The Acer Swift 14 (2023) is a 14-inch Windows ultraportable laptop. It's available with an Intel Core i5-13500H or Core i7-13700H CPU and up to 32GB of memory and 1TB of storage. You can configure it with an FHD + (1920 x 1200) or QHD+ (2560 x 1600) IPS display; both have a 60Hz refresh rate with no variable refresh rate support. Ports include two USB-As, two USB-C/Thunderbolt 4s, an HDMI 2.1, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. It has Wi-Fi 6E wireless connectivity, a 1440p webcam, and a 56WH battery. There's a fingerprint sensor built into the power button for quick logins. You can see our unit's specifications and the available configuration options in the Differences Between Variants section below.
The Acer Swift lineup has changed slightly compared to previous generations. Acer no longer uses the Swift 3, Swift 5, and Swift 7 naming; instead, the lineup now consists of the Swift Go (14-inch and 16-inch), Swift 14, and Swift X 14. The Acer Swift 14 replaces the Swift 5.
The Acer Swift 14 is good for school use. Its compact design makes it easy to carry around, and its battery lasts easily through a typical school day. You can configure the laptop with an FHD+ or QHD+ display; both look sharp and get bright enough to combat glare. The keyboard feels tactile but can be a little tiring to type on over an extended period, and while the touchpad is small, it's responsive to all movements and gestures. Its Intel 13th Gen. CPU can handle nearly every type of workload; however, its integrated graphics perform poorly, so it isn't ideal for students in technical fields like 3D graphics.
The Acer Swift 14 is mediocre for gaming. Although its Intel 13th Gen. CPU can handle demanding tasks like gaming, it's only available with integrated graphics, which aren't powerful enough to provide smooth gameplay in graphically intensive games. Also, you can only get this laptop with an FHD+ or QHD+ 60Hz display, both of which have a slow response time with no variable refresh rate support to reduce screen tearing.
The Acer Swift 14 is good for media consumption. It's very portable, and its battery lasts over six hours of video playback, giving you plenty of time for a couple of full-length movies and TV show episodes. You can get this laptop with an FHD+ or QHD+ display; both displays look sharp and get bright enough to combat glare, but they aren't the best for dark room viewing, as their low contrast makes blacks look gray in dim settings. Unfortunately, although the speakers get very loud, they sound a tad tinny and lack bass.
The Acer Swift 14 is great for use as a workstation. It's available with Intel 13th Gen. CPUs, which are powerful enough to handle demanding tasks; however, because you can only configure the laptop with integrated graphics, it isn't suitable for anything that requires lots of graphical processing power. Also, its displays only have full sRGB coverage, so it isn't ideal if you need to edit photos or videos in Adobe RGB or DCI P3. On the upside, it has a fast SSD for quick file transfers and plenty of ports, including two Thunderbolt 4 and an HDMI 2.1 port. The CPU throttles slightly under load, but thankfully, the fans are relatively quiet.
The Acer Swift 14 is good for business use. It's a well-built laptop that's easy to carry around, and its battery lasts easily through a typical workday. The display looks sharp, provides just enough space for split-screen multitasking, and gets bright enough to combat glare. The keyboard feels tactile but can cause some fatigue over an extended period, and the touchpad is small but responsive. Its Intel 13th Gen. CPU performs well and can easily handle productivity tasks like text processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. It has an excellent 1440p webcam for video calls as well as a wide port selection that includes two Thunderbolt 4 and an HDMI 2.1 port. The display's reflection handling is sub-par, so it isn't ideal for use in well-lit rooms with bright light sources shining directly on the screen.
We tested the Acer Swift 14 (model SF14-71T-74RF) with a QHD display, an Intel Core i7-13700H CPU, 16GB of memory, and 1TB of storage. The display, CPU, memory, and storage are configurable; you can see the available options in the table below. Our review only applies to variants with a model number starting with 'SF14-71T'.
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You can see our unit's label here.
The Acer Swift 14 is a great ultraportable laptop. It stands out for its sharp and bright display and outstanding performance. However, its keyboard and touchpad aren't as good as other laptops in its class.
For more options, check out our recommendations for the best laptops for college, the best business laptops, and the best laptops for programming.
The HP Pavilion Plus 14 (2023) and the Acer Swift 14 (2023) are both good 14-inch Windows laptops. The HP has a better keyboard and touchpad, and it's available with NVIDIA discrete GPUs for more graphically intensive workloads. Its OLED display provides a better viewing experience due to its superb contrast ratio, and while it doesn't get as bright as the Acer laptop's display, it does have better reflection handling. However, the Acer is much lighter, making it more portable, and its battery lasts much longer.
The Acer Swift 14 (2023) is slightly better than the Acer Swift 3 14 (2022) for most uses. The Swift 14 has longer battery life and faster Intel 13th Gen. CPUs. The two available displays on the Swift 14 get brighter to combat glare; however, neither is as sharp as the Swift 3 14's OLED display. The Swift 14's displays also have a lower contrast ratio, resulting in blacks that look gray in dim settings, and they only have full sRGB coverage, while the Swift 3 14's OLED panel has full DCI P3 and near-full Adobe RGB.
The Apple MacBook Air 13 (2022) is better than the Acer Swift 14 (2023) for most uses. The MacBook Air feels more premium and well-made, and its battery lasts longer. It also provides a better user experience overall with a more comfortable keyboard, a larger and more responsive touchpad, and significantly better-sounding speakers. However, the Swift 14's Intel 13th Gen. CPUs are faster than Apple's M2 SoC. Additionally, it doesn't throttle as much as the MacBook Air under load. The Swift 14 has a wider port selection, and unlike the MacBook Air, it can output a video signal to multiple displays.
The LG gram 14 (2023) is better than the Acer Swift 14 (2023) for most uses. The LG has a better keyboard and touchpad, longer battery life, and a more compact and lightweight design. However, the Acer has a better 1440p webcam and is available with faster H-series CPUs. The Acer's display gets brighter, but its glossy finish doesn't handle reflections as well as the LG.
The Acer Swift 14 (2023) is better than the Acer Swift 3 14 (2020) for most uses. The Swift 14 is a more premium model with a sleeker design and sturdier build. It's available with faster Intel 13th Gen. H-series processors, a sharper and brighter QHD+ display, and a faster SSD. It also has a much better webcam and a wider port selection with the addition of a second USB-C/Thunderbolt 4 port and HDMI 2.1 support. However, the Swift 3 14's battery life is much better at over 13 hours of light use compared to the Swift 14's nine hours.
The Lenovo Slim Pro 7 14 (2023) and the Acer Swift 14 (2023) are both great laptops. The main difference is that the Acer is better suited for CPU-intensive tasks because its Intel 13th Gen processor performs better, while the Lenovo is better for GPU-intensive tasks since it's available with an NVIDIA discrete GPU. The Lenovo has a better keyboard and touchpad, while the Acer has a better webcam and port selection. As for the display options, the Acer's displays get brighter to combat glare, but the Lenovo's displays have a higher refresh rate to provide a more responsive desktop experience.
The Acer Swift 14 (2023) is slightly better than the Dell XPS 13 Plus (2022) for most uses. The Swift 14 is available with faster CPUs and doesn't lose as much performance as the Dell under load. It also has longer battery life and a much wider port selection. However, the XPS 13 Plus feels more premium and well-made, and it provides a better user experience with a more comfortable keyboard and larger haptic touchpad. Also, you can get the XPS 13 Plus with an OLED display. The OLED panel makes the XPS 13 Plus better for media consumption, and its full DCI P3 and Adobe RGB coverage means you can use it for color-critical work like photo and video editing. In contrast, the Swift 14's display only has full sRGB coverage.
The Acer Swift 14 (2023) and the Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 (2022) are both Windows ultraportable laptops. The Surface Laptop 5 feels slightly more premium than the Swift 14, and it provides a better user experience overall with a more comfortable keyboard and a better touchpad. Also, it's available in a 15-inch size, giving you more screen real estate for multitasking. On the other hand, the Swift 14 is available with significantly faster H-series CPUs, and it doesn't throttle as much under load, making it suitable for more demanding tasks like programming.
The MSI Prestige 14 Evo (2023) and the Acer Swift 14 (2023) are both 14-inch laptops available with Intel 13th Gen H-series CPUs and are very similar overall. The Acer has a brighter, sharper display, a higher-resolution 1440p webcam, a wider port selection, and longer battery life. However, the MSI has a slightly better keyboard and touchpad.
The Acer Swift 14 has a simple and sleek design. The bezels are incredibly thin, making the whole laptop feel more like a 13-inch than a 14-inch model. The finish is a dark olive green color with copper accents on the sides, although the green can look more like dark gray under some lighting. On the bottom, you can find the speakers near the front and air vents near the back. There are also air vents on the back of the laptop. The hinge design allows the bottom of the display to lift the back of the device when opened, providing better airflow. The keyboard's backlight is white, but the key legends are a darker yellow, matching the copper accents on the sides.
The build quality is great. Its metal chassis feels high-quality and sturdy, exhibiting only a small amount of flex in the display and keyboard deck. However, it doesn't quite have the solidity and heftiness of more premium models like the Apple MacBook Air 13 (2022). The finish doesn't scratch or pick up fingerprints easily, and the feet feel solid and stick firmly to the bottom.
The hinge is okay. It feels smooth when opening and closing the lid and is very stable. There's only a little wobble when moving the laptop or typing aggressively. Unfortunately, you can't open the lid with one hand because the laptop's base is too light.
The serviceability is mediocre. Accessing the internals is relatively straightforward; you have to remove eleven T5 Torx screws and undo a couple of clips. The replaceable parts are easily accessible once you remove the bottom panel. Unfortunately, the memory isn't user-upgradeable, and there's only one storage slot.
You can see the user's manual here.
The Acer Swift laptop is available with the following displays:
Both displays look very sharp and provide just enough room for split-screen multitasking. The QHD+ (2560 x 1600) looks a tad sharper, but the difference isn't immediately noticeable at normal viewing distances. The 16:10 aspect ratio gives you slightly more vertical room than a standard 16:9 screen, which is great for productivity, as you don't have to scroll as much when reading a document or website.
The contrast ratio is great for an IPS panel, but it's still relatively low compared to other display technologies like VA and OLED. Blacks look gray in dim settings. The FHD+ display likely has a similar contrast ratio. If you want a similar productivity laptop with an OLED display, check out the ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (2024).
The QHD+ display gets very bright, enough to provide good visibility outdoors in broad daylight. It also gets very dim at the lowest brightness setting, which is great for dark room viewing as it causes less eye strain. The FHD+ display will likely perform similarly.
The reflection handling is sub-par. Its glossy finish doesn't do much to reduce the intensity of bright reflections. It's best to avoid having light sources directly behind you, like a lamp or open window during the day. The reflections make it hard to see dark-color content and are visible even when viewing light-color content with the display at maximum brightness.
The horizontal viewing angle is passable. The image dims and washes out fairly quickly as you move to the side. You need to be more or less in front of the screen to see an accurate image.
The vertical viewing angle is passable. Like the horizontal viewing angle, the image dims and washes out when viewing the display from above or below. You need to look at the screen almost straight on to get an accurate image, which can be hard in places where you don't have much space to tilt the screen, like a bus or airplane.
The display accuracy is decent out of the box. Most color and white balance inaccuracies are minor. The default color profile targets a slightly wider color space than pure sRGB, oversaturating greens and reds. The color temperature is warmer than the standard 6500K target, although the difference is too small to be noticeable. The gamma doesn't follow the sRGB curve; most scenes look too bright, while dark scenes look too dark.
The QHD+ panel's color gamut is outstanding. It has full sRGB coverage, the color space used in most content. Its Adobe RGB and DCI P3 coverage is excellent but isn't enough for professional print photography or viewing and producing HDR content. The FHD+ display's color gamut is likely similar.
The Acer Swift 14 laptop has a decent keyboard. The layout is fairly standard and doesn't take long to get used to, although the spacing feels a little tight. The keycap material is okay; it doesn't feel particularly premium or cheap. The keys are stable and feel tactile; however, they require a fair amount of force to actuate, which can be tiring over an extended period. Also, you may find the travel too short, especially if you're used to mechanical keyboards. Typing noise is relatively low and isn't bothersome in quiet settings.
The touchpad is decent. It feels smooth and tracks all movements and gestures well. However, its small size makes actions like dragging and dropping over a long distance hard. There are no issues with palm rejection. The clicking mechanism feels relatively satisfying but is loud, and you can only click in the bottom portion of the touchpad. Check out the ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED UX3404 (2023) if you want a similar laptop with a better touchpad.
The speakers are passable. Though clear, they sound slightly tinny, with no bass at all. They aren't sibilant, but the treble is a little sharp and can be fatiguing over time. On the upside, they get very loud with minimal dynamic compression artifacts at max volume.
The Acer Swift's webcam is excellent. The image looks detailed and well-exposed, with natural-looking colors. The only complaint is that there's a little bit of noise in the darker areas. Voices come across loud and clear over the microphone with almost no background noise.
The Acer Swift's port selection is excellent. The two USB-A ports support USB 3.2 Gen. 1 data transfer speed (up to 5 Gbps). You can use the left USB-A port to charge a mobile device even when the laptop is in sleep mode. Both USB-Cs support Thunderbolt 4 (up to 40Gbps data transfer speed and two 4k displays at 60Hz) and can charge mobile devices at a maximum power output of 15W.
The wireless adapter is an Intel Killer Wi-Fi AX1675i. Wi-Fi 6E has faster speeds, lower latency, and less signal interference than previous Wi-Fi standards. However, you need a router that supports Wi-Fi 6E to benefit from these features.
The Acer Swift laptop is available with the following CPUs:
Both CPUs are high-performance processors typically found in gaming laptops and mobile workstations. They can handle light productivity tasks as well as demanding workloads like video editing, 3D graphics, and gaming. They both have a hybrid design with a mix of performance and efficiency cores. The Core i5 has four performance and eight efficiency cores, while the Core i7 has six performance and eight efficiency cores. The Core i7 is faster than the Core i5 and the best option for professionals with strict deadlines, as it can complete tasks faster and provide a smoother experience in intensive applications.
The Acer Swift 14 laptop is only available with Intel Iris Xe graphics. This integrated GPU can only handle light tasks like web browsing and video playback, not demanding workloads like video editing or 3D graphics. You can play some older or puzzle-like games, but you'll likely have to play with low settings to get smooth gameplay. If you need a thin, light laptop with a discrete GPU, check out the Lenovo Slim Pro 7 14 (2023).
You can configure this laptop with 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB of memory. The RAM modules are soldered onto the motherboard and aren't user-replaceable.
You can configure this laptop with 512GB or 1TB of storage. The SSD is user-replaceable; the slot supports an M.2 2280 PCIe Gen. 4 NVMe SSD.
The Acer Swift has an outstanding overall score in the Geekbench 5 benchmarks. The Intel Core i7-13700H has exceptional single- and multi-thread performance, making it suitable for nearly every type of workload, including demanding tasks like 3D graphics and video editing. The Core i5-13500H is slower but still fast enough to handle intensive tasks. Unfortunately, the Intel Iris Xe integrated GPU performs poorly and isn't suitable for demanding jobs.
The performance in Blender is great; however, if you need to render images professionally, it's best to get a laptop with a discrete GPU. Even an entry-level GPU, like an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650, can render images much faster than the CPU, saving you time.
The Acer Swift performs poorly in the Basemark GPU benchmark. Intel's Iris Xe isn't bad for integrated graphics, but it still isn't fast enough to provide smooth gameplay in graphically demanding games. It can only handle simple, puzzle-like games or older titles at 1080p, and even then, you'll have to play at a lower resolution or with low graphics settings to get playable frame rates.
The Acer Swift's battery life is decent. You can get through a typical work or school day on a full charge, but it's close, so depending on your usage, you may have to plug it in for a quick charge. Models with an FHD+ display will have slightly longer battery life.
Borderlands 3 isn't playable on the Acer Swift. The gameplay is extremely choppy, even with low settings. The Intel Iris Xe integrated GPU can't handle such a graphically demanding game. You can expect the same performance in other similar titles.
Civilization VI is a little choppy at 1080p with high settings because the average frame rate is too low, but you can get much smoother gameplay if you lower a couple of graphical settings. The average turn time is decent and within the expected range for an Intel 13th Gen. H-series processor. The turn time is likely longer on a model with a Core i5, albeit only marginally.
CS:GO runs poorly at 1080p with high settings. Although the average frame rate is good, the game stutters a lot due to frame drops. It runs more smoothly with low settings, but there are still noticeable stutters. The Core i5 will perform slightly worse.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider isn't playable at 1080p with high settings. The gameplay is choppy, even with low graphical settings. You have to lower the resolution to 720p to get playable frame rates in this and other similarly demanding games.
The Acer Swift has good thermal and noise handling. The keyboard is cool at idle, and the fans are completely silent. The keyboard gets much hotter under load, but it doesn't cause any discomfort as the hot spots are closer to the top of the deck, away from where most people rest their hands. As for the fans, although they're audible at full speed, the noise isn't annoying.
The Acer Swift's performance over time is great. Only the CPU throttles under load. The performance loss is small but still noticeable, especially in long, sustained workloads.
The Acer Swift 14 comes with many pre-installed applications, including:
The Acer Swift has a fingerprint sensor built into the power button. You can use it to log into Windows, authorize Windows Store purchases, and auto-fill saved passwords on supported websites.