In this review, we will analyze the updated Acer Swift 5, which is a powerful, yet compact ultrabook weighing less than a kilogram. It has a virtually frameless screen, decent battery life and a powerful Intel processor. Can such a light and thin device become a balanced option for work and entertainment?
Acer Swift 5 review
Design: Classic with magnesium alloy
It seems that designers have taken as a basis the rule “Beauty is in simplicity”. There are no bright elements and distracting excesses – everything is solid and strict. We had a version of white on review, but there is still a blue version on sale. It may seem that the body is made of matte plastic. However, it is not, it contains special magnesium and magnesium-aluminum alloys, which make the model lighter without loss of strength. The surface of the Ultrabook is pleasant to the touch, it almost does not collect prints and divorce.
Acer Swift 5 weighs only 990 grams, which makes it one of the lightest notebooks with a 14-inch screen. There is almost no frame around the latter, with a matrix to case ratio of about 90%, and the model is less than 15mm thick. Such elegance will be appreciated first of all by people who plan to carry the device with them all the time.
Despite its compact size, Acer Swift 5 is equipped with a good set of connectors on the side edges. On the left is a power supply slot, HDMI, regular USB and USB-C with Thunderbolt support, and Power Delivery for recharging. On the right side there is an audio jack, USB, two light indicators and a Kensington Lock slot. The only thing missing for the perfect set of interfaces is a card reader.
The laptop can identify the owner by fingerprint – the scanner is located next to the keyboard. Its accuracy and speed are slightly inferior to modern solutions in smartphones, but it still saves time for entering passwords and protects the gadget reliably.
The audio setup is standard – two stereo speakers, the volume of which is enough to comfortably watch videos at home or in the office. There are no rattles at the maximum sound level and other signs of cheap acoustics.
Keyboard and touchpad: Comfortable and convenient
Acer Swift 5 is equipped with a keyboard with standard Ultrabook layout without a dedicated numeric block. The keys are large, have elastic stroke and good tactile feedback. Pushbuttons are perfectly felt, and the body is not pressurized during active work. It is pleasant and convenient to print on the Ultrabook. White backlight with a choice of three brightness grades complements the picture.
The touchpad reacts quickly and recognizes the standard Windows gesture set. In the settings, it is better to turn off the context menu activation immediately at double tapping, otherwise the additional menu will pop up at scrolling.
Display: Bright without glare
The notebook has a 14-inch IPS matrix with Full HD resolution and a 16:9 aspect ratio. The screen is matte, complemented by a touch layer, so that the model can be used as a tablet. Corning Gorilla Glass with a special composition prevents the reproduction of microorganisms on the screen surface. In addition, the coating acts as an oleophobic layer on smartphones – there are almost no fingerprints left on it and it can be easily removed with any soft cloth.
Thanks to the anti-reflective coating behind the device is comfortable to work at the window or on the street. The maximum brightness of 340 nit is enough to sit outside with your laptop on a clear autumn day and see the image on the display perfectly. It also has excellent viewing angles, color rendering and calibration – suitable not only for viewing office files, TV shows and browsing, but also for processing photos.
Performance: Not suitable for gaming but enough for daily tasks
There are several versions of Acer Swift 5 with different Intel processors. There are models with integrated graphics cards, and there are also models with modest discrete GeForce MX350. The configuration with Intel Core i7 Ice Lake architecture, made on a 10-nanometer process, has includes four cores with a base frequency of 1.3 GHz and up to 3.9 GHz – in Turbo mode. This version has built-in Intel Iris Plus graphics with 64 cores at 300-1100 MHz. The amount of DDR4X RAM is 16 GB. For storage a 1 TB Intel SSD is there on PCIe x4. However, there are no additional slots for RAM or ROM expansion.
In other words, this laptop does not claim to be a gaming device. However, it allows you to run CS:GO, Rocket League, Fall Guys and other not too demanding games on the minimum settings of graphics. Games like The Witcher 3, GTA 5 and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey can run in HD resolution, but constant fps drops do not let you enjoy them during active action.
In everyday use, Acer Swift 5 has proven to be thrifty and problem-free, which is what an ultrabook weighing less than a kilogram requires. It is necessary to try to make it slow down. The browser, office suite programs and graphic editors on it just fly. You can only visit a large number of pre-installed software from Acer and partners of the company – it takes a lot of time to remove it. We would like the developers to give up this anachronism, as well as the stickers with inscriptions HDMI and Full HD 1080 on the screen of the inexpensive model.
Silent and cool
The cooling system in Acer Swift 5 is respected. At minimum load it seems as if the fan does not turn on at all – an impressive result for a portable. At maximum load the notebook remains stable and the temperature does not rise above 70 degrees. The body warms up a little, but within normal limits – to keep on his knees comfortably.
The laptop is installed current set of wireless interfaces – dual-band Wi-Fi module IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax with support for MU-MIMO and Bluetooth 5.0.
Gives you a day of battery life
Acer Swift 5 is equipped with a 4-section 56Wh battery, which requires about two hours to fill. In everyday scenarios like surfing the web or surfing YouTube it works near 8:30 hours with optimal performance and average brightness. So the Ultrabook is able to survive a full office day without recharging.
The battery life of the Ultrabook is about two and half minutes under gaming load. You can watch movies for nine hours at the average brightness of the screen. The complete power supply is bulky and has a proprietary connector, a controversial solution that you’d like to see with a USB-C adapter.
Acer Swift 5 specs
CPU: Intel Core i7-1065G7, 4 cores, 8 threads, 1.3 – 3.9GHz
GPU: Intel Iris Plus G7, 64 EU, 1.1GHz
RAM: 16GB LPDDR4X 4267MHz (in dual channel mode)
Storage: 1024GB NVMe M.2, read speed – 1940MBps, write speed- 1770MBps
Display: 14″, matte, Full HD, IPS, 340 cd/m2
Ports: 1 x USB 3.1 Type-C, 1 x USB 3.1 Type-A, 1 x USB 2.0, 1 x HDMI 2.0
Connection: Wi-Fi 6.0 802.11ax (2×2), Bluetooth 5.0
Battery: Li-Pol battery, 56Wh, 65W power adapter
Dimensions and weight: 31.9 x 21 x 1.49cm, 0.99kg
Conclusion
Acer Swift 5 is a great ultrabook, which is suitable for daily use by people who appreciate portability in the first place. It has decent a body, good keyboard, good balance of size and performance. The model can be praised for its colorful touch screen and battery life. And the only thing to complain about is the slow fingerprint scanner, power supply and the bloatware in the system.
