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The Acer Swift 3 (2021) may be making up for its looks with its performance. That upward-facing exhaust vent that we find unsightly may be the very thing that helps it come out ahead of similarly specced Ultrabooks that go for a more impressive build, like the Dell XPS 13 (Late 2020). In fact, the Acer Swift 3 beat that laptop in every single one of our performance benchmarks while both were running on the same processor. 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. Configuration tested: Intel Core i7-13700H CPU, Intel Iris Xe iGPU, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, 14in, 90Hz, 2,880 x 1,800 OLED non-touchscreen.
The AMD Acer Swift 3 flew by the Intel model (7:31), as well as the 7:56 category average. Meanwhile, the HP Envy 13 (11:11) just barely beat the Acer Swift 3 by two minutes. Acer Swift 3 (AMD) review: Webcam The Acer Swift 3 comes with an AMD Radeon graphics card, which averaged at 79 frames per second on the Dirt 3 racing game benchmark. This surpasses the mainstream laptop average of 47 frames per second, and the Intel Swift 3, which produced 44 frames per second (yikes). However, the HP Envy got a win here, averaging at 92 frames per second. Acer Swift 3 (AMD) review: Battery life The Swift 3 managed to last for around 11 hours or so in our battery test. This sits around an hour-and-a-half short of what Acer say it’ll go for, but rest assured that an eleven-hour battery will serve you well for a couple of days. Measuring 12.7 x 8.4 x 0.6 inches and weighing 2.6 pounds, the Swift 3 is slightly lighter than the MacBook Air(2.8 pounds and 12 x 8.4 x 0.6 inches). Both being much lighter than the HP Envy x360 15which comes in at 4.42 pounds, 14.1 x 9.6 x 0.74 inches. Our lightweight champion is the Microsoft SurfaceBook Pro 7+, which came in at (11.5 x 7.9 x 033 weighing a waifish 1.8 pounds. Acer Swift 3 ports Both laptops have a 14in IPS non-touch Full HDdisplay.You can also get the Acer Swift 3 (2020) with an Intel Core i5-1035G1, but it’s harder to find online. Acer Swift 3 SF314-57 (2020) review: Price and competitionDespite the fact that the ultra-compact Swift Go 14 is capable of genuine desktop performance, the performance delivered by its 65Wh battery was genuinely impressive: it lasted 10hrs 7mins in our standard battery run-down test. That’s the best of all its main Windows-based rivals, although it still can’t hold a candle to the M2 MacBook Air, which can run for 17 hours on a charge. Acer Swift Go 14 review: Verdict Both CPU variants employ integrated graphics. On the Intel laptop, you’re getting Intel Iris Plus Graphics, while on the AMD machine you’re getting RX Vega 7 graphics. In the GFXBench OpenGL benchmark (above), the Intel machine edges in front but in DirectX based games (below), the Ryzen chip streaks ahead. 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.
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. While watching a trailer for The Broken Heart Gallery, I noted that the picture was very crisp and clear, and it would have been enjoyable to watch, but the dullness of the color really took away from the whole experience. In a scene showing off an urban landscape, the faded appearance of the light and color distracted me from what I was seeing. Considering that the whole movie is supposed to be about art, it’s hard to enjoy when the color is so bland. However, the story of 2020 and 2021 continues as the Acer Swift 3 (2021) is yet another Windows 10 Ultrabook that falls behind the M1 MacBook Air in performance, and that device has considerably more impressive looks, though isn’t quite up to snuff on port variety. In our file transfer test, the Acer Swift 3 copied 5GB of files at a rate of 462.7 megabytes per second, for a total of 11 seconds, which just barely makes it past the category average of 409.6 MBps. Once again, this crushed the HP Envy 13, which has a rate of 363.5 MBps.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. A little light gaming isn’t out of the question either. The Metro: Last Light Redux benchmark scored nearly 49fps at 1080p, which is really rather good for a Core i5 laptop using Intel’s integrated Xe graphics processor. Even the 2016 Doom reboot ran pretty smoothly at around 50fps although I did have to reduce the resolution to 1,280 x 720 and video detail settings to medium.
The Swift Go isn’t much of a looker compared to the competition from Asus and Apple or even the dowdier Samsung. In fact, it looks much like the old Swift 3 and the aluminium unibody construction is much the same, too. And it’s available in rose gold/beige and dark grey for those who want something different from the usual boring silver. 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. 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. Except for the plastic bottom cover, the Swift 3 is made entirely from aluminium and feels very solid. It looks smart, too, thanks to the all-over matte effect silver finish, which seems to be impervious to fingerprints.Like all Intel’s H-series 13th Gen processors it has some legs on it and is capable of giving modern laptops a level of performance that would have been unthinkable just two years ago. The Swift Go lineup marks Acer’s transition from the Swift 3’s 16:9 format to the increasingly common 16:10 thanks to a 2,880 x 1,800 matrix. According to Acer the display now takes up 90% of the lid rather than 85% as in the Swift 3 which looking at the 4.2mm side bezels seems about right. According to Acer’s internal lab data, when comparing 2021 Swift 3 (SF314-511) and 2022 Swift 3 (SF314-511) under performance mode and using Cinebench R20 to test. CPU performance (11 th Gen Intel ® Core™ i7-1165G7 vs latest 12 th Gen Intel ® Core™ i7-1260P) improved by up to 1.98x. Actual score may vary considerably by specifications, depending on product model, configuration, applications, power management settings, operating conditions, and features utilized. Performance variation also arises based on components in use, which includes but is not limited to the processor, RAM capacity, storage, display and resolution, etc. 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. 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.
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. READ NEXT: Our favourite laptops for every budget Acer Swift 3 review: Performance and battery life 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.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. Acer includes the DTS Audio Processing app, which provides some sound settings for customization. Its main sound modes are music, gaming, movies and custom audio (where you manually balance treble, vocals and bass). However, I preferred the sound with the app turned off, as there was a better balance to the vocals and instruments over the other modes. Acer Swift 3 (AMD) review: Performance 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. It’s a shame about the display because the Ryzen 7-based Swift 3 comfortably outperforms its Intel Core i7-1065G7 rival on all other fronts and with both laptops supported 8GB RAM that’s no mean feat. Note that the RAM is soldered in and there are no free slots for expansion but you shouldn’t need more on a machine of this specification. USB Type-C port supporting:USB 3.2 Gen 2 (up to 10 Gbps), DisplayPort over USB-C, USB charging 5 V; 3 A, DC-in port 20 V; 65 W
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