Acer Swift 5 test (end of 2020): putting the ultra in the ultraportable

If you need a laptop that’s not only light, but among the lightest in the light, you’re looking for the 14-inch Acer Swift 5. At just 2.31 pounds, this is one of those. devices that disturb your mind. When I take it, I feel like I have to hold a hollow frame. When I put it in my backpack, I spend the day worrying about leaving it at home.

Of course, there are lighter laptops out there – Asus’ Expertbook B9450, LG’s Gram 13, Acer’s Swift 7, Samsung’s Galaxy Book S, and Dynabook’s Portege X30L-G all weigh a bit. less – but some of these models are either much more expensive than the Swift 5 or lower in performance. If you’re looking for a real processor for a mainstream audience, the Swift 5 is about the lightest you can use.

The model I tested, priced at $ 1,299.99, is a solid all-rounder without too much criticism and not too much to say. Its remarkable feature is its weight and the performance per pound it offers. Of course, for many students, remote workers, and frequent travelers, this could rightly be a deciding factor.

Design of the Acer Swift 5

The first thing you might notice when looking at this Swift 5 is its unusual color. Our unit is a dark bluish green shade called “fog green”, a new shade for the Swift line. Acer says he is believed to impart a “restful and balanced lifestyle”; although i’m not sure if i see it well, i appreciate that it’s slightly different from the infinite black and gray laptops you’ll see there.

The unique finish also includes a new “silver ion antimicrobial agent” which Acer says will help kill persistent bacteria. I don’t know how many people get sick from their laptops initially, but I guess it can’t hurt.

The screen bezels have shrunk compared to last year’s Swift 5 design, giving the screen a more modern appearance. In particular, a large lower bezel that contained a flashy Acer logo is missing. (This logo is now at the top of the keyboard.) Last year’s model had an 86.4% screen-to-body ratio, while this year clocks were 90%. The display is also brighter than that of its predecessor (321 nits as tested, up from 300 nits last year) with excellent color and contrast, although its 16: 9 aspect ratio is a bit tight.

The Swift also offers good connectivity for such a thin device (it’s only 0.59 inches thick). You get one USB 3.2 Gen 2 (supporting Thunderbolt 4, DisplayPort, and charging), two USB 3.2 Gen 1, one HDMI 2.0, a combo audio jack, and Acer’s AC port. It would be nice to have an SD slot or a second USB-C, but it’s a passing grade.

Elsewhere, the Swift 5 provides a smooth and precise touchpad as well as a solid keyboard with comfortable keys. I hit my standard typing speed and made no mistakes on my usual typing test, which has never happened to me before. For authentication, there is a reliable and fast fingerprint reader under the arrow keys.

The only real downside to the Swift’s thin and light construction is that it feels a bit flimsy. There is a little flex in the screen and a very visible flex on the keyboard. I wouldn’t say it all feels cheap – the build is clearly a step up from the economy fare like the Swift 3 – but it will feel and look plasticky next to more expensive ultraportables like the Dell XPS 13.

Acer Swift 5 performances

The biggest news about this new Swift 5 is its brand new Tiger Lake processor, the quad-core Core i7-1165G7. This chip includes a number of new features, including Thunderbolt 4, Wi-Fi 6, and Iris Xe integrated graphics.

The Swift is also certified by Evo, Intel’s verification program for Tiger Lake systems. To earn an Evo badge, a laptop must offer a variety of benefits like a wake-up second, nine hours of battery life with real-world use, and reliable performance. Not all of the Evo-certified systems I’ve tested achieved these goals in my testing, but the Swift 5 certainly came close.

In addition to the processor, the $ 1,299.99 system includes 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. There’s also a base model at $ 999.99, including a Core i5-1135G7 (also with Xe graphics), 8GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage. Either of these models is a good buy, but people who don’t need their Swift to do something graphically intensive should probably be fine with the $ 999 setup. Reviews have shown that the Core i5-1135G7 often matches and sometimes outperforms the Core i7-1165G7 in CPU-intensive tasks. Some other great laptops with similar portability benefits also range in price between $ 999 and $ 1299, making the $ 1299 model a bit harder to sell. The 2.49-pound 0.54-inch Asus ZenBook 14 with equivalent specs costs just $ 1,099.

You don’t compromise power for this form factor. The Swift 5 is the fastest Tiger Lake laptop I’ve reviewed so far (aside from a very high-frame rate benchmark design), although it doesn’t quite come up to the level of some AMD products. Recent Ryzen. I have certainly never noticed any slowdowns or errors in my daily work. And while this isn’t a laptop you would buy for gaming, the Iris Xe graphics are good enough to come with lighter prices.

The bottom of the chassis warmed up during an intense day of Chrome multitasking, downloading and updating, photo editing, Zoom calls, Spotify streaming and watching Netflix, but it was never uncomfortable. touch. I heard fans often when the Swift was in Performance Mode, along with very occasional coil whines, but going silent eliminated both. (You can easily switch between cooling profiles with Fn + F.)

And the battery life was a pleasant surprise. I average eight hours and five minutes of continuous multitasking (around 200 nits of brightness) on this build – a big step up from the six hours I spent with Swift 5 last year. Battery life has also improved significantly after removing some programs. that came loaded on this machine, including ExpressVPN, Amazon (which is pinned to the taskbar), and Norton. It only takes a few minutes to gut all of those programs, but given that this laptop costs over $ 1000, it’s always frustrating that Acer loads it up with budget crapware.

The last thing I’m going to talk about is video conferencing software, as it’s an important feature for many mobile professionals. The results here are mixed. The good news is that the Swift 5 now supports AI and Wi-Fi 6 enhanced background noise cancellation. These are difficult to test, but I’ve made a number of Zoom calls. on the Swift 5, and no one had a hard time hearing me.

In the less good news, the 720p webcam is quite grainy. (It’s not good enough to support Windows Hello.) The dual stereo speakers also provide some of the quietest sounds I’ve heard on a laptop – the bass in the music was pretty thin. The Swift comes with DTS audio processing, which lets you switch between preset profiles for music, movies, and games, and change the equalizer settings yourself. There is no specific profile for videoconferencing.

Inside its thin and light exterior, the Acer Swift 5 2021 is an end-to-end mid-range laptop. There are compromises but no catastrophes. Most aspects (keyboard, touchpad, screen, connectivity, battery life) are fine. Others (webcam, audio, bloatware) are disappointing but fixable.

If these factors are what matters most to you, you can achieve similar quality for less with Acer’s Swift 3 or Aspire 5, Asus ZenBook 14, HP Envy x360 13 and many more affordable machines. If you’re paying a premium for this Swift 5 setup, you’re paying for the exceptionally light build. The portable chassis – and the power that Acer packed into that portable chassis – is where the Swift 5 is at the top of its class.