Acer Swift 14 AI evaluation: give it up for the ports

The Acer Swift 14 is throughout AI the place. It has highly effective chip choices, distinctive battery life, and a great deal of ports for such a transportable laptop computer. The keyboard and trackpad are strong, which isn’t all the time a given at any value. However the display screen and webcam are mediocre, and the audio system are outright horrible.

Battery life, efficiency, and ports are vital, and it is smart to prioritize these, even when it means slicing prices elsewhere. These are the sorts of powerful tradeoffs that funds laptops need to make.

Sadly, the Swift 14 AI isn’t a funds laptop computer.

Our review configuration of the Swift 14 AI comes with a Core Extremely 7 Collection 2 258V (Lunar Lake) processor, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB SSD at an MSRP of $1,299.99. There are quite a few Swift 14 variants, together with a $1,199.99 AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 config (which I additionally examined) and a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus / Elite mannequin with a greater display screen. Acer additionally makes a 16-inch Intel version with an OLED display screen, and it’s truly $50 cheaper than the 14 however with much less RAM.

At 2.95 kilos and 0.63-inches thick, the Swift 14 AI isn’t the thinnest or lightest round, nevertheless it has 4 USB ports — two USB-A 3.2 and two USB4 — plus a 3.5mm audio jack and HDMI 2.1. I’m used to thin-and-light laptops on this value vary having only a couple USB-C ports, possibly a USB-A or proprietary charging port, and an audio jack. Having all this I/O on a laptop computer of this measurement is a deal with once you want it.

The opposite large treats, in each the Intel Lunar Lake and AMD Ryzen AI fashions, are the efficiency and battery life. Each are nice for on a regular basis productiveness duties like working many Chrome tabs, Google Docs modifying, prolonged video calls, and frequent use of messaging apps like Slack and Sign. The Intel mannequin is a powerful battery sipper, lasting from sunup to effectively previous sunset underneath lighter workloads. In our battery rundown check, it lasted almost 17 hours — matching the 15-inch Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Aura Version and crushed solely by Arm-based Snapdragon laptops like the brand new Floor Laptop computer 13-inch and final 12 months’s HP OmniBook X.

The AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 model, which is sort of an identical to the Intel Lunar Lake apart from a distinct hinge design and coloration, sacrifices a little bit of battery life for the sake of higher multi-core and graphics efficiency. However it could possibly nonetheless final via an additional lengthy day of common use after which some, and it nonetheless obtained 15 hours in our battery rundown check.

The keyboard and trackpad aren’t showstoppers, however they’re strong. The keyboard feels a bit of skinny, nevertheless it has decently sized keycaps with simply sufficient tactile suggestions to not really feel mushy. The mechanical trackpad is an honest measurement, clicks simply, and is surprisingly quiet. It has a design in its top-right nook paying homage to some sort of neural pathway. It glows when the neural processing unit (NPU) is getting used, to point that it’s “considering,” nevertheless it typically lights up unexpectedly throughout on a regular basis duties, too.

Boot up the Swift 14 AI for the primary time and also you’re met with two of its most readily obvious flaws: a mediocre display screen and egregious bloatware. The 14-inch 1920 x 1200 / 60Hz show can attain a vibrant 400 nits, nevertheless it seems to be a bit low distinction and lacks visible punch. Your eyes could regulate to it, however as quickly as you notice a greater display screen on one thing like a Floor Laptop computer or MacBook Air you’re reminded of the Swift’s shortcomings.

The bloatware isn’t too laborious to stamp out, nevertheless it’s a bit extra invasive than different laptops. You will have wished Dropbox anyway, however I doubt you need it pestering you with subscription provides as quickly as you arrange your pc. Then there’s the taskbar shortcut to Booking.com and the pop-ups for Google Play Video games and free-to-play dreck. Bloatware is one strategy to subsidize the value of a laptop computer and preserve the value down, however I’m unsure the Swift 14 AI is affordable sufficient to justify it. However a minimum of it’s simple to uninstall.

Sadly, you’ll be able to’t uninstall the audio system or the webcam. The 2-speaker setup is against the law in opposition to music. You’re higher off cranking the quantity in your cellphone. Zoom and Google Meet calls are by some means all the time too loud or too quiet — I needed to preserve altering the quantity throughout conferences to accommodate completely different individuals’s voices. And the webcam is barely a bit of higher. I’ve seen it render an okay picture in vibrant lighting, however when you’re in even barely decrease lighting then it falls aside. Acer’s built-in software program provides picture enhancement, nevertheless it simply boosts distinction and oversharpens, making all the pieces look crunchy.

You may actually get a worse laptop computer for more cash. However for across the similar value, you may get the identical or comparable processor with a nicer display screen, higher audio system, and equal battery life in Lenovo’s Yoga Slim 7i (it’s only a contact bigger, with a worse trackpad). Or you’ll be able to spend a bit of extra and get an Asus Zenbook S 14 with a superb OLED display screen and barely higher specs (although one much less USB-A port). And when you can work with macOS or Home windows on Arm and put up with fewer ports, then the 13-inch MacBook Air M4 or 13-inch Floor Laptop computer are much better all-around packages for much less.

A part of me nonetheless actually likes the Swift 14 AI. Efficiency and battery life are prime notch, the port choice is nice for a thin-and-light, and nearly all the pieces else is a minimum of first rate. If you may get it effectively beneath its $1,300 MSRP — say, round $1,000 — the mediocre display screen and terrible audio system are extra forgivable. And it appears to go on sale pretty usually. Simply don’t overlook your headphones.

Pictures by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge