Acer Swift X review (SFX14-41G-R1S6): Do-it-all ultraportable - blantonwastures

The Acer Swift X packs impressive power inside an ultraportable case and is a great pick if you want a high-performance, highly man-portable laptop computer. Where well-nig ultraportables choice efficiency and trust on integrated graphics, the Swift X serves up Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU for an added punch. With the RTX artwork and a mighty AMD CPU, the Swift X is able to handle depicted object-foundation tasks and roughly gambling in addition to the basic office chores for which most ultraportables are built.

The Swift X doesn't jactitate efficiency out the window and provides ample stamp battery life despite its power-hungry parts. You'll need to put to sleep up with a frequently loud fan and warm keyboard, nevertheless, and the system's fit and finish is not on equation with that of other premium ultraportables. Make a point you demand the graphics artistry of the Swift X before committing because you are unscheduled to sacrifice in other areas to get it.

This review is part of our ongoing roundup of the best laptops. Go in that respect for information on competing products and how we tested them.

Acer Swift X specifications

Acer currently sells one and only one model of the Swift X. It's a 14-inch laptop supported an AMD Ryzen 7 5800U CPU and RTX 3050 Titanium graphics with a list price of $1,099.99. It's presently selling for $1,069.99 on Amazon. Army of the Righteou's take a looking at at the specs of the Swift X (simulate SFX14-41G-R1S6) that we reviewed:

• CPU: 8-heart and soul, 16-thread AMD Ryzen 7 5800U
• Memory: 16GB
• Art: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti
• Memory: 512GB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD
• Display: 14-inch, 1920×1080 IPS non-spot
• Webcam: 720p
• Connectivity: Left: 1 x SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps Type-C, 1 x SuperSpeed USB 5Gbps Type-A (with power-off charging), HDMI 2.0. Right: 1 x SuperSpeed USB 5Gbps Type-A, combo audio jack.
• Networking: Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2
• Biometry: Fingermark reader
• Battery capacity: 58.7 W-hours
• Dimensions: 12.71 x 8.35 x 0.7 inches
• Measured weight: 3.1 pounds (laptop), 0.9 pounds (Actinium transcriber)

Gold-and-silver innovation

The Swift X features a thin, aluminum chassis that's available in three colors: Steam Blue, Prodigy Pink and Safari Gold. We received the gold model, but exclusive parts of the laptop come draped in the hue: the chapeau, a narrow deprive higher up the keyboard and the display hinges. The rest of the laptop is silver in color, resulting in a two-tone look that lends an OEM feel for to the arrangement. The matte black pliant exhibit bezels also earn a design demerit.

Matt Elliott/IDG

The aluminum chassis is quite an compact. It's close to the same size Eastern Samoa other high-powered 14-inch laptop, the HP Envy 14. Some are only if 0.7 inches thick, and the Dean Swift X at 3.1 pounds is a few ounces lighter than the 3.3-ram Envy 14. The Swift X's big businessman brick is as wel compact, resulting in a reasonable and eminently totable 4-pound overall carrying weight.

When you available the display, the hinges dip down below the bottom panel to provide a slim tilt for the keyboard for a more comfortable typing angle and to better airflow. With its screaky-end components packed into much a compact enclosure, the Swift X needs each the aid IT put up get to keep thermals in restraint. The laptop is fairly tranquility during basic tasks, but the cooling fan really begins to twirl when information technology's engaged in heavier lifting. While running Photoshop and other graphics apps or during games, the Blue-belly X gets loud. And tied with its chilling fan temporary extra time, the laptop begins to heat energy up relevant that the keys feel rather toasty under your fingertips.

Matte Elliott/IDG

The keys themselves feel snappy and sound quiet, just two things annoy me around the keyboard. For one, the keys are silver or else of black, which leaves little to no contrast when the keyboard backlighting is on when you are unmoving in a board that's non completely dark.

For some other, the Varlet-risen and Page-falling keys are squeezed in above the side pointer keys and I score each constantly past accident. I'd much rather these keys constitute mapped to another important or placed anywhere else than their latest spot. Below the arrow keys is a fingerprint reader for light, secure logins. The webcam lacks IR capability, indeed the fingerprint reader is the lone biometric alternative connected the Swift X.

Matt Elliott/IDG

The touchpad felt accurate with smooth gliding and a firm, responsive click. I take no issue with the touchpad, but I do have a bellyache about the AMD, Nvidia and Alexa stickers to its left. They are placed in such a haphazard fashion that their crooked and ill-spaced placement detract from the Swift X's general appearance. Acer's sticker affixer inevitably to get IT together.

Matt Elliott/IDG

Squeezed by 16:9 instrument panel

The 14-column inch display features a full HD (1920×1080) solving and 100-percent sRGB sustain. Its image looked bright with colorful color and good demarcation. The biggest issue I have with the display doesn't concern its performance but its size. Quite simply, it feels as well cramped for serious design work. It has a 16:9 aspect ratio, which limits the amount of rearing space information technology affords compared with a 16:10 display. The HP Enviousness 14 features a roomier 14-inch, 16:10 display that's a better fit for creative work. Even a 13.3-in MacBook Pro feels more spacious than the 14-inch Swift X because Apple's laptop computer displays feature a 16:10 aspect ratio.

Flat Elliott/IDG

Above the showing is a standard 720p webcam. You won't scream your fellow Zoom conference attendees with its noisy effigy and reddish clamber tones. The webcam also lacks a physical privacy shutter.

The speakers, too, failed to impress. They didn't reach a loud level at goop volume and produced predictably tinny sound. They also fire descending, which doesn't assistanc the situation.

Matt Elliott/IDG

Matt Elliott/IDG

The Swift X's larboard selection covers the rudiments with both USB Type-A and Type-C ports, although I'd like a pair of USB-C ports and one USB-A larboard instead of the flipside of that. The USB-C larboard offers 10Gbps data transfers, DisplayPort plump for, and big businessman deliverance. Imaginative pros whose work requires the use of media cards will bemoan the lack of an SD card slot. The laptop supports the latest wireless networking standards — WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 — but omits an Ethernet port. You'll too find an HDMI connection.

Acer Swift X performance

The Swift X shined in labs testing, easily outpacing competing ultraportables. The closest laptop we've reviewed recently to the Swift X is the HP Envy 14, a 14-inch laptop built for content founding that features an 11th-gen Core i5 CPU and GeForce GTX 1650 Ti Grievous bodily harm-Q graphics. We also compared the Swift X to Acer's Swift 3X, which is supported an 11th-gen Core i7 CPU and Intel's discrete Iris Atomic number 54 Max graphics. Rounding error out the charts is the Lenovo ThinkBook 14s Yoga and Dingle XPS 13 9310, a pair of 2-in-1 convertibles with an 11th-gen Core i7 CPU and integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics.

Our first benchmark is PCMark 10, which measures performance on everyday computing work including office productivity tasks, web browsing, and video chats. The Swift X was the clear winner, beating the side by side closest organisation away more than 1,000 points.

Matt Elliott/IDG

Next up is Cinebench, a sort of CPU dash that stresses the CPU rather than the GPU and makes use of goods and services of all processing cores. The Swift X submissive here connected the multi-threaded test for the simple fact that its Ryzen CPU has twice the physical cores and processing togs than the chips in the other systems. The Ryzen 7 5800U is a rib, eight-core processor, and the Intel Core i5-1135G7 and Core i7-1165G7 are threaded, quaternity-core chips. Doubly the cores and threads leads to the Western fence lizard X posting a Cinebench score that's nearly treble the score of the Swift 3X and more than doubled that of the others.

Matt Elliott/IDG

The Swift X also performed well on the single-draw test of Cinebench, although non to the degree of the multi-threaded test.

Matt Elliott/IDG

We utilization the HandBrake utility to exchange a 30GB motion picture to Android table format, an intensive task that taxes the CPU and all of its cores. Again, the Swift X blasted the competition. It completed the test in nearly uncomplete the time of the Horsepower Envy 14, its next closest competitor.

Matt Elliott/IDG

The Swift X and its RTX 3050 Titanium graphics to a higher degree doubled the end product of the laptops with integrated Intel graphics on our 3DMark benchmark. The HP Envy 14 and its GTX 1650 Ti Max-Q performed admirably but its score was nonetheless a considerable aloofness behind that of the Western fence lizard X. The Swift X has the graphics dynamism to handle content-innovation chores.

Matted Elliott/IDG

Because the Swift X features distinct graphics from Nvidia's latest card of GPUs, we ran few games on the scheme. Happening Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 1920×1080, it averaged 48 frames per second at the Highest preset. On the more demanding Metro Hegira at 1920×1080 at the benchmark's Immoderate planned, and the Swift X averaged only 16 fps but built to 52 fps at the Normal preset. Keep the quality settings in check and you'll achieve playable framerates at 1080p. With its compact excogitation and artwork muscle, the Swift X could throw a good fit for people who desire an easy portable laptop to take to class or around the office each day that also has just about gaming chops when you go back to your abode or dorm — once homework is done, of course.

We test laptop battery life past looping a 4K video exploitation the stock Windows Movies &ere; TV app, with screen brightness sic to about 250 nits and the volume dialed to 50 percent, with headphones plugged in. The Blue-belly X doesn't offer the longest battery animation among ultraportables, but information technology lasted for much 12 hours on our bombardment-drain exam, an impressive result given its shrilling-powered parts.

Dull Elliott/IDG

Do-IT-all laptop computer for students

There's no wonder that the Acer Dean Swift X provides plenty CPU and GPU performance for happening-the-go content creators. With an octo-core Ryzen 7 5800U, the Dean Swift X offers blazing application performance and strong multimedia system performance. Add in the RTX 3050 Ti graphics, and you get a respectable advance in 3D graphics and gambling capability from the ordinary ultraportable with an integrated GPU. IT's rare to find a laptop this compact with this much performance. And you aren't forced to sacrifice all that much in battery life for this power.

What prevents a stronger recommendation for creative types is the Swift X's cramped display. In particular, the 16:9 aspect ratio makes the screen feel inhibitory. I'm not expression you need a 15.6-inch or larger laptop to run Photoshop and other media-foundation and -editing apps, merely I would fence you motivation at least a 14-inch display with a 16:10 ratio. The 14-edge in, 16:9 display isn't a barrier, however, for gamers to foot the Swift X. It's a better fit as a laptop computer for students Beaver State office workers: light enough to carry around apiece day and ruling adequate to play games each Nox.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/395111/acer-swift-x-review-a-rare-ultraportable-laptop-with-bite.html

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