Swift 3 SF315-41

ACER $670

‘Since forever’ is a long time to wait, but that’s how far back you have to go to find a decent mobile CPU from AMD. In other words, it’s debatable whether AMD has ever made a competitive laptop chip. Yes, its mobile processors based on the Bobcat core were okay for budget devices, but Intel’s dominance was even stronger in laptops. At least until Ryzen proved how complacent Intel had become. But that was just desktop, right?

On paper, the Acer Swift 3 is ideal for weighing up the relative pros and cons of the latest mobile CPUs from AMD and Intel. That’s because it’s one of the few mobile rigs offered with both AMD Ryzen and Intel Core processors. Yes, variables remain, but the critical bits, like the screen, chassis, and battery, are shared by both variants, providing as level a playing field as you’re going to get.

In practice, it doesn’t work like that. But first, let’s dissect it. For the most part, it’s a middle-market offering in a 15.6-inch form factor, powered by the Ryzen 5 2500U. That’s the second tier in a four-strong range of mobile Ryzen CPUs. Where the Ryzen 7 2700U gets ten units, the 2500U has five. The 2500U is also 200MHz down on speed, with a base clock of 2GHz, and a max boost clock of 3.6GHz.

The 48Wh battery not only reveals the Swift 3’s mid-market positioning, it also makes it hard to get a feel for how efficient the Ryzen processor is in mobile implementation. A premium 15-inch portable like Dell’s XPS offers roughly double the battery life, for instance. Moreover, I had problems getting our preproduction review sample up to full charge, so I couldn’t assess the unit’s battery life.

This laptop kicked out a mixed bag of results. Very likely, all of that reflected my unit’s pre-production status. Maybe the firmware needs a tweak, or the cooling hasn’t had that final polish. The sense is that this isn’t Ryzen mobile at its best. That’s a pity, not only for this laptop—it’s a solid unit, with a nice IPS panel and a firm feel to its keyboard performance— but also for the Ryzen chip, which looks very promising indeed.

that this isn’t Ryzen mobile at its best