maximum battery life of 7 hours.