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The Micron 1TB SSD that shipped with my review machine had fast sequential write speeds, too, at 3,127MB/sec while the sequential read speed of 3,110MB/sec was only meaningfully beaten by the Samsung Galaxy Book 3. The two downward-firing speakers pushed enough sound to get me grooving to Drake’s new “Certified Lover Boy” album. When “Champagne Poetry,” starts, and the bass strings come into play, the Acer Swift 3 reproduced the smooth jazz feel loud and clear with enough depth for it to be enjoyable. The Swift 3’s IPS display was pretty good for working and unwinding with some content on Prime Video and Disney+. Colours are decent and the viewing angles are marvellous. An aspect ratio of 16:9 is also rather standard, and some may argue it’s a little behind the curve as modern ultrabooks are using a squarer 16:10 ratio for newer-style apps and browsing. Acer does go a bit beyond the brief with its software, but not in a good way. We get some officious software, Acer Jumpstart, popping up notifications here and there. If they were notifications for ways it can improve the system performance, maybe we shrug it off. But, when it’s a large promo for Forge of Empires, we’re inclined to uninstall the software on the spot.
Wi-Fi 6E-compatible devices are required to reach the stated speeds/benefits of Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax). As what may have been expected, the color production wasn’t great for the Acer Swift 3. According to our colorimeter, the Acer Swift 3 produced 62% of the sRGB color gamut, falling short of the Intel Swift 3’s 66%, and falling below the HP Envy 13’s 99%. It doesn’t even come close to the category average of 91%. Acer Swift 3 (AMD) review: Keyboard and touchpad When taking a typing test on 10fastfingers.com, I managed to hit 48 words per minute, which is not far off from my 53 wpm average. But while it was easy to type on the laptop, the palm rest area was tiny, which led to my accidentally brushing against the touchpad. We estimate Windows 11 support will end in October 2031. However, this laptop may be compatible with a future version of Windows that gets support beyond this date Our review unit outpaced the ultra-portable laptop average (15:02) during the Handbrake video-editing test, taking 12 minutes and 59 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p. However, the HP Envy x360 crushed everyone by transcoding the same footage in just 8 minutes. The MacBook Air scored solidly at 9 minutes and 15 seconds. Microsoft Surface Pro 7+, on the other hand, scored a slow 23 minutes and 41 seconds.
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Unfortunately, the 512GB SSD inside the Acer Swift 3 isn’t quite as good. In the AS SSD test, it recorded a sequential file read speed of 1,567MB/sec and a write speed of 1,382MB/sec. The write speed is fine, but the read speed is way behind that of competitors like the XPS 13 and MagicBook 14. A weight of 1.14kg also means this is one of the lighter mid-range laptops out there, resulting in a super-convenient design for the likes of students who need to move from lecture to lecture.
There’s also 8GB of DDR4 RAM, which worked well for intense tasks such as having plenty of Chrome tabs open with media playing and Spotify, too. You could even edit a video on the Swift 3, albeit a 1080p one. The Acer Swift 3 stayed pretty cool after we streamed a 15-minute, fullscreen 1080p video on it. The underside of the laptop reached 84.5 degrees Fahrenheit, staying way below our 95-degree comfort threshold. The center of the keyboard reached 80.5 degrees while the touchpad stayed at 76.5 degrees. The laptop’s hottest point was located on the underside, to the left of the vents, and even then it stayed below our 95-degree comfort threshold, only getting to 87.5 degrees. Acer Swift 3 (AMD) review: Software and warranty Technically, the screen is a very solid performer. It refreshes at 90Hz and has a pixel density of 243ppi so it’s smooth and sharp. And it’s bright, too, hitting peaks of 502cd/m2 in my tests. That’s not quite a match for the Samsung Galaxy Book’s 526cd/m2 but this is still a very good result. There’s an abundance of colour with the panel able to reproduce 119% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut (equivalent to 116% of Adobe RGB or 169% of sRGB). At just 251 nits of brightness, the Acer Swift 3 fell short compared to the 285-nit mainstream laptop average and the 387-nit HP Envy 13. However, it did surpass the Intel version of the Swift 3, which peaked at 224 nits.The Acer Swift 3 has long been one of the best mid-range laptops money can buy, and this 2021 edition brings with it some noteworthy upgrades. In day-to-day use, both models feel snappy in use. They power on rapidly, boot up games without issue and seem comfortable running dozens of Chrome tabs at once. However, the Intel review unit did let out a persistent humming noise, even when the CPU wasn’t being taxed that heavily. The Ryzen 5 5500U also features Radeon Vega 7 integrated graphics which aren’t too bad for light gaming purposes, but just note, it won’t be able to run AAA titles at max settings. As a mid-range laptop, the Acer Swift 3 isn’t going to set the world alight when it comes to its spec sheet, yet nevertheless provides a great all-round experience for productivity.
Without a discrete GPU, the Go 14 is clearly not intended as a gaming machine but it still ran Metro: Last Light Redux on High settings at 38fps at a resolution of 1,980 x 1,200 and Serious Sam 4 at 60fps and 2,880 x 1,800, which means that light gaming with relatively undemanding titles is well within its capabilities. As I navigated Windows 10, I found that the Swift 3's silver 4.2 x 2.6-inch touchpad offers extremely precise scrolling and cursor control. Visually, you might not even notice it's there, were it not for the indentation around it. Acer Swift 3 (AMD) review: Audio READ NEXT: The best laptops you can buy right now Acer Swift 3 SF314-57 (2020) review: What you need to know The Acer Swift 3 will absolutely wow you with how long it lasts on a single charge. While continuously browsing the web at 150 nits of brightness, the Swift 3 lasted 11 hours and 9 minutes. It will definitely last you your whole work day and then some. It also offers fast charging, so for 30 minutes of charge you can get 4 hours of use. In our 4K media benchmark, the Swift 3 performed roughly as expected, reaching an overall score of 87, beating the 75 achieved by the Core i5-powered Acer Swift 5 (2019). As the chart above indicates, the Swift 3 is no match for the Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 and Dell XPS 13 (2020), both of which use a Core i7-1065G7 and 16GB RAM. But all these laptops are bested by the Honor MagicBook 14, which hit 109 in the 4K media test with its AMD Ryzen 5 3500 and 8GB RAM.
A lovely OLED display, powerful processor and impressively low price tag make the Go 14 instantly recommendable
There aren’t a lot of extras to get excited about with the Acer Swift 3 (2021). Pretty much the only way it goes beyond the basics is with a thin fingerprint scanner that we get to work about one in ten times we use it — not so unusual in our experience with laptop fingerprint scanners. The webcam is as basic as they come as well. The speaker system can’t quite match the display for quality, though, despite carrying DTS certification. To start with there’s not a lot of volume on offer: at 1m distance, I measured an average of 71dB from a pink noise source and 72dB with peaks of 79dB from a music source. That’s pretty average. There’s not much in the way of bass, either, although the definition is good and there’s no break-up even at maximum volume. The Acer Swift 3 speakers, which are located on the bottom sides of the laptop, provides sound that is simply mediocre. While listening to “Hate Me” by Blue October, I noticed that guitars sounded clear and bold, including the bass that came through accurately. However, the vocals sounded so low, almost like someone was covering their mouth while trying to sing to me. Even with the volume at 100%, the speakers didn’t play any music very loud, which can be chalked up to the Swift 3 being designed with bottom-firing speakers. During our synthetic benchmark tests, the Acer Swift 3 scored 6,205 in Geekbench 5.4, which surpassed the ultra-portable laptop average score of 5,342. The HP Envy x360 ( AMD Ryzen 7 5700U processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB PCIe SSD) bested our Swift with a score of 6,851. This crushed the MacBook Air’s score of 5,962 (M1 Chip, 16GB 1TB SSD)as well as the Surface Pro’s score of 4,825 (Intel Core i5-1135G7 CPU, 16GB, 256GB SSD). Acer has resisted the temptation to go for a radical design overhaul, presumably in the name of economy, and this brings us to what is, arguably, the most interesting thing about the Swift Go 14: it’s cheaper than the Swift 3 OLED.
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