Acer Nitro 17 (AN17-41) review – the efficient Zen 4 CPU and the battery life are great but the GPU performance is a bit disappointing

Name: Acer Nitro 17
Brand: Acer
SKU: B0BTQ61Z6D
Price: 1249.00 USD
Availability: InStock

LaptopMedia.com Reviews and Analysis Acer Nitro 17 (AN17-41) review - the efficient Zen 4 CPU and the battery life are great but the GPU performance is a bit disappointing Page 10

From: Nikolay Palaozov, Kroum Nikolov 07 November 2023 / 18:48 | 0

10. Verdict

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Verdict

The Acer Nitro 17 (AN17-41) has its advantages over the Acer Nitro 17 (AN17-71) and the Acer Nitro 17 (AN17-51). The main reason is the efficient and powerful Zen 4 CPUs. This combined with a 90.61Wh battery leads to 20 hours of Web browsing, or 9 hours and 5 minutes of video playback away from the charger. The Intel versions can only dream about such long autonomous work on a single charge.

The second big pro of this laptop is the CPU temperature under load. In our case, the Ryzen 7 7840HS can maintain a high clock of~4.90 GHz in short and medium loads, while the temperatures are below 60°C – that’s great! Also, we can say that the notebook’s fans feel a bit quieter in any kind of usage compared to the Acer Nitro 17 (AN17-51).

Our biggest concern regarding this machine is the gaming performance. Sure, the Assassin’s Creed Valhalla results are good but the other scores of the 140W version of the GeForce RTX 4070 are lower or close to the RTX 4060 (Laptop, 140W) levels that can be found in the AN17-51 version. So, you are paying for an RTX 4070 but you end up with 4060-like performance in some games, especially if you don’t max out the visuals. This is clearly visible in Low or Medium quality in some of the four titles that we have tested (compared to the results of the AN17-51 model). This is a CPU bottleneck or maybe the device needs a new BIOS update that will fix this issue.

With that out of the way, we can mention the impressive display. The 165Hz G-Sync compatible 1440p panel (BOE NE173QHM-NY6 (BOE0B7C)) boasts 100% and 99% sRGB and DCI-P3 coverage. The color accuracy is really good. The base value is 1.7 (which isn’t bad at all) but with our “Design and Gaming” profile, the score reaches an average dE value of just 0.6. That’s superb for color-sensitive jobs and content creation. This means you can use the device for gaming, entertainment, or for work as well.

The chassis rigidity is adequate for the price class – the base is solid while the lid is a bit flexible. The keyboard is comfortable for typing or gaming and it has a 4-zone RGB backlight. The touchpad isn’t impressive but it’s okay for work. The comfort under load is nice if you don’t apply the”Turbo” mode. The keyboard gets just a bit warm in the center during gaming and the noise is normal for such a device in “Performance” mode. The latter comes with some not-so-pleasant RPM fluctuation but they aren’t that intrusive as in the Intel model.

We can’t ask for more in terms of upgradability given the price tag of the machine – two SODIMMs and two M.2 slots for Gen 4 SSDs. The I/O also looks modern enough if we forget about the USB 2.0 port. At the end of the day, the Acer Nitro 17 (AN17-41) is a big gaming device with a color-accurate display, efficient AMD CPUs, long battery life, and a comfortable keyboard. The laptop has the potential to be a true budget blockbuster if the gaming performance is higher.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/acer-nitro-17-an17-41/

Pros

Snappy and efficient Zen 4 CPU
2x M.2 Gen 4 slots, 2x DDR5 RAM SODIMM slots + Wi-Fi 6E
100% sRGB and 99% DCI-P3 coverage (BOE NE173QHM-NY6 (BOE0B7C))
Fast display with quick response times (BOE NE173QHM-NY6 (BOE0B7C)
PWM-free (BOE NE173QHM-NY6 (BOE0B7C))
G-Sync support + MUX switch and Advanced Optimus
Modern port selection
The keyboard feels cool during heavy loads
The 4-zone RGB keyboard is comfortable for typing and gaming
Very long battery life
Good cooling solution and low temperatures under load
High CPU and GPU clocks and power limits during any kind of stress
The Acer Nitro Sence app offers 4 performance presets as well as a custom fan curve