How is Acer Nitro 5 battery life?
How long does the battery last in the Nitro 5?
I tested battery life using a model with AMD Ryzen 5 2500U processor (CPU) and AMD Radeon RX 560X graphics card (GPU). Compared to the Intel Core i5 models that come with NVIDIA GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti GPUs, the AMD hardware should suck up less power. The Ryzen CPU has a 15 W thermal design point (TDP) and the Radeon GPU sits at 65 W, while the Intel Core i5-8300H and NVIDIA GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti GPUs sit at 45 W and 75 W respectively.
Gaming generally requires all pieces of your PC's hardware to kick into high gear. If you're without your power adapter, you're only going to get about 1.5 hours of life from the 48 Wh battery before a warning pops up letting you know that the Nitro 5 will soon power off. This is using the "High Performance" Windows 10 power preset, which delivers the smoothest gaming experience.
If you're using your Nitro 5 for general tasks — web browsing, word processing, video watching, or writing emails — the battery should be able to hold out for about four to five hours if you keep the screen brightness at 50 percent and Windows 10 power plan on "Balanced."
How long does it take to charge the Nitro 5's battery?
The Nitro 5 comes with a beefy 135 W power adapter that uses a barrel-style port on the right side of the laptop to charge. From dead, you can expect to get a full charge in about two hours of being plugged in.
How to extend battery life in your Nitro 5
There are a bunch of tips and tricks you can try out within Windows 10 to extend the battery life for your Acer Nitro 5, including creating your own power plan, setting certain apps to not run on battery power, and disabling wireless communication.
However, some of the usual methods for getting better battery life will affect gaming performance, so you'll no doubt want to go slow and test out what delivers your device the best mix of battery life and sweet, sweet gaming glory.
Acer's Nitro 5 is a budget gaming laptop with average battery life
The battery life the Nitro 5 offers is pretty well in line with most gaming laptops, which is made more impressive considering the bargain price. You should be able to get over five hours of life if you play it safe, but while gaming, you'll no doubt want to keep your charger nearby.
Low-cost gaming laptop with average battery life
Considering the Acer Nitro 5 starts at just $600, the battery life ranging from about 1.5 hours to more than 5 hours really isn't bad and matches what most other gaming laptops can offer.
