Acer Nitro 7 AN715-51
Bulky laptop worth its weight
It will require some lugging, but the bulk is used to house some impressive specs
Buying a laptop means compromise: you’re paying for components that can be squeezed into a small space withh limited airflow. Greater speed means a pricier and bulkier machine. In the past year or so, though, we’ve seen more of a happy medium in laptops that arere aimed at gamers but may also suit general home and work use.
The Nitro 7 has a 15.6in screen, so it’s a big laptop, and at 2.5kg it’s twice as heavy as some slim 13in models. The battery only lasted three hours 20 minutes in our video-playback test; you might get longer doing light tasks, but shorter with heavy work or games. So this is more of a lugging-between-desks PC than a travelling companion.
That’s the con. The pro is what’s inside. Our Nitro 7 came with an Intel i7-9750h CPU, fed by 8GB of main memory, and an Nvidia Geforce GTX 1660Ti graphics card with 6GB of its own memory. Overall, our tests showed performance similar to a budget desktop PC, or just under half as fast as a system like the Chillblast Fusion Akula (see page 24), which costs about the same without a screen.
It’ll fall further behind in heavier multiprocessor tasks, but even so, this is a very usable machine for all purposes,
SPECIFICATIONS
2.6GHZ Intel Core i7-9750h six-core processor • 8GB memory • 6GB Nvidia Geforce GTX 1660Ti graphics • 512GB SSD • 15.6in 1920x1080-pixel screen • Webcam • USB-C port • 2x USB-A 3.1 ports • USB-A 2 port • HDMI output • 802.11ac Wi-fi • Bluetooth 5 • Gigabit Ethernet • Windows 10 Home • 23x363x260mm (HXWXD) • 2.5kg • One-year warranty www.snipca.com/33047 including photo and video editing. The Full HD screen is up to the job, covering 90 per cent of the SRGB colour space with a of 1.86, indicating pretty good accuracy. The weak point is that although the pixels go quite bright, they don’t go very dark, which limits contrast. The 144Hz refresh rate makes the picture feel rock-solid, as well as pleasing gamers, and the matt coating cuts reflections.
A reasonably quick SSD completes the specs, and the large format makes room for a useful set of ports – though none faster than 5Mbps, and no SD card reader – and a full-size keyboard with number pad. This is backlit, but with limited adjustment, and the keys feel plasticky, while the bed sinks noticeably when you type heavily. The large matt-finished touchpad worked fine. The chunky black case, a mix of metal and plastic, has large grilles through which fans expel hot air from the processors, a little noisily when worked hard. There are classier laptops, but not with this spec at this price. A £999 configuration ( www.snipca. com/33042) with an i5 chip and 4GB GTX 1650 graphics also looks good value.
VERDICT Build quality could be better, but if you want the most portable power per pound, this is a strong contender ★★★★★
ALTERNATIVE HP Omen 15 £1,149 ,9
Similarly equipped pluss a Thunderbolt portporrt for fast storage,ge,, but the screenn is poorer