I am a sucker for a light-weight laptop that is simple to tote round in a backpack and packs loads of efficiency to deal with no matter job is at hand. It is the rationale I’ve spent years working from an iPad Professional, tinkering with Chromebooks and even penning a love letter to the Floor Professional 8 a few years in the past. I’ve a delicate spot for moveable computing.
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On paper, that is precisely what the Acer Swift 14 guarantees. This $1,400 laptop computer has the entire newest elements and {hardware} you’d need in any Home windows laptop computer and is designed for on-the-go use.
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Acer Swift 14
An ultraportable laptop computer with Intel’s thirteenth Technology Core i7–13700H processor, 16GB of LPDDR5 reminiscence and a 1TB PCIe 4 NVMe SSD.
All the specs above add as much as a clean expertise for on a regular basis use and a few heavier duties, like photograph and video modifying and maybe some gaming.
You will not be capable to play AAA titles like Fortnite or Name of Responsibility on the Acer Swift 14, however that is to be anticipated with such a laptop computer. I did discover the followers to spin up with minimal effort on my or Acer’s half. They don’t seem to be overly loud, however you may hear them if you happen to’re not streaming any music or movies.
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I spent quite a lot of time utilizing Microsoft’s Edge browser on the Swift 14, streaming video, sending and receiving emails and utilizing apps like Slack and Apple Music for different routine work duties. All the things concerning the Swift 14 was, properly, swift. I did not expertise any efficiency hiccups or slowdowns. And the battery was capable of sustain with my utilization, lasting a full day of combined use.
The battery will, nonetheless, wrestle to get by way of a full day if you happen to’re utilizing it primarily for extra resource-intensive duties, like different laptops on this spec stage.
You get a USB-A port, Kensington lock, and three.5mm headphone jack on the aspect of the Swift 14. Jason Cipriani/ZDNET
I run a battery benchmark on each laptop computer I check, the place I play the identical 4K video file on a loop utilizing VLC with the show brightness set to 50% and Bluetooth disabled whereas utilizing a digicam to create a timelapse video of the laptop computer till it turns off. I can then return and see, to the minute, how lengthy the battery lasted. And the Acer Swift 14 lasted 8 hours and 28 minutes. That is not horrible, particularly for a laptop computer of this dimension. It is greater than sufficient juice for a cross-country flight.
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The primary time I opened the lid, revealing the show and keyboard, I used to be shocked because the deck of the laptop computer tilted in the direction of me, lifting the bottom off of my desk as soon as the lid was opened to a vertical place. There is a lip that extends from the laptop computer’s hinges that does the lifting; it is a novel concept that places the keyboard at an angle that ought to make typing extra snug. And for probably the most half, I discovered that to be true. Though my wrists and fingers did undergo from some fatigue after prolonged use.
The usual-sized keyboard comes with a fingerprint-supported energy button. Jason Cipriani/ZDNET
The touchpad of the Acer Swift 14 is the one side of the design I take main concern with. It is too small and cramped to make use of successfully, particularly in a enterprise setting the place scrolling lengthy paperwork, spreadsheets and emails are the norm. You will undoubtedly desire a Bluetooth mouse to make use of with the Swift 14.
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The 1440p QHD webcam piqued my curiosity as most laptop computer webcams are, properly, horrible. I spent a few days taking all of my conferences on the Acer Swift 14, making certain to set my video decision for every video platform to 1080p, and total, the top consequence was higher than my M1 MacBook Professional.
The video does tend to be overexposed, however the decision regarded stable. The mic and audio system have been extra adequate for video calls, however the audio system do lack some oomph when streaming music or watching movies.
The flat-edged bezels give the laptop computer a premium feel and appear. Jason Cipriani/ZDNET
The show is by far my favourite side of the Swift 14. It is a 14-inch WQXGA 2560 x 1600 show with multi-touch help. The display is vivid, has loads of shade saturation and simply seems sharp. It’s extremely responsive to the touch for these moments after I did not need to fiddle with the small trackpad. It is nice.
Nevertheless, did Acer actually need to completely put “Antimicrobial Corning Gorilla Glass” within the top-left nook of the lid, simply above the show? It is distracting and annoying. Much more annoying about it’s the truth that not one of the promotional photographs on Acer’s web site for the Swift 14 present the textual content.
All-in-all, the Swift 14 delivers on its moveable and highly effective promise. There are a couple of small issues I would prefer to see improved, resembling the dimensions of the trackpad, however total the Swift 14 is a worthy contender for a enterprise person or scholar.
