Acer Swift 3 14 (2020) Laptop Review

The Acer Swift 3 is a fairly standard-looking laptop that shouldn't stick out in a professional working environment. The exhaust vents are on the bottom towards the back of the unit, while the speakers are closer to the front feet. There are three color schemes: Pure Silver, Aqua Blue, and Melon Pink, though the latter seems to be available in select regions only (outside of North America).

The build quality is good. It's mostly metal except for the display's borders, which are plastic. There's some flex in the display and keyboard deck, but almost none when the laptop is closed. Otherwise, there aren't any gaps or issues with the construction.

The hinge is okay. It feels smooth when opening and closing the laptop, and it's very stable, so there's almost no screen wobble when typing. However, there's a little too much resistance to open the laptop with one hand, which is disappointing, as it's a nice quality-of-life feature that makes the laptop feel more premium. If you're looking for a similarly priced Windows laptop in a similar size but want a 360-degree hinge to use the laptop in tablet mode, consider the HP Pavilion x360 14 (2021).

The Acer Swift 3 is a thin and lightweight laptop that's easy to carry around. The power adapter is also compact and fits easily into most bags.

The serviceability is okay. Accessing the internals is easy as you only need to remove ten Philips screws and pry it open, though you'll likely need a pick to do the prying because nails might not be enough. The memory isn't user-replaceable, so you have to get the configuration that best suits your needs when purchasing the laptop.

• Acer Swift 3 laptop
• 65W power adapter and cord
• Documentation

The Acer Swift 3's 1080p display looks sharp and provides just enough room for split-screen multitasking. Its 16:9 aspect ratio is great for media consumption since most videos are in the same format; however, a taller 16:10 or 3:2 aspect ratio would have been preferable for productivity, as you can see more information when reading a document or website, reducing the need to scroll. If you want a laptop with a larger display for multitasking, check out the LG gram 17 (2021)

The Acer Swift 3 has a 60Hz refresh rate and no VRR support, typical for most productivity-focused laptops. The response time is slow, causing visible ghosting behind moving objects, so it isn't ideal for viewing fast-moving content or gaming.

The contrast ratio is good for an IPS panel, although not as good as VA or OLED panels. This level of contrast makes blacks look gray in dim settings. If you want a laptop with a display that can produce deep, inky blacks, check out the ASUS VivoBook 15 OLED K513 (2021).

The Acer Swift 3's maximum screen brightness is passable. It's okay for use in most lighting conditions, but it isn't bright enough to overcome glare in well-lit or sunny environments. It gets very dim at the lowest brightness setting, which is great for viewing content in the dark, as it causes less eye strain. If you need a laptop with a brighter display, check out the Dell XPS 13 (2021).

The reflection handling is decent. It has a matte coating that works very well against direct reflections, but glare is still a problem in well-lit environments because the screen doesn't get bright enough to compensate.

The black uniformity is good. There's only some minor clouding here and there, as well as some IPS glow at the top and bottom edges.

The Acer Swift 3 has an okay horizontal viewing angle. The image looks dimmer and washed out from the side, but it's still good enough for sharing content with someone else as long as you don't need perfect accuracy.

The vertical viewing angle is passable. You have some leeway to tilt the screen to your liking before the image becomes inaccurate, but it's best to look at it straight on to get the best image quality.

The Acer Swift 3's out-of-the-box color accuracy is alright. Most color inaccuracies are minor and hard to spot with the naked eye, but the white balance is visibly off, especially at higher brightness levels. The color temperature is just slightly warmer than the standard 6500K target, not enough to be noticeable. The gamma seems to target a flat 2.1 instead of following the sRGB curve, so most scenes appear brighter than they should, while dark scenes are over-darkened.

The Acer Swift 3 has an excellent color gamut. It covers the entire sRGB color space, meaning it can display all the colors used in most web content. It has excellent Adobe RGB and DCI P3 coverage, but it isn't enough for professional photo editing or for viewing and producing HDR content.

The Acer Swift 3's backlight is entirely flicker-free, which helps reduce eye strain.

The keyboard is decent. The keys are stable and don't require much force to actuate, but they still feel somewhat tiring to type on for extended periods because the spacing is tight, and the travel distance feels short. Also, getting used to the layout might take some time as many keys have multiple input options. The F8 key lets you activate the backlighting, but since there's only one brightness level, you can only toggle it on or off.

The touchpad is okay. It's small but feels smooth. Palm rejection works well, and you can click anywhere on the touchpad, although it requires a fair amount of pressure to actuate the click in the center, near the top. Dragging and dropping doesn't always work as the item sometimes gets dropped early, and right-clicking is also finicky at times.

The Acer Swift 3 has good speakers. They get reasonably loud with minimal compression at max volume, and they sound relatively neutral overall. However, like most laptop speakers, they have almost no bass whatsoever.

The Acer Swift 3 has a bad webcam. The image is underexposed and lacks detail, and there's also some noise in the darker areas. The microphone sounds too loud, causing distortion, and there are pops and static noise in the background. If you want a Windows laptop with a better webcam, check out the Framework Laptop 13 (2021).

The Acer Swift 3 has a great port selection. The USB-C port supports charging, video output, Thunderbolt 4 (up to 40Gbps data transfer speed), and USB 3.2 Gen 2 (up to 10Gbps). The USB-A on the left side is USB 3.2 Gen 1 (up to 5Gbps) and can be used to charge other devices even when the laptop is off, but the one on the right is only USB 2.0 (up to 480Mbps). Acer has released a new model of the Swift 3 (SF314-511 series) with a USB 3.2 Gen 1 port instead of the USB 2.0.

The wireless adapter is an Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201.

The Acer Swift 3 is available with the following CPUs:

• Intel Core i5-1135G7 (4 cores/8 threads, up to 4.2GHz)
• Intel Core i7-1165G7 (4 cores/8 threads, up to 4.7GHz)

Both CPUs are designed to handle light productivity tasks, like web browsing, video playback, and text processing. They can even handle some heavier workloads like compiling code and photo editing, though you'll likely see some occasional stutters. The only differences between the two processors is that the i7-1165G7 has faster clock speeds and a larger L3 cache. The i7-1165G7 will be faster and provide a snappier experience overall, but the performance increase is minimal.

Both the Core i5-1135G7 and Core i7-1165G7 have Intel Iris Xe Graphics, but they're slightly different as the i5-1135G7 has 80 execution units, while the i7-1165G7 has 96. The i7-1165G7 will be faster in general, but the difference isn't huge. You'll likely get a few more frames per second in games on the i7-1165G7 than on the i5-1135G7.

You can configure the Acer Swift 3 with 8GB or 16GB of memory, but you can only get 16GB on Intel Core i7-1165G7 models. 8GB is likely enough for most people doing light productivity tasks, but it might be worth going up to 16GB if you tend to have many browser tabs or applications open simultaneously. Unfortunately, there's only one memory module, meaning the system is running in single-channel mode. Also, there isn't a second memory slot to add more or change the configuration to dual-channel. A dual-channel memory configuration can improve performance in some applications as it provides greater bandwidth.

You can configure this laptop with 256GB or 512GB of storage. The M.2 SSD is user-replaceable if you need more and are comfortable upgrading it yourself.

The Acer Swift 3 has a great overall score in the Geekbench 5 benchmarks, performing well in the single and multi-thread tests. This means that the Intel Core i5-1135G7 has more than enough power for light to medium workloads, and it can even handle some demanding tasks like photo editing. However, its GPU compute performance is disappointing. The Intel Core i7-1165G7 will perform better, though the performance difference is minimal.

The Acer Swift 3 performs well in Cinebench R23, making it suitable for rendering tasks and other related workloads. The Intel Core i7-1165G7 will only perform slightly better.

The Acer Swift 3's performance in Blender is sub-par. It takes the CPU a fair amount of time to render the simple bmw27 scene, which isn't ideal for professional 3D rendering work. The Intel Core i7-1165G7 will likely perform better than the i5-1135G7, but not by much. Blender doesn't support the Intel Core i5-1135G7's Iris Xe Graphics even though it supports the Intel Core i7-1165G7's in the HP ENVY x360 13 (2020). Based on the HP ENVY x360's results, the GPU will take longer than the CPU to render the same scene.

If you want a similarly priced laptop with a dedicated NVIDIA GPU for faster rendering times, check out the HP Pavilion Gaming Laptop 15 (2021).

The Acer Swift 3 performs poorly in the Basemark GPU benchmark. It's better than most integrated graphics and in the same ballpark as an entry-level dedicated GPU like the NVIDIA MX350; however, it still isn't powerful enough to run demanding AAA titles smoothly. You'll have to play at a lower resolution and at the lowest graphical settings to get playable frame rates in most games. The Intel Core i7-1165G7 will likely perform better, but the performance difference isn't significant.

The Acer Swift 3's storage drive performance is outstanding. It has fast read and write speeds, making the system feel very responsive, like when booting up the laptop, installing and launching apps, and transferring files. The speed of the SSD may vary depending on the size, as larger SSDs tend to perform better.

The Acer Swift 3 has exceptionally long battery life. It lasts easily over a typical 8-hour workday of light productivity with plenty of charge to spare. It also lasts a long time for video playback, so you can comfortably get through a couple of full-length movies or TV show episodes. Gaming drains the battery very quickly, but it's still significantly better than most laptops with a dedicated GPU. Battery life varies greatly depending on usage.

Borderlands 3 isn't playable on the Acer Swift 3. The Intel Core i5-1135G7 with Intel Iris Xe Graphics can only push out frames in the single digits at high settings, with frequent freezes. Even on the 'Very Low' graphical settings, it's still very choppy even though the average frame rate is above 30fps. The Intel Core i7-1165G7 will perform slightly better, but not enough to make the game playable. The game only works on DirectX 11; it crashes on DirectX 12.

Civilization VI runs poorly on the Acer Swift 3 with an Intel Core i5-1135G7. It's only playable if you turn the graphics settings down to near minimum. The turn time is alright, though it's pretty good for a power-efficient U-series processor. The Intel Core i7-1165G7 will perform only slightly better.

CS:GO runs reasonably well. You can get above 60fps on average with high settings, although there are dips into the 30fps range. It runs much smoother at low graphical settings. The Intel Core i7-1165G7 will only perform slightly better.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider runs terribly. The integrated graphics can't even push 30fps on average with high settings, and there are frequent dips into the single digits, making motion appear very choppy. You can get over 30fps on the lowest graphical settings, but the game still stutters a lot. The Intel Core i7-1165G7 will perform only slightly better, not enough to make this game playable.

The Acer Swift 3 has good thermal and noise handling. The keyboard deck is cool when idle, and the fan isn't audible unless you put your ear right next to the laptop. The fan is louder under load, but it isn't bad, and it sounds more like heavy airflow than actual fan noise. Likewise, the keyboard deck gets hotter under load but isn't uncomfortable by any means.

The Acer Swift 3's performance over time is excellent. Neither the CPU nor GPU gets very hot under load, and while there's some thermal throttling on the CPU, it isn't significant.

The Acer Swift 3 has a few pre-installed applications, including:

• Norton Antivirus: Antivirus software.
• Acer Configuration Manager/Product Registration: Provides information about your system and lets you register your device with Acer for warranty purposes.
• DTS Audio: Lets you change the speakers' sound profile and tweak the EQ.
• Express VPN: Link to a virtual private network service.
• PhotoDirector/PowerDirector: Acer's photo and video editing software.
• Spotify: Music streaming service.

There's a fingerprint sensor on the right side of the keyboard deck, below the arrow keys. It only works if you have a password or PIN as a secondary login method, as biometric sensors sometimes fail.