Acer Swift 5 (late 2020) review: to set the ‘ultra’ to ‘ultra-portable’

If you need a laptop that is not only light but one of the lightest, you are looking for the 14-inch Acer Swift 5. This is one of those devices that is just tainted with your mind. When I pick it up, I feel like I have to hold on to a hollow chassis. When I put it in my backpack, I spend the day worrying that I might have left it at home.

Of course, there are lighter laptops – 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 little less – but some of these models are either significantly more expensive than the Swift 5 or a step down in execution. If you’re looking for a real processor for a general consumer audience, the Swift 5 is about the lightest you can do.

The model I tested, costing $ 1,299.99, is a solid all-rounder without too much to criticize and not too much to chase over. The outstanding feature is the weight and performance per pound it offers. Of course, for many students, remote workers, and regular travelers, this can rightly be a deciding factor.

Acer Swift 5 design

The first thing you may notice when looking at this Swift 5 is its unusual color. Our unit is a dark blue-green color called ‘mist green’, a new shade for the Swift line. Acer says it’s meant to convey a “quiet, balanced lifestyle”; While I’m not sure I’m really seeing it, I realize it’s slightly different from the infinite black and gray laptops you’ll see there.

The unique finish also contains a new silver-ion antimicrobial agent, which according to Acer will help kill lingering bacteria. I do not know how many people initially get diseases from their laptops, but I think it can not cause harm.

The screen edges have shrunk from last year’s Swift 5 design, giving the screen a more modern look. In particular, a large bottom with a flashy Acer logo is gone. (The logo is now at the top of the keyboard lid.) Last year’s model had a screen-to-body ratio of 86.4 percent, while this year’s watches were at 90 percent. The screen is also brighter than its predecessor (321 nets as tested, up to last year’s 300 nets) with amazing colors and contrast, although the 16: 9 aspect ratio is slightly cramped.

The Swift also provides good connectivity for such a thin device (it is only 0.59 centimeters thick). You get one USB 3.2 Gen 2 (supports Thunderbolt 4, DisplayPort and charging), two USB 3.2 Gen 1, one HDMI 2.0, one combination 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 pass grade.

Elsewhere, the Swift 5 offers a sleek and accurate touchpad, as well as a solid keyboard with comfortable keys. I achieved my standard typing speed and did not make a single mistake with my regular typing test, which has never happened to me. For authentication, there is a reliable and fast fingerprint reader under the arrow keys.

The only downside to the Swift’s thin and light build is that it feels slightly thin. There is a bit of bending in the screen and some very noticeable bends in the keyboard. I would not say that it all feels cheap – the build is clearly a step higher than the cheap price like the Swift 3 – but it feels and looks plastic next to more expensive ultra-portable items like the Dell XPS 13.

Acer Swift 5 performance

The biggest news about this new Swift 5 is its brand new Tiger Lake processor, the quad-core Core i7-1165G7. This disc comes with 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, such as a waking time of one second, nine hours of battery life with proper use and reliable performance. Not every Evo-certified system I tested scored the marks in my test, but the Swift 5 definitely came close.

In addition to the processor, the $ 1,299.99 system includes 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage. There is also a base model of $ 999.99 available, including a Core i5-1135G7 (also with Xe graphics), 8 GB RAM and 512 GB storage. Both of these models are a good buy, but people who do not need their Swift to do anything graphically intensive should probably just 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 excellent laptops with similar portability benefits also fall between the $ 999 and $ 1,299 price points, making the $ 1,299 model a bit harder to sell. Asus’ 0.54-inch, 0.54-inch ZenBook 14 with equivalent specs is just $ 1,099.

You do not have to sacrifice horsepower for this form factor. The Swift 5 is the fastest Tiger Lake laptop I have checked so far (apart from a very high clocked reference design), although it is not quite on the level of some recent AMD Ryzen products. I certainly never noticed delays or mistakes in my daily work. And while it’s not a laptop you’ll buy for games, Iris Xe graphics are good enough to use a lighter price.

The bottom of the chassis got hot during an intense day of Chrome multitasking, downloading and updating, photo editing, Zoom calls, Spotify streaming and Netflix watching, but it was never uncomfortable to touch. I regularly heard the fans while the Swift was in Performance Mode, as well as an occasional whine, but the switch to Silent Mode eliminated both. (You can easily switch between cooling profiles with Fn + F.)

And the battery life was a pleasant surprise. I achieved an average of eight hours and five minutes of continuous multitasking (about 200 net brightness) on this version – a big step up from the six hours I got from Swift 5. last year. The battery life also improved significantly after I got rid of some apps. loaded on this machine, including ExpressVPN, Amazon (pinned to the taskbar), and Norton. It only takes a few minutes to dump all these apps, but if the laptop costs more than $ 1,000, it’s still frustrating that Acer loads it with budget scrapware.

The last thing I will discuss is video conferencing software because it is an important feature for many professional professionals. The results here are mixed. The good news is that the Swift 5 now supports AI-enhanced background noise suppression and Wi-Fi. It’s hard to test, but I did make a number of Zoom calls on the Swift 5 and no one had trouble hearing me.

In less good news, the 720p webcam is pretty grainy. (It’s not good enough to support Windows Hello.) The dual stereo speakers also produce some of the weakest sound I’ve ever heard from a laptop – bass in music was pretty thin. The Swift is loaded with DTS Audio Processing, which allows you to switch between predefined profiles for music, movies and games and adjust the equalizer settings yourself. There is no profile specifically for video conferencing.

In its thin and light exterior, the 2021 Acer Swift 5 is a mid-range laptop. There are compromises, but no disasters. Most aspects of it (the keyboard, the touchpad, the screen, the connectivity, the battery life) are good. Others (the webcam, the audio, the bloatware) are overwhelming but serviceable.

If you have the most important things for these factors, you can get similar quality for less money in Acer’s Swift 3 or Aspire 5, Asus’ ZenBook 14, HP’s Envy x360 13, and many more affordable machines. If you pay a premium for this Swift 5 setup, you are paying for the extraordinary lightweight. The portable chassis – and the power that Acer has packed into the portable chassis – is where the Swift 5 is at the top of its class.