[Review] Acer Swift 3 – On Swift Wings

Acer’s most recent take on an ultraportable, the Swift 3 is a 14-inch notebook that comes with a swanky all-aluminium chassis that is both slim and light. Despite being mostly carved of metal bar the keyboard and parts of the hinge which are made of plastic, it weighs a relatively light 1.5kg, making it light enough to hold one-handed and something that you can easily slip into a backpack without undue effort; a pleasant surprise seeing its all-metal build.

Depending on your predilections for fashion sensibility in regards to notebooks, you can opt to snag the Swift 3 in either a shade of silver or a blinged up bronze looking shade of gold. The top lid itself is a vast expanse of brushed aluminium that is fortunately fingerprint resistant with the Acer logo emblazoned in the corner. When viewed from the sides, the Swift 3 is thickest at the hinge section of the chassis and this gently tapers down all the way to the other end with a sloped gradient that adds to the illusion of slimness.

The right side is relatively busy with an array of ports clustered near one end that include an SD card reader, an audio jack, a USB 2.0 port and a Kensington lock port.

The left side hosts a tiny port for the power cable, a HDMI-out, a single USB 3.0 and a USB Type C 3.1 port.

The hinge mechanism itself is relatively robust and allows you to deploy the display fully flat on the table; a bit of over-engineering seeing as the Swift 3’s display is non-touch capable making the whole point of deploying beyond the usual angle you’d see for a notebook display somewhat moot.

In terms of build quality the Swift 3 does not disappoint with a solidly hewn top lid with no give or play and a robust hinge without any wobbling whatsoever. While this robustness is welcome, it also means that it’s rather hard to deploy one-handed though that’s inconsequential for all but the most harried power users.

Flipping the lid open reveals a chiclet-style backlit keyboard along with a generously sized touchpad and a fingerprint reader. The keyboard comes with large palm rests but lacks a numeric keypad. It does however integrate a compact-sized direction pad in the lower right of the keyboard, a row of media playback controls and a soft-touch power button aligned vertically along the right edge of the keyboard.

Of note on the Swift 3 is its rather unusual speaker placement. Rather than plonking it up top or near the keyboard, Acer has instead opted to place them at the base of the notebook firing downwards. The base is otherwise unardorned save for four rubber knobs placed at each corner of the Swift 3 to prevent it from sliding off on a smooth surface.

The whole affair is sturdily constructed with aesthetics that befit its intended price tag. Its slick all metal build and brushed metal finish harkens to something from the halls of Cupertino which ought to make quite a few heads turn in the boardroom and at your local Starbucks joint.

Performance
In terms of hardware, the Acer Swift 3 integrates a 14-inch IPS LCD Full HD display with an  Intel Sky Lake Core i5-5200U 2.3GHz processor running Windows 10 Home. The notebook lacks a dedicated graphics card and instead relies on Intel HD Graphics 520 internal graphics, integrates 4GB DDR4 RAM and a 256GB SSD for storage.

It one-ups quite a few ultrabooks and notebooks of recent vintage as it sports the full monty of ports to interact or juice most hardware running around the block. You get a full sized SD card slot, a USB 2.0 slot, an audio jack, a USB 3.0 slot, a HDMI-out and a USB Type C 3.1 slot too. Another bonus it that it packs is a swipe-style fingerprint scanner that works with Window 10 Hello so you simply have to swipe your digit to unlock your laptop.

Firing up the Swift 3 is simply a matter of thumbing the power button in the upper right corner of the keyboard. Boot-up to the Windows login screen happens in seconds and zipping about browsers, e-mails and Word documents is gratifyingly swift. It lacks dedicated graphics, instead resorting to an Intel HD Graphics 520 integrated graphics set.
When subjected to 3D Mark’s Skydiver benchmark, it yielded a score of 3,254. Under PCMark 8’s Work setting with Work CL1.1 kicked in it managed a fairly decent score of 3,856. Under Geekbench 4 the Swift 3 had a single-core score of 3,398 and a multi-core score of 6,824. This mostly paints it as a productivity rig that can perform a modicum of entertainment and casual gaming. While it’s not intended for serious gaming, the Swift 3 proved to be relatively capable and was able to tackle last gen gaming titles on low settings though that isn’t its main forte.

The downward-firing speakers on the Swift 3 are middling at best and at maximum volume are able to deliver audible, if unremarkable sound with a fairly flat soundstage and little bass or detail. On the bright side, they were able to continue performing even when dialled to maximum without distortion or cracking with sufficient volume to raise eyebrows on the commute if you deign to do so.

The keyboard itself is a very pleasant affair with enough tactility and travel for touch typists to get about. The keys are pleasantly muted as well if you’re inclined to prefer quieter keyboards and they even offer backlighting too though it only comes at one brightness setting: on or off. Combined with the generous touchpad, this proves to be one of the better productivity-oriented notebooks we’ve seen in a long while.

The fact that it sports a fairly diverse suite of ports that include a handy full size USB 3.0 port, an SD card reader along with a USB Type-C port that lets you charge gear even when the Swift 3 is off means you needn’t have to worry about toting additional docks when hauling this about town for work.

Battery Life, Price and Performance
On paper, the Acer Swift 3 aims to offer 10 hours or so of performance though your mileage varies. Dialling the screen to maximum and performing fairly heavy work liked video, paperwork and the like garnered a shorter seven plus hours or so of active run time. More than sufficient for a day or so out and about complemented by the fact that the power brick itself is relatively light. The Swift 3 runs fairly quiet and cool most of the time and only warms up to slightly toasty levels that are still workable even when placed on your lap.

At RM3,199, the Swift 3 hits a sweet spot for those looking for a ultraportable. Its pricier than something hewn of plastic but blends a fetching, fingerprint-resistant build along with a modicum of performance and a fairly large, decent 14-inch display.There’s certainly cheaper or more capable notebooks around but what the Swift 3 offers is a well considered blend of hardware and performance that proves to be a real bargain.

Specifications
Price RM3,199
Display 14-inch Full HD IPS TFT LCD, 1,920 x 1080 pixels,
Processor Intel Core i5-5200U 2.3GHz processor
Graphics Intel HD Graphics 520
Memory DDR4 4GB RAM/256GB SSD
OS Windows 10 Home
Battery 3,220mAh (10 hours quoted)
Size/Weight 341 x 236,6 x 18mm / 1.5kg
* Review unit courtesy of Acer Malaysia

WHAT WE LIKED Slim silhouette, sturdy build quality, decent performance, fingerprint reader, full sized ports.
WHAT WE DIDN’T Middling battery life, only one brightness setting for keyboard backlighting, not touchscreen.
WE SAY A very well built and designed ultraportable with excellent build quality, a good keyboard and solid performance overall that make it an excellent all rounder.