Acer Nitro V 16 ANV16-41 review: An affordable gaming laptop with a hitch

For a laptop to be worthy of our recommendation often depends on a single point. On paper, the Nitro V 16 ANV16-41 made a thoroughly successful impression. AMD's 8000-generation Ryzen processors are known for their good power-to-speed ratio. The situation is similar with the GeForce RTX 4060 from Nvidia, which is installed in our test configuration. 16 GB DDR5 RAM and a 1 TB SSD are also (still) appropriate in the price segment of just over 1,000 dollars.

Its IPS screen features the 16:10 aspect ratio which is popular at the moment, and it has a refresh rate of 165 Hz and a resolution of 1,920 x 1,200 pixels. What you don't realize at first glance, however, is that Acer has gone for a rather inferior display, as we will explain in more detail shortly. In summary, its color space coverage in particular is lacking, making content appear rather pale and dull. In other disciplines, it was also only enough to achieve average results—be it its input devices, speakers, webcam or battery capacity. Meanwhile, it scored plus points for its upgrade and maintenance options: Both its RAM (two RAM banks) and mass storage (two M.2 slots) can be easily replaced or expanded if necessary.

Overall, it is still difficult to recommend the Nitro V 16 when glancing at some of its competitors. For a similar or slightly higher price, there are gaming laptops with significantly better displays, such as the Lenovo Legion 5 16IRX G9, which has a Core i7-14650HX and an RTX 4060. We also listed the HP Victus 16, the Nubia RedMagic Titan 16 and the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16—all 16-inch models—as further opponents in our test.

At the time of writing, you can purchase the Acer Nitro V 16 ANV16-41-R5AT via online retailers such as Amazon, where it currently costs $959.

The Nitro V 16 is available in several variants. Depending on the configuration, it features a Ryzen 5 8645HS or a Ryzen 7 8845HS inside. Its RAM ranges from 16 to 32 GB and its NVMe SSD has a capacity of 1 TB in all cases. Either a GeForce RTX 4050 or RTX 4060 takes care of image processing. The models are priced between $1,000 and $1,400.

The Acer Nitro V 16's case is made completely out of plastic, which looks neat at first glance, but doesn't feel very high-quality on closer inspection and tends to rattle here and there. However, we have nothing to complain about in terms of its build quality, which is beyond reproach. Its hinges do a passable job and its screen can be easily opened with one hand (maximum angle approx. 145°). Unfortunately, the surfaces of the laptop are prone to collecting visible fingerprints, not least due to its dark color.

With a weight of 2.5 kg, the Nitro V 16 is the heaviest 16-inch model in the comparison field—although most of its competitors are only slightly lighter. Only the Zephyrus G16 stands out with its weight of 1.8 kg. The picture looks almost the same when it comes to build height. At 2.55 cm, the Acer device is again in line with the competition, with only the Asus laptop being below the 2 cm mark.

Ports

If you exclude the missing card reader, the laptop's selection of ports is quite impressive. Although we would have liked another USB-C port, the existing USB port is a version 4 model (including DisplayPort). The two USB-A ports, on the other hand, use the 3.2 Gen 2 standard. There is also an HDMI 2.1 port, a Gigabit LAN port, an audio jack and an opening for Kensington locks. Acer has placed some of the ports on the back of the device, which is beneficial when using an external mouse (keyword: space).

The installed MediaTek chip (RZ616) delivered solid (transmitting) to very good (receiving) performance during our range test from a distance of one meter to the reference router.

Buyers can only expect poor-quality standard fare from its webcam. The 0.9 MP model is neither sharp nor particularly true to color (see pictures).

Acer delivers the laptop with a few information leaflets and a semi-compact 135-watt power supply.

The base plate is secured with a total of 11 Phillips screws. As mentioned at the beginning, there are two M.2 slots (one of which is empty) and two RAM banks under the laptop's hood, although these are concealed behind a cover. The battery, WLAN module and cooling system are also accessible.

The manufacturer mainly uses cardboard for the device's packaging. Only the power supply unit and the laptop itself are wrapped in a plastic film or sleeve.

The laptop is covered by a standard 12-month warranty in the United States.

The touchpad is roughly on the same level as the keyboard in terms of quality, meaning it is usable but not a real highlight. Acer could work on its precision and gliding properties. The click areas also sound quite rickety, i.e. cheap. However, its size of 12.6 x 8.2 cm gives no cause for criticism.

This brings us to the Nitro V 16's biggest weakness, namely its pale display. 57% sRGB coverage, 40% AdobeRGB coverage and 38% DCI-P3 coverage is a pretty poor result and should really be a thing of the past in 2024. Among the comparison devices, such a poor display can only be found in the HP Victus 16.

Irrespective of the installed GPU (RTX 4050 or RTX 4060), the Nitro V 16 comes in somewhere in the mid-range of gaming laptops. The Ryzen processor (8645HS or 8845HS) should generally have enough reserves for the coming years.

The Ryzen 7 8845HS is an eight-core model from the Zen 4 generation, which can process up to 16 threads in parallel via SMT and houses a fairly fast iGPU in the form of the Radeon 780M. During the benchmarks and the Cinebench loop, the 4 nm chip was roughly on par with the Intel Core i7-14700HX. However, the 8845HS didn't stand a chance against the newer Ryzen AI 9 HX 370.

In terms of system performance, the Nitro V 16 landed in the penultimate place, just ahead of the HP Victus 16—although the differences to the other comparison devices weren't all too big. Subjectively, the laptop works and reacts nice and quickly.