Acer Swift 3 14 (2022)  Laptop Review

The Acer Swift 3 2022 has a simple design that doesn't stand out in any way. It has relatively thin bezels, a silver-color chassis, and light gray keys with white backlighting. On the bottom of the laptop, you can find the speakers near the front and air vents near the back. There are also air vents above the keyboard next to the right hinge. Like the Acer Swift 14 (2023), the bottom of the screen lifts the back of the laptop slightly when opened to allow for better airflow.

The build quality is good. The construction is a mix of metal and plastic; it doesn't feel particularly premium or overly cheap. There's some flex in the display and keyboard deck but almost none on the lid. The finish is fairly scratch-resistant and doesn't pick up many fingerprints. The feet are solid and stick firmly to the bottom.

The hinge is okay. It feels smooth when opening and closing the lid and is very stable, making it easy to adjust the screen to the exact angle you want. However, you can't open the laptop with one hand as the base of the laptop is too light and lifts with the screen.

The Acer Swift 3 2022 and its power adapter are compact and lightweight.

Serviceability is decent. The internals are easily accessible; you only need to remove ten T5 screws to take the bottom panel off. Unfortunately, the memory isn't user-replaceable, so you need to get the appropriate amount for your needs upfront.

You can see the user's manual here.

• Acer Swift 3 laptop
• 100W USB-C power adapter and cord
• Documentation

The Acer Swift 3 laptop's 2.8k display looks very sharp and provides just enough room for split-screen multitasking. Its 16:10 aspect ratio is becoming more common these days, especially among productivity laptops. It gives you slightly more vertical space than a standard 16:9 screen, so you don't need to scroll as much when reading a document or website. Like all OLED panels, this display is susceptible to permanent burn-in, especially with static desktop elements like Windows' taskbar. Unfortunately, there aren't any built-in features like Pixel Shift or Pixel Refresh to help prevent burn-in.

This laptop is only available with a 90Hz display. The increase from a standard 60Hz refresh rate to 90Hz is a nice upgrade, as it makes the system feel more responsive and makes fast motion look clearer without being too much of a battery drain. The response time is decent; it isn't as fast as the near-instantaneous response time often seen on high-end OLED panels, but it isn't bad either.

The Acer Swift 3 laptop's contrast ratio is superb, making it fantastic for dark room viewing. The contrast is effectively infinite because OLEDs can turn off individual pixels to produce perfect blacks.

The display gets bright enough for use in well-lit rooms but not quite for outdoors on a sunny day. It gets very dim at the lowest brightness setting, which is great for dark room viewing, as it provides a more comfortable viewing experience.

The reflection handling is okay. The glossy finish mainly struggles with direct, mirror-like reflections. It doesn't reduce the intensity of bright light sources by much, but on the upside, it doesn't cause a hazy effect in other areas of the screen like matte finishes typically do.

The display's black uniformity is perfect because OLED panels can turn off individual pixels to produce perfect blacks.

The display's horizontal viewing angle is decent. Like most OLEDs, color shift is the main issue, as it happens fairly quickly when moving to the side. You have to look at the screen almost straight on to get an accurate image, which can be hard when you don't have much space to tilt the screen, like on a bus or airplane.

The vertical viewing angle is great. Like the horizontal viewing angle, the colors shift fairly quickly when viewing from above and below. It's important if you often use the laptop in tight places where you don't have much room to tilt the screen, like on a bus or airplane.

The Acer Swift 3 laptop's display accuracy is decent out of the box. The white balance is excellent, but most colors look oversaturated because the default color profile targets a wider color space. The color temperature is a tad cooler than the standard 6500K target, resulting in a slight blueish tint. The gamma doesn't follow the sRGB curve; bright scenes look too bright, while dark scenes look too dark, with blacks getting crushed.

The display's color gamut is outstanding. It can reproduce all the colors in the commonly-used sRGB color space. It also has full coverage of the wider DCI P3 and Adobe RGB color spaces, making it suitable for color-critical work like photo and video editing.

The display isn't flicker-free. However, the flickering isn't noticeable as it's only a small drop in brightness, and the frequency is relatively high.

The Acer Swift 3 laptop has a decent keyboard. The layout feels spacious and is easy to get used to. The keycaps feel okay in quality; they aren't premium or cheap. The keys are stable, easy to actuate, and provide relatively satisfying tactile feedback. However, their short travel distance makes them a little tiring to type on for an extended period. Typing noise is very low and isn't an issue in quiet settings. You can adjust between two backlight brightness levels or turn it off completely.

The touchpad is decent. It feels very smooth and tracks movements and gestures well. Palm rejection also works without any issues. However, its small size makes it hard to perform actions like dragging and dropping over a long distance. Also, you can only click in the lower portion of the touchpad, and the clicking mechanism doesn't feel particularly satisfying.

The speakers are decent. They get fairly loud with minimal dynamic compression artifacts at max volume. They sound clear but slightly unnatural, with very little bass.

The Acer Swift 3 laptop has a great webcam. The image looks very detailed and colorful; the only complaint is that it's slightly overexposed. Voices come across clearly over the microphone but a little too loud, and there's also a small buzzing due to the high noise floor.

The Acer Swift 3 laptop's port selection is excellent. Both USB-A ports support USB 3.2 Gen. 1 data transfer speed (up to 5 Gbps). The only difference is that the left one can charge a mobile device even when the laptop is in sleep mode. The two USB-Cs are identical; they support Thunderbolt 4 (up to 40Gbps data transfer speed and two 4k displays at 60Hz), DisplayPort Alt Mode, and charging. Both USB-Cs can charge mobile devices with 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 3 14 laptop is available with the following CPUs:

• Intel Core i5-12500H (12 cores/16 threads, up to 4.5GHz, 18MB cache)
• Intel Core i7-12700H (14 cores/20 threads, up to 4.7GHz, 24MB cache)

Both CPUs are high-performance processors typically found in gaming laptops and mobile workstations, and both have a hybrid design with a mix of performance and efficiency cores. Regarding core count, the only difference between the i5 and i7 is that the latter has two more performance cores. These CPUs can handle light productivity tasks like text processing and web browsing, as well as more demanding workloads like video editing and 3D graphics. The Core i7 is faster and provides a smooth experience and allows you to complete tasks in less time.

The Acer Swift 3 2022 is only available with Intel Iris Xe graphics. This integrated GPU is designed for light productivity tasks, not demanding workloads like video editing or gaming. You can play some older or puzzle-like games, but you'll likely have to play with low settings to get smooth gameplay.

You can configure the Acer Swift 3 laptop with 8GB or 16GB 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, and there's also a second slot to add another drive; however, the second slot only supports PCIe Gen. 3 standards, while the main slot supports PCIe Gen. 4.

The Acer Swift 3 14 laptop's overall score in Geekbench 5 is excellent. The Core i5-12500H has outstanding single- and multi-thread performance, making it suitable for demanding tasks like 3D graphics and video editing. Upgrading to the Core i7-12700H results in a smoother desktop experience and allows you to complete tasks like compiling code or exporting a video in less time. Unfortunately, the Intel Iris Xe integrated GPU performs poorly and isn't suitable for demanding jobs.

The Acer Swift 3 laptop's overall score in the Cinebench R23 is outstanding. Even with thermal throttling, the Core i5-12500H still performs exceptionally well, making it suitable for rendering and other related tasks. The Core i7-12700H performs better and allows you to render images faster.

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.

The Acer Swift 3 14 laptop performs poorly in the Basemark GPU benchmark. Intel's Iris Xe isn't bad for integrated graphics, but it's starting to show its age and isn't fast enough to provide smooth gameplay in graphically intensive titles. It can handle simple, puzzle-like games or older titles at 1080p, but you'll have to play at a lower resolution or with low graphical settings to get playable frame rates.

The SSD performs exceptionally well. Its fast read and write speeds allow the system to quickly boot up, launch apps, and transfer files. The sequential read and write speeds are a little slow for a PCIe Gen. 4 SSD but still very fast. The 1TB SSD is likely faster, as larger-capacity drives tend to perform better.

The battery life is mediocre. The combination of a high-performance H-series CPU and a 90Hz, high-resolution OLED display takes a toll on the battery. Even if you only perform light productivity tasks, you'll have to plug it in at some point to get through a typical workday. The battery life for video playback is pretty good, though, as a full charge gets through a couple of full-length movies. Check out the Acer Swift Go 14 (2024) if you want a similar laptop with a longer battery life.

Borderlands isn't playable. The game is very choppy and sometimes freezes completely, even with low graphical 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. The Core i7's Iris Xe GPU will likely push a couple more frames per second at most, not enough to make a huge difference.

Civilization VI runs poorly at 1080p with high settings because the average frame rate is too low, even for a strategy game. However, it runs much more smoothly if you lower some graphical settings. Upgrading the CPU to a Core i7 will only improve the turn time slightly.

CS:GO runs poorly at 1080p. The average frame rate is too low for an FPS game, and there are frequent stutters due to frame drops. The Core i7 will push slightly more frames per second, but the game will still stutter.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider isn't playable at 1080p. The game is too choppy and sometimes freezes completely, even with low graphical settings. The integrated GPU simply can't handle this and other similarly demanding games.

The Acer Swift 3 2022 has good thermal and noise handling. The keyboard is cool when idle, and the fan is completely silent. The keyboard gets hotter under load, but it isn't uncomfortable by any means. Likewise, the fan is audible at full speed but isn't annoying or distracting.

The Acer Swift 3 laptop's performance over time is good. Only the CPU throttles under load. The performance loss is fairly significant, and it happens quickly within a few minutes of starting a CPU-intensive task. The CPU's temperature is high, but there's still some headroom, so it's likely tuned to keep the keyboard from getting uncomfortably hot.

The Acer Swift 3 2022 has a few pre-installed applications, including:

• Acer Configuration Manager/Product Registration: Contains system information and lets you register your laptop for warranty purposes.
• DTS Audio Processing: Lets you change the sound profile and EQ settings.
• ExpressVPN: Link to ExpressVPN virtual private network service website.
• Norton Antivirus: Antivirus software.
• PhotoDirector: Photo editing software.
• PowerDirector: Video editing software.

There's a fingerprint sensor built into the power button. You can use it to log in, authorize Windows Store purchases, and auto-fill saved passwords on supported websites.