Acer Swift 3 Mini-Review Back
Photos: 10
Photo source: Acer
One of the most reviewed Ryzen 4000 laptops demonstrated its performance by outperforming laptops that cost more than 3 times as much. It is a good budget laptop but Acer had to make some sacrifices to achieve this price.
Written: 05 September 2020, Updated: 10 April 2021
- Good performance
- Solid Aluminum build
- Large NVMe SSD
- Dim display with mediocre color accuracy
- Cooling can't keep up in demanding tasks
Specifications
| General | |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Acer |
| Name | Swift 3 |
| Type | Clamshell |
| Operating System(s) | Windows 10 Home |
| Color(s) | Silver |
| Size & Weight | |
|---|---|
| Weight | 2.65lbs, 1.2kg |
| Width | 12.73", 323.4mm |
| Depth | 8.62", 218.9mm |
| Thickness | 0.63", 15.95mm |
| Performance | |
|---|---|
| Gaming Score | 29 |
| Processor(s) | AMD Ryzen 5 4500U AMD Ryzen 7 4700U |
| Graphics | AMD Vega 6 AMD Vega 7 |
| Storage (GB) | 256; 512 |
| Battery | |
|---|---|
| Mobility Score | 71 |
| Capacity (Wh) | 49 |
| Idle (hours) | 16:46 |
| Wifi (hours) | 11:03 |
| Video (hours) | 11:19 |
| Load (hours) | 1:54 |
| Average Runtime | 9:25 |
| Memory (RAM) | |
|---|---|
| Size (GB) | 8 |
| Type | DDR4 |
| Frequency (Mhz) | 3200 |
| Display | |
|---|---|
| Resolution | 1920x1080 |
| Size | 14" |
| Type | IPS |
| Aspect Ratio | 16:9 |
| Brightness (nits) | 230 |
| Glare | Matte |
| Refresh Rate | 60 |
| Touch | No |
| Stylus | No |
| Ports | |
|---|---|
| USB-C | 1 |
| HDMI | 1 |
| USB 3 | 1 |
| USB 2 | 1 |
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Case, design, and build quality
Acer used solid aluminum to create a laptop that is superior to most other laptops in this price range. There is minimal flex when pressing down on the display or lifting the device up. Despite the solid construction and large 14" display, the Acer Swift 3 is very light. The only nitpick we found is that the display cannot be opened with one hand.
Ports
Power, USB-C, HDMI, USB-A 3.1
3.5mm audio jack, USB-A 2.0, Kensington Lock
The Acer Swift 3 offers a solid selection of ports. Especially the HDMI port is a useful addition to quickly connect to a monitor or beamer at home or on the go. Unfortunately, there is no second USB-C port on the right, so the charging cable must be connected from the left. However, given the price class of the device, this is an acceptable tradeoff.
Inputs
The keyboard offers a good typing experience with enough key travel and backlighting. The touchpad is not quite as good, but at least it uses Windows Precision drivers so it is a big step up from the terrible Windows touchpads seen on budget laptops just a couple of years ago.
The Acer Swift 3 provides a fingerprint scanner and Windows Hello face recognition to authenticate the user. It is a pity, that the fingerprint scanner is on the inside of the device, otherwise it could have been used to authenticate if the laptop is closed (e.g. while being connected to external monitors). However, it is still great that Acer added two ways of authentication.
The Acer Swift 3 provides a fingerprint scanner and Windows Hello face recognition to authenticate the user. It is a pity, that the fingerprint scanner is on the inside of the device, otherwise it could have been used to authenticate if the laptop is closed (e.g. while being connected to external monitors). However, it is still great that Acer added two ways of authentication.
Processor
- Name: AMD Ryzen 5 4500U
- Cores: 6
- Threads: 6
- Name: AMD Ryzen 7 4700U
- Cores: 8
- Threads: 8
The Acer Swift 3 was the first Ryzen 4000 laptops to be reviewed by the press. Thanks to the performance uplift compared with Intel's Ice Lake processor, the Swift's performance got a lot of praise. However, now that more models with AMD Ryzen 4000 processors are on the market, it becomes clear that the Swift performs not as well as it could with better components and cooling.
For example, it reaches about the same multi threaded score in Cinebench 20 as the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 with a 4500U that has 2 cores less and a lower frequency. Having said that, the performance is still great, it is just important to know that the Swift 3 will not be able to keep up with more premium models despite having the same processor.
For example, it reaches about the same multi threaded score in Cinebench 20 as the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 with a 4500U that has 2 cores less and a lower frequency. Having said that, the performance is still great, it is just important to know that the Swift 3 will not be able to keep up with more premium models despite having the same processor.
Display
- Size: 14
- Type: IPS
- Resolution: 1920x1080
- Aspect ratio: 19:9
- Brightness (nits): 230
Fortunately manufacturers stopped using 720p TN panels for their budget models. However, Acer used a pretty low end FullHD ISP display. Resolution and viewing angles are fine, but color accuracy is poor. This would be acceptable on a budget laptop, but unfortunately the panel only reaches 240 nits of brightness on average. This makes it hard to use in bright environments, especially with a glossy screen (although there have been some reports that Acer sometimes uses panels with a semi-matte screen that reduces reflections).