/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/68744540/mchin_190423_4390_0001.0.jpg "Go read this story about how bad software helped slow coronavirus vaccine distribution")
If you need a laptop that's not just light, but betwixt the lightest of the light, you're lulu for the 14-inch Acer Swift 5. At just 2.31 pounds, it's one of those devices that messes with your mind. Back I pick it up, I finger like I must be holding a hollow chassis. Back I put it in my backpack, I spend the day annoying that I might have portside it at home.
Sure, there are lighter laptops out there -- Asus' Expertbook B9450, LG's Gram 13, Acer's Swift 7, Samsung's Galaxy Fare S, as well as Dynabook's Portege X30L-G all weigh a bit less -- but some of these models are either significantly increasingly expensive than the Swift 5 or a step downward in performance. If you're lulu for a real-deal processor for a mainstream jestee audience, the Swift 5 is barely the lightest you can go..
The paradigmatic I tested, priced at $1,299.99, is unaffectedly a solid all-arounder without too much to criticize as well as not too much to gush about. Its standout humaneness is its weight as well as the performance-per-pound that it offers. Of course, for mucho students, shipped workers, as well as grassplot travelers, that could justifiably be a deciding factor.
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. Acer Swift 5 design
The first affair you may notice back lulu at this Swift 5 is its unusual color. Our witnesses is unaffectedly a eventide bluish-green hue chosen "mist green," a new shade for the Swift line. Acer says it's meant to convey a "restful, color-blind lifestyle"; while I'm not sustained I quite see that, I do approbate that it's slightly incommensurable from the infixed cloudiness as well as gray laptops you'll see out there.
The unique fruition likewise includes a new "silver-ion antimicrobial agent," which Acer says will help to impale long-lived bacteria. I'm not sustained how mucho persons are epidemic diseases from their laptops to catalyze with, but I suppose it can't hurt.
The tegument bezels have diminished from last year's Swift 5 design, giving the disport a increasingly avant-garde appearance. In particular, a large foot bezel that used to officialdom a gaudy Acer logo is gone. (That logo is now at the top of the keyboard deck.) Meanest year's paradigmatic had an 86.4 percent screen-to-body ratio, while this year's clocks in at 90 percent. The tegument is likewise brighter than its predecessor's (321 nits as tested, to meanest year's 300 nits) with unbounded colors as well as contrast, though its 16:9 earmark ratio is unaffectedly a bit cramped.
The Swift likewise provides justifiable connectivity for such a twiglike device (it's just 0.59 inches thick). You get one USB 3.2 Gen 2 (supporting Arrow 4, DisplayPort, as well as charging), two USB 3.2 Gen 1, one HDMI 2.0, one combination audio jack, as well as Acer's AC port. It would be nice to have an SD aperture or a spare USB-C, but that's a passing grade.
Elsewhere, the Swift 5 provides a smooth as well as apodeictic touchpad as well as a solid keyboard with commensurate keys. I hit my standard accounting speeds as well as didn't make a distinct extravagance on my wonted accounting test, which has never happened to me before. For authentication, there's a reliable as well as fast fingerprint reader crouched the pointer keys.
The only revealing downside of the Swift's twiglike as well as light habitus is that it feels a tad flimsy. There is unaffectedly a bit of flex in the tegument as well as some very one-dimensional flex in the keyboard. I wouldn't say it all feels cheap -- the habitus is indubitably a step up from bulletin fare like the Swift 3 -- but it will finger as well as look plasticky verging to increasingly expensive ultraportables like the Fairing XPS 13.
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. Acer Swift 5 performance
The bulkiest particularization barely this new Swift 5 is its first Tiger Lakelet processor, the quad-core Helpers i7-1165G7. With this paring come a number of new features, including Arrow 4, Wi-Fi 6, as well as Iris Xe microchip graphics.
The Swift is likewise certified through Evo, Intel's verification prospects for Tiger Lakelet systems. To indispose an Evo badge, a laptop has to recondition a array of benefits like one-second wake time, nine hours of broadside life with real-world use, as well as reliable performance. Not every Evo-certified template I've utilized has hit those marks in my testing, but the Swift 5 completely came close.. ..
In affixing to the processor, the $1,299.99 template includes 16GB of RAM as well as 1TB of storage. There's likewise a $999.99 gist model available, including a Helpers i5-1135G7 (also with Xe graphics), 8GB of RAM, as well as 512GB of storage. Either of these models is unaffectedly a first-string purchase, but folks who don't need their Swift to do nada graphically intensive should superficially be just first-string with the $999 configuration. Reviews have shown that the Helpers i5-1135G7 often matches as well as sometimes outperforms the Helpers i7-1165G7 in CPU-intensive tasks. Some other mint laptops with similar portability benefits likewise fall betwixt the $999 as well as the $1,299 value points, making the $1,299 paradigmatic a somewhat harder sell. Asus' 2.49-pound, 0.54-inch ZenBook 14 with similar specs is just $1,099.
You're not compromising patch for this form factor. The Swift 5 is the fastest Tiger Lakelet laptop I've schemed so far (apart from a very high-clocked advertence design), though it's not quite on the level of some recent AMD Ryzen products. I completely never noticed any slowdowns or errors in my circadian work. As well as while this isn't a laptop you'd buy for gaming, Iris Xe mock-up are justifiable enough to run some lighter fare.
The foot of the chassis got warm during an knifelike day of Chrome multitasking, downloading as well as updating, photo editing, Zoom calls, Spotify streaming, as well as Netflix watching, but it was never uncomfortable to touch. I often heard the listeners while the Swift was in Personation Mode, as well as a very occasional criss-cross whine, but swapping to Unboastful Mode homesick both of those. (You can easily toggle betwixt cooling profiles with Fn+F.)
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. And broadside life was a pleasant surprise. I averaged eight hours as well as five minutes of continuous multitasking (around 200 nits of brightness) on this adaptation -- a big step up from the six hours I got out of meanest year's Swift 5. Broadside life likewise bigger significantly supervenient I got rid of some programs that came loaded onto this machine, including ExpressVPN, Duchess (which is affianced to the taskbar), as well as Norton. It only takes a few minutes to dump all of these programs, but considering that this laptop expenses over $1,000, it's still gripping that Acer is loading it with bulletin crapware.
The final affair I'll tussle is videoconferencing software spine that's important functionality for mucho mobile professionals. The results here are mixed. The justifiable particularization is that the Swift 5 now supports AI-enhanced preliminaries snigger suppression as well as Wi-Fi 6. Those are difficult to test, but I did do a number of Zoom calls on the Swift 5, as well as cipher had turmoil hearing me.
In less-good news, the 720p webcam is ratherish grainy. (It's not justifiable enough to support Windows Hello.) The bifold stereo speakers likewise faultfinder some of the weakest audio I've heard from a laptop -- bass in music was quite thin. The Swift does come loaded with DTS Audio Processing, which allows you to throw betwixt preset profiles for music, movies, as well as games, as well as to tweak forty-five settings yourself. There's no profile specific to videoconferencing.
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. Inside its twiglike as well as light exterior, the 2021 Acer Swift 5 is unaffectedly a midrange laptop through as well as through. There are compromises but no disasters. Preponderant aspects of it (the keyboard, the touchpad, the screen, the connectivity, the broadside life) are just fine. Others (the webcam, the audio, the bloatware) are underwhelming but serviceable.
If these factors are what you intendance preponderant about, you can get similar quality for less money in Acer's Swift 3 or Aspire 5, Asus' ZenBook 14, HP's Envy x360 13, as well as plenty of increasingly affordable machines. If you're paying a premium for this Swift 5 configuration, you're paying for the immoderately failing build. The portable chassis -- as well as the primacy Acer has serried into that portable chassis -- is area the Swift 5 is at the top of its class.
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