Acer Swift X Review: A Fantastic, Lightweight Ryzen Powered-Laptop

Acer Swift X Review: A Fantastic, Lightweight Ryzen Powered-Laptop

The Acer Swift X is the newest premium offering from the Taiwanese tech giant.

This review focuses on the top-tier configuration of the Acer Swift X. Our review model is the Acer Swift X SFX14 - 41G and features the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U with a Radeon Graphics card (GeForce® GTX 1650), 16GB of RAM, and 1.5 TB of storage. The design, display, audio, and keyboard usability should hold for the base models as well. 

Acer Swift X: Specifications

Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5700U
Storage 1.5TB
Ram/Memory 16GB
Display 14” FHD 1920 X 1080 Capacitive, IPS
Networking 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax (a/b/g/n = Wi-Fi 4/ac = Wi-Fi 5/ax = Wi-Fi 6), Bluetooth 5.0
Speaker Stereo (DTS)
Operating System Windows 10 Pro (64 bit)
Weight 1.39KGs
Battery 59Wh (upto 17Hrs of usage time)
Ports 2 USB-A, 1 HDMI, Audio Connections: 3.5mm, USB-C

Design

I personally love Acer’s design language throughout their product lineup. Acer knows how to make something that looks great and stands out. The Swift X is no exception.

The metal chassis feels sturdy and substantial, and is a pleasure to carry around. There’s something about the feel of cold metal that makes a plastic-bodied notebook feel less desirable. If you like to stand out in a crowd, the Swift X is a head-turner for sure. I received the gold version, the Swift X is available in three colours: blue, gold, and rose gold, though all three have the same silver finish on the main body. I definitely feel like I’m holding a premium device when I pick up the Swift X. There’s nothing wrong with a great cheap laptop, but nothing about this device feels cheap.

Beyond the look, the device is functionally designed as well. Acer kept the profile slim and rigid, opting for only two USB-A ports (one on each side) USB-C,Audio connection, Kensington Lock port and an HDMI port. 

Thanks to the vents you find on the back of the Swift X and an air inlet keyboard you can maximize cooling. It also has multiple cooling modes namely (silent, normal and perfomance) to suit the user's needs. In my time with the Swift X, I didn’t notice any overheating even under heavy use.

Overall, I have only one small gripe with the design. The laptop  fails the one-handed open test. If you use your laptop all the time for work, sipping a coffee with one hand and opening your laptop with the other is a big deal. Unfortunately, with the Swift X, you need both hands to open the lid.

Display and audio

The 14” FHD 1920 x 1080 is undoubtedly the standout component on the Swift X. The  full-HD display on the Swift X is very impressive.

The panel is incredibly bright with excellent viewing angles, even in an outdoor setting. It also covers 100% sRGB colour gamut, useful if you want to do light photo editing on your laptop. Streaming content from Netflix and playing light games is an absolute joy on the Swift X. Vibrant colors and impressive black levels bring to life illustrated content online as well.

Speakers on this laptop are another story entirely. You won't be able to fill a room with sound, but they will be fine if you want to hop on a quick call. If you want to listen to some music, they are not really ideal as the bass fades in to the background although music is not what this Swift X is even for. Be sure to carry some headphones with you, especially if you need good audio for creative work. 

Keyboard and touchpad

For a 14″ laptop, the keyboard on the Swift X feels relatively spacious. Key travel is rather shallow, but that’s to be expected considering the thin and light body. You can type accurately and quickly on this keyboard, working on all of my Techreport articles over the past few weeks on the Swift X. Backlighting on the keyboard is fairly bright and even. I didn’t notice any substantial light bleed in my use. The silver keycaps offer a stunning finish to the gold chassis, providing a very nice looking device when open as well. Overall this keyboard is quite good.

The Swift X also has a fingerprint reader for Windows Hello authentication, which is just below the keyboard on the right side. It’s easy enough to set up and use - no complaints here. It worked well for me about 90% of the time, with the occasional fluke where it couldn’t read my fingerprint on the first try. A quick lift of the finger fixed that.

Performance and battery life

The performance on the Swift X is at least partially impacted by which model you buy. On the other hand, this model with the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U has been fairly impressive at handling everything I throw at it.

Over the past few weeks I’ve used several demanding apps. Basic photo and video editing are seamless. Fans rarely kick in, and were only audible when I was playing video games. Navigating around the UI is of course nearly flawless on the Swift X. No lag and all of the various tent modes function as you would expect. 

The  full-HD panel is much less demanding on the battery and that really shows in actual use. Acer advertises 17 hours of battery life on average, but don’t get too excited about that estimate. In real-world testing I averaged around 8 to 10 hours when using the Swift X for all of my daily work tasks, as well as light gaming and streaming at home.

I spent a few days using the laptop for streaming Spotify and Netflix only. On those days I was able to get up to 8 hours of usage on a single charge.

You won’t be gaming as much on this laptop. Although some less demanding games like Flower are definitely playable in my experience. You definitely won’t have as much fun playing Valheim, Sims 4, or It Takes Two, let alone bigger titles like Doom Eternal and Resident Evil Village.

Then again, this isn’t a gaming laptop. Nor does it claim to be. Instead, it’s focusing on the creaters market, touting specs that will see you through your photo editing and lighter video editing needs, as well as your daily productivity tasks.

Conclusion: Should you buy the Swift X?

The Swift X is not a loud or flamboyant laptop, yet the subtle design makes you look at it twice. It can blend into your office meetings, and at the same time, it has the raw power to deliver a pretty decent gaming experience.  It’s pretty impressive to see the amount of performance this tiny and lightweight laptop manages to squeeze out. The build quality and design were a bit of a mixed bag personally, but honestly, I didn’t have any major complaints.

Is this a recommended purchase? Definitely. It is perfect for creative professionals aswell as for gamers to some extent. The powerful chipsets on the inside, a sleek and minimalistic design, and excellent battery life make the Swift X one of the best laptops to buy.

I would absolutely recommend this Swift X to anyone in the market.

Techreport Star Ratings

Design

           ★★★★

Build Quality

           ★★★

Display

           ★★★★

Performance

           ★★★★

Connectivity

           ★★★★★

Software Experience

           ★★★

Battery

           ★★★★★