Acer Nitro 16 (AN16-72) Review – Surprises With Hidden Gems for Gamers and Designers

Temperatures and comfort, Battery Life, Performance presets comparison

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average P-core frequency; Average E-core frequency; CPU temp.; Package Power

The 28-thread Core i7-14700HX is a serious challenge for every laptop cooling. The thermal system of the Acer Nitro 16 (AN16-72) is doing a great job here – the processor can sustain very high CPU clocks and power limits no matter the load.

Real-life gaming

The optional GeForce RTX 4050 can maintain rock solid 2655 MHz frequency alongside 67°C core temperature.

Gaming comfort

The center of the keyboard feels a bit warm during heavy CPU loads when the “Turbo” mode is applied. You can manually bump the fan speed to the maximum value of around 4800RPM which is a surprisingly low speed for a “Nitro” laptop. The fans are rotating with ~3000RPM in idle which is too high for normal work – just switch down to “Balanced” or “Quiet” and the fans will be tamed. The noise during gaming is alright for such a device (but can be on the limit for some of you).

Presets

Max fan speed

Idle fan speed in Turbo mode

The “Balanced” and the “Performance” modes offer decent noise levels and close TGP values to the “Turbo” preset.

Gaming “Turbo”

Gaming “Performance”

Gaming “Balanced”

Gaming “Quiet”

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with the Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. This machine’s 90.61Wh battery lasts 7 hours and 9 minutes of Web browsing or 5 hours and 53 minutes of video playback. To achieve that, you have to apply the “Balanced” preset in the Windows “Power & Battery” menu and select the “Balanced” and Optimus modes in the Acer Nitro Sense app.

Video playback

Brightness: 180 nits; Display Mode: SDR
Time to Full Discharge: Higher is Better

Acer Nitro 16 (AN16-72) 90.61Wh

6h 41m

Acer Nitro 16 (AN16-51) 90Wh, 4-cell

6h 47m+1.5%

ASUS TUF Gaming F15 (FX507, 2023) 90Wh, 4-cell

10h 46m+61.1%

Dell G15 5530 86Wh, 6-cell

6h 36m-1.2%

HP Victus 16 (16-s0000, 2023) 70Wh

9h 30m+42.1%

HP OMEN 16 (16-wd0000, 2023) 70Wh, 4-cell

7h 55m+18.5%

Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9 60Wh

4h 42m-29.7%

MSI Katana 15 (B13Vx) 53.5Wh, 3-cell

$1299^.99

4h 45m-28.9%

Acer Swift X 16 76Wh, 4-cell

7h 18m+9.2%

Dell XPS 9530 86Wh, 6-cell

15h 36m+133.4%

MSI Cyborg 15 (A12Vx) 53.5Wh, 3-cell

4h 14m-36.7%

MSI Thin GF63 (12Vx) 52.4Wh, 3-cell

5h 56m-11.2%

MSI Bravo 15 (C7Vx) 53.5Wh, 3-cell

7h 07m+6.5%

Web surfing

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.

Acer Nitro 16 (AN16-72) 90.61Wh

7h 09m

Acer Nitro 16 (AN16-51) 90Wh, 4-cell

8h 20m+16.6%

ASUS TUF Gaming F15 (FX507, 2023) 90Wh, 4-cell

13h 03m+82.5%

Dell G15 5530 86Wh, 6-cell

6h 25m-10.3%

HP Victus 16 (16-s0000, 2023) 70Wh

10h 00m+39.9%

HP OMEN 16 (16-wd0000, 2023) 70Wh, 4-cell

11h 07m+55.5%

Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9 60Wh

3h 08m-56.2%

MSI Katana 15 (B13Vx) 53.5Wh, 3-cell

$1299^.99

6h 32m-8.6%

Acer Swift X 16 76Wh, 4-cell

6h 40m-6.8%

Dell XPS 9530 86Wh, 6-cell

17h 13m+140.8%

MSI Cyborg 15 (A12Vx) 53.5Wh, 3-cell

4h 51m-32.2%

MSI Thin GF63 (12Vx) 52.4Wh, 3-cell

6h 40m-6.8%

MSI Bravo 15 (C7Vx) 53.5Wh, 3-cell

8h 28m+18.4%

Author: Nikolay Palaozov

Author: eng. Kroum NikolovHead of Engineering at LaptopMedia.com, inventor and innovator with 40+ years of experience in electronics and high technology.

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