Further Update 4-5-2021: At the current price of $748, I think you can do better than this. I spent about that much including an additional 16MB RAM, for a total of 24MB, and an additional 1TB SSD. But I'm happy I got it and if the price drops back down to around what I paid before the upgrades, $599, it still seems like a good deal.UPDATE 3-24-2021: I had to send my desktop unit in for repair about a month ago. That took about two weeks because it got stuck in transit when Texas got closed down by bad weather, and I had to use the laptop as my primary computer during that time. I connected it to my graphics monitor via the HDMI port, plugged a powered USB hub running four external hard drives, my graphics tablet and my webcam into one USB port, and used the other two USB ports for a card reader and wireless mouse. So, pretty much maxed out all the connectivity options including the ethernet port. Obviously I was not running all this off the battery.Other than time-wasting, I mostly use the computer for photo editing. The images are from a full-frame camera so the files are quite large to start and I often enlarge them. Editing uses a lot of memory and CPU/GPU juice. I had added 16GB of memory when I got the machine, which came in handy.  As one would expect, the laptop didn't perform as well as the souped-up desktop does: everything took longer and it got frustrating at times. I wished I had added a larger SSD, which I've now done (another $100, bringing the total including the additional memory up to about $750). Ultimately, though, I got everything done that needed doing and I'm still impressed with the machine. It may be outdated already, I haven't looked, but I'm happy with the purchase and it definitely kept me sane while the desktop was gone, which my old laptop would not have done.This is a preliminary review of the Nitro 5 with the 9th Gen Intel Core i5-9300H and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650. I've had the machine for two weeks now. I paid $600 and dropped an additional $50 on a 16gb RAM stick, for a total of 24gb. I bought it because it was the least expensive unit I could find with a discrete GPU. I wanted something I can use for basic photo editing when I travel or when I feel like sitting in a cafe for a while, because I'm an optimist who believes both those things will be routine again some day. I'm not a gamer and can't speak to its capabilities for that.First the things I don't like:1) the keyboard. The keys are serviceable but a bit mushy. I prefer a more clicky keyboard but that's really a matter of taste and not function, and after two weeks I've adjusted to it. It's a good size, not cramped, and has a full-sized numerical pad. What I really don't like is that it's basically unusable in the daytime without the backlight turned up most of the way, and the backlight goes off when you pause typing for a few seconds, presumably to save battery. I don't understand that design decision. If you really want to save battery, make a keyboard that you can see without the backlight on. And the shift functions on the keys don't stand out that well even with the backlight. Maybe it's a gaming aesthetic thing, but I don't like it.2) The touchpad. It's just not very accurate. Moving between open tabs on a browser or trying to select tools in Photoshop or Lightroom and related plugins is a pain. I just use a mouse. I don't know what gamers use touchpads for but I can't imagine they'd like this one very well.3) Battery life. With the GPU idle, just using the unit for browsing, email and some writing, I got a bit more than five hours on a charge. When I started doing some moderately intensive photo editing involving the GPU, battery life dropped dramatically. If you're doing anything CPU/GPU intensive for any length of time you'll most likely want to keep it plugged in.4) Webcam. If I'm home I'm using my desktop webcam, and if I'm out I'm using my phone. The one on the unit is sort of a disaster. I guess that's where they're saving money. I would think anybody using the computer for Zoom or to stream would want to use an external USB one.5) Weight. This is a chonky fellow. I took it in my camera backpack on a shoot involving a lot of walking and noticed the extra couple pounds over the laptop it replaced. Not a big issue, though.6) Audio. The speakers are muddy and weak. You'll want to use headphones for music or gaming. It comes with Waves Maxx Audio, which I use on my desktop, but no amount of equalizing or enhancing is going to save these speakers. I expect nothing from laptop audio in this price range, and I got it.The keyboard backlight is the most aggravating of all those concerns for me. Classic example of form over function. Battery life is second, the touchpad third, and the webcam fourth. None of the issues come close to being deal breakers.Things I like:1) Performance. This is a $600 laptop with a decent four-core processor and a discrete GPU. Would I like an i7 or better and the RTX 2060? Sure. Do I want to pay another $500 or more for them? Why no: no I do not. It moved along pretty well right out of the box, and  and with the inexpensive RAM upgrade it positively zips. Again, I can't speak to the gaming capabilities, but I'm really pleased with the performance for my needs. I'll have to add some storage at some point, as I expect many people will, but that's pretty inexpensive these days too.2) Construction: as the weight would indicate, this thing is solid. Despite the plastic body, nothing about it feels cheap. There's not much flex to the screen. The only thing I don't like about it is that the back is a solid piece that has to be completely removed to upgrade the RAM or the drives. It'd be nice if it had access panels for those. Prying it apart was anxiety-inducing. You should note there's an included SSD cable but it's not installed and it's tiny so put it somewhere safe and install it the first time you have the back off.3) The screen. I was quite pleasantly surprised by the brightness and accuracy. I did some work on a few pics that I then looked at on my graphics monitor, which cost more than this machine, and the colors were pretty much right on. I can't speak to it for gaming purposes, the frame/refresh rate is more or less irrelevant to me, but it's better than I expected for what I'm doing with it.4) Heat management. This is exceptional. The chassis is built to dissipate heat, and the two fans work really well, independently of one another, and quietly. Acer provides a heat management utility that allows the user to manually control the fans and to keep track of the processor temperatures. I've used the laptop as an actual laptop for up to two hours without appreciable discomfort.5) Bloatware. There's hardly any, and the Acer utilities are actually useful. I had to get rid of the preinstalled Norton Security and Microsoft Office trials but that's an easy job.6) Appearance. It's fine. It has the sort of angular, aggressive styling that seems to be de rigueur for gaming, and in this instance the styling incorporates the heat dissipation features so it's functional as well. I'd prefer something other than black but it's fine.7) Ports. It has an HDMI out, 2 USB 3.0, a USB-C, a USB 2.0, an ethernet port, an earphone jack and of course a power input. Pretty good collection. You can get by without Thunderbolt ports.tl;dr: As you would expect from a machine at this price point, Acer made some compromises. The camera and speakers are subpar, and the unit is mostly plastic. They also made some design decisions that are borderline incomprehensible to me, as with the keys not showing up well in good light without the backlight. The heat handling is great, the screen performance is better than I expected, it's fast and powerful, and I'm still surprised at getting even an entry-level GPU at this price. For a non-gamer using it as a photo editing and general purpose laptop, the value seems exceptional.