Acer Swift 3 SF314
The finest version of the Swift 3 yet, but make sure to pick an AMD Ryzen model rather than an Intel one
SCORE
Range starts at: £441 (£529 inc VAT) Model tested: £666 (£729 inc VAT) from currys.co.uk
Acer’s Swift range of affordable lightweight laptops haven’t always lived up to their name, but their latest iteration welcomes AMD’s Ryzen 4000 Series processors into the fold – and the result is nothing short of a revelation.
Of course, we already knew that this family of chips was fast. During 2020, the Ryzen 4000 Series broke all sorts of records for mobile processor speed, with their potent combination of single-core power matched with AMD’s ability to pack many cores onto a single die. Intel’s 11th-generation Core chips offer more power per core, but you’ll have to go far up Intel’s range to find an eight-core competitor to the Ryzen 4700H in this Swift 3.
You do need to pay attention to which version of the Swift 3 SF314 you’re buying, however.
Several models include tenth-generation tenth-generatio Core processors, processors which are already alread looking dated, and a you should also be b aware that the Ryzen 3 4300U in the £529 version only includes four cores; it will stil still be blisteringly fast in day-today use, but if your workload includes tasks that demand multicore power then it’s well worth paying extra for a Ryzen 5 4500U or the £729 model we test.
If you turn to the graphs on p92, this laptop’s power becomes clear. Only two machines are faster in
PC Pro’s tests, and it’s again near the top in Geekbench 5’s multicore test. AMD’s integrated graphics also impressed in our gaming tests, with a 60fps average in Dirt: Showdown, 31fps in Metro: Last Light and 38fps in F1 2020. And those scores were all at Full HD with High detail, so there’s room for improvement by dropping detail settings and resolution. Again, note that those frame rates will drop if you choose a lesser Ryzen chip. For instance, the 4300U includes five GPU cores compared to six in the 4500U and seven in the 4700U.
What won’t change is the DNA of the Swift 3 itself. You can forget about an all-metal chassis, with plastic the watchword here. Nevertheless, Acer gives the machine a splash of style by contrasting the silver of the main body with a black surround for the screen, and at 1.2kg it’s a lightweight unit. It’s chunky compared to sleek beauties such as the Asus ZenBook nBook 14, but compensation ensation comes in a ten-hour en-hour battery life. It doesn’t feel so well built that we’d gleefully sling into a bag every day, but if you want an occasional casional travel companion p nion – or simply to lug it from room to room – it’s a fine choice. While it can be charged via the single USB-C port, Acer provides an old-style rat-and-tail power supply. You’ll be well catered for when it comes to connectivity elsewhere, with two USB-A ports, an HDMI output and a 3.5mm jack. You may also be tempted to add a microphone because the Swift’s built-in mic is quieter than ideal. idea Still, this is a decent videoconferencing machine; image quality from the 720p webcam is okay rather than great, great but fine for daily catch-ups. catch-ups
There’s only one area are where the Swift’s quali quality
“Only two machines are faster than the Swift 3 in
PC Pro’s tests, and it’s again near the top in Geekbench 5’s multicore test”
drops: the screen. Light greys merge into whites and the whole screen lacks punch; this is reflected in a lacklustre 55% coverage of the sRGB gamut, while its accuracy proved disappointing with an average Delta E of 4.8 and a maximum of 23.9. If you’re hoping for a machine to show off your photos to maximum effect, look elsewhere.
Instead, this should be thought of as a workhorse, and it’s telling that Acer invests money into the keyboard. There’s plenty of travel to the keys and they’re all well separated from one another. The only minor irritations are tiny cursor buttons and half-height function keys, but we can live with this. And, while the Swift does have backlighting behind the keys, it’s either off or on at such a high brightness that dark rooms light up.
Make the most of this feature, though, as that’s it for frills. There’s no Windows Hello webcam, just an awkward fingerprint reader to the right of the keyboard, and while the touchpad is well-sized and smooth (but not coated in glass) it has clicky, insubstantial buttons.
Still, we come back to the Acer Swift 3’s core strengths. It’s a fast everyday machine with h some potential for gaming, ing, it’s compact and light, , and although we don’t t love the screen the keyboard oard is surprisingly good d for the price. In fact, those e last five words sum up this his affordable laptop.