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

Design and construction

The design is very similar to the Acer Nitro 17 (AN17-51). Again, the device is entirely made of plastic which isn’t a surprise since the price isn’t sky-high. The build quality is the same as the Intel version. This means a bit flexy lid and a stable base that can be bent a bit between the touchpad and the Space key.

You need just one hand to open the lid that is a bit shaky during angle changing. The device is slightly heavier compared to the AN17-51 Intel version – 3.1 kg while but the profile is the same – 27.9 – 28.9 mm. The plastic doesn’t feel cheap to the touch, the surface is grippy and it’s not a big fingerprint magnet. Of course, you can see some smudges here and there but nothing serious.

We can see narrow bezels around the panel. The only exception is the “chin” that houses the new Nitro logo. Above the display is placed a 720p Web camera with dual mic and Temporal Noise Reduction tech.

There is a “Nitro sense” button for controlling the power presets and a long grill for heat dissipation above the keyboard. The latter brings some useful features like a NumberPad area and big Arrow keys. It’s not noisy while typing which is nice. The big keycaps offer long travel and clicky feedback, that’s why the board is comfortable for long typing or gaming sessions.

You can tune the 4-zone RGB backlight via the Acer application.

The touchpad could be bigger. It’s an average unit, not the smoothest, but it’s good enough for normal work.

Flipping the laptop upside down reveals four rubber feet, two speaker cutouts, and a big ventilation grill. The heat is exhausted through four vents – two on the back and two on the sides.

Ports

On the left, you can spot a LAN, a prehistoric USB 2.0 port, a MicroSD card slot, and an Audio jack. There is a power plug, an HDMI 2.1 connector, a USB4 port, and a USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 2) port positioned on the back side (the two Type-C ports support DisplayPort and charging extras). We can see on the right a Kensington lock slot, and two USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 2) ports (the former comes with a power-off charging).

Author: Nikolay Palaozov

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

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