Acer Swift 3 review: Better as a budget device than as a mid-range laptop
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You can get more content on screen on a 3:2. More lines of text in your ars articles, more of a page in pdfs, etc.
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Open up any website and tell me how much empty space you have on the sides? That would be why. If all you do is watch movies, then it's great. But anything else (web, productivity) having more vertical space is better, less scrolling.
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Seems like buyers should consider buying the cheapest one and pop in a better SSD and RAM, that is of course if you don't need gaming graphics.
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Is the storage correct in the specs chart?
Best is listed as 256GB
But has reviewed is 512GB.
Guess those are flipped or at least the best is wrong.
Best is listed as 256GB
But has reviewed is 512GB.
Guess those are flipped or at least the best is wrong.
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Or find a similar laptop with a battery that isn't smaller than that of a cellphone (4-cell (3220 mAh))... If it's easily upgradable then that could be a good arguing point for buying it. Lots of laptops these days use plastic tabs to secure everything.
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Not sure if possible. My work had been buying these Swift 3 as our low end basic unit (yah i know). In past 6 months or so they got update, slightly different case design and ram is now soldered on. Before a model with 8GB RAM had 4GB soldered and 1 slot that had 4GB stick, so we could at least upgraded to 12GB. Documentation was unclear if 16GB stick for 20GB total would work.
For reference, old model # was: SF314-52-55HL
New is now listed as: SF314-54-57JC
Also am in canada so models could be different.
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Thanks for the review, I had missed this product roll out. Definitely something for me to consider next time I'm in the market. My wife is the primary user of our laptop, and she'd value a better screen and usable keyboard over powerful internal specs (and I value a solid price point above anything). And as always, I can install a clean version of Windows (or even Linux) to fix the bloatware issue.
Laptopmag had a slightly more favorable take on the keyboard than you did, and also had nice things to say about the screen. Looks like a winner to me!
Laptopmag had a slightly more favorable take on the keyboard than you did, and also had nice things to say about the screen. Looks like a winner to me!
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I've been using Acers for a decade, and the only device in their lineup I've used with a bad keyboard was their early-generation Chromebook. Otherwise, their laptops tend to have passable keyboards. Plus, I've found them to be surprisingly durable for low-end hardware.
Edited for grammatical error
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I don't think they're a deal anymore, given the unreliability. I'm not saying go out and buy this thing, basically 3 pounds of laptop, but I'm sticking with an old MBA because it's lasted us years as major purchases should do.
I think the battery life is perfectly adequate assuming that means a 4 year ish lifespan of decent battery for this laptop, but it's frustrating to find accurate information on these, which is why people should stick with major brands with good reputations, like Apple, once upon a time.
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Honestly, the Prime Day Acer Aspire 5 (AMD Ryzen 3 3200) for $269 was a far better deal. Even out of the box with low end specs it was far more performant than the Dell I bought my wife a year earlier - even with a lower spec CPU and half the ram.
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"Best" has a discrete GPU, and "as-reviewed" doesn't. That likely accounts for the price difference. Why 512GB isn't apparently an option with a discrete GPU is a mystery.
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Claiming "anything" else overstates the generally valid argument. IDEs such as those from JetBrains, for example, do a great job of making use of extra horizontal space. (You could even consider the limited vertical space as another encouragement to keep your functions/classes short and to the point!) Many content creation applications have so much going on in different palettes and floating windows that they work great with a wide screen, too (Blender, Premiere).
Not that I'd buy a machine like this for coding and video editing, but plenty of UI designers have figured out ways to make good use of the horizontal space of the dominant 16:9 screens.
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I kinda like the Acer Swift lineup especially because they all have a 1080p IPS display (something that's still not guaranteed in the budget oriented sector), an SSD (an eMMC on the Swift 1, though optional), and they don't have any major flaws.
They're average, but in a good way. If you want to go for a budget option choosing a Swift it's usually a risk-free move.
They're average, but in a good way. If you want to go for a budget option choosing a Swift it's usually a risk-free move.
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Could we start getting bottom cover removed shots in laptop reviews? The upgradability of this laptop would have a big factor in if it's appealing or not, namely get the base model and upgrade the storage and RAM yourself.
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Companies usually send a machine with all the bells and whistles, and this review unit came without the nVidia GPU.
Hmm.. I guess this means that battery life with with this laptop is terrible if you're using GPU-heavy apps/games.
Hmm.. I guess this means that battery life with with this laptop is terrible if you're using GPU-heavy apps/games.
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It doesn't get any better with any other laptop, discrete GPUs eat battery life for breakfast, hence why so many laptops tend to have software specifically written to switch to integrated graphics the moment you stop needing GPU power. Unless there's some miracle breakthrough on battery density wherein you can store massive amounts of power in the same form factor (without compromising the stability like the Note 7), GPU-powered laptops will always be little more than portable desktops with built-in UPSes for safe shutdowns.
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16:9 also works pretty well with window tiling, from the simplified 2-4 tile system that Windows 10 has to a full tiling window manager.
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This looks a lot like my 3-year-old Acer Aspire V, which is generally also "adequate" outside of its excellent touchscreen screen (I bought it refurbed, so the price was what sold me).
But what's less-than-adequate is the location of the power button, which on this one and mine is in a bizarre spot on the left side that is incredibly easy to press by accident when moving or adjusting the laptop.
This was a complaint common in Aspire reviews 3 years ago, and I'm surprised it isn't mentioned here. It's truly awful, and annoying to the point where it would prevent me from buying this.
But what's less-than-adequate is the location of the power button, which on this one and mine is in a bizarre spot on the left side that is incredibly easy to press by accident when moving or adjusting the laptop.
This was a complaint common in Aspire reviews 3 years ago, and I'm surprised it isn't mentioned here. It's truly awful, and annoying to the point where it would prevent me from buying this.
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I bought a 2018 model of the Swift 3 back in Jan 2018 and thus far it has been decent i think.
I got an i5-8250U with the MX150, 8Gb ram and 256GB SSD because i was switching from a desktop with a i5 ivy bridge and GTX660 to a laptop b/c of a lifestyle change and i was hoping to be able to do some gaming still on my backlog of older games. I paid $720 USD for mine, plus $90 in import fees to Canada because this model that i wanted was not available in canada at all.
The fingerprint reader is finicky sometimes for sure, i've never used a larger sized version before so i can't say how well that works, about the same as my nokia 6.1 phone where if my fingers have been in significant weather and are very very dried out or puffy from water it doesn't work, but 90% of the time it works every time. At one point i deleted my fingerprint from windows and rescanned it and that solved a bunch of issues i was having.
I find the keyboard to be just fine, I don't use it a lot to be fair (usually hooked up to an actual keyboard while i'm at home) and i don't type a lot, but i haven't had any complaints. I am not complaining about the trackpad either, it works fine and i've never used a 'good' trackpad that reviewers are always comparing to.
I did have to disable the Nvidea context menu from the desktop screen right click though, for some reason it was adding like 2-3 seconds to the time it took to load a File Explorer window, no idea how that works but that was an issue i had.
As for gaming, well, i never did game that much, but even less now with this swift 3, partially due to the lifestyle changes but also because gaming is harder with a laptop while on the move and also because i feel like the Swift 3 heats up and i have no idea what safe temps are with this thing.
Trying out league of legends for a bit this summer with friends in 720p resolution with lowspec mode and closing the client during games my laptop would get warm, with the CPU sitting at 80-85 degrees Celsius according to open hardware monitor after a few minutes and the graphics card at 70. League played smoothly though so far as i could tell, i was never in any big team fights though.
Playing Dragon Age Inquisition isn't so nice, i have that turned down to 1366x768 and medium graphics and it still is maybe 30 FPS and drops lower occasionally (I never downloaded anything that tracks FPS). the same temps from league apply here.
Path of exile is the same story, i needed to turn down the resolution and i ended up allowing the adaptive graphics option to help keep frame rates up, so every time things get busy the game looks like minecraft, that does keep better frame rates though.
My laptop claims 10 hours of battery life, but i can't really say i've gotten that before even when i am just reading webpages for a few hours.
I got an i5-8250U with the MX150, 8Gb ram and 256GB SSD because i was switching from a desktop with a i5 ivy bridge and GTX660 to a laptop b/c of a lifestyle change and i was hoping to be able to do some gaming still on my backlog of older games. I paid $720 USD for mine, plus $90 in import fees to Canada because this model that i wanted was not available in canada at all.
The fingerprint reader is finicky sometimes for sure, i've never used a larger sized version before so i can't say how well that works, about the same as my nokia 6.1 phone where if my fingers have been in significant weather and are very very dried out or puffy from water it doesn't work, but 90% of the time it works every time. At one point i deleted my fingerprint from windows and rescanned it and that solved a bunch of issues i was having.
I find the keyboard to be just fine, I don't use it a lot to be fair (usually hooked up to an actual keyboard while i'm at home) and i don't type a lot, but i haven't had any complaints. I am not complaining about the trackpad either, it works fine and i've never used a 'good' trackpad that reviewers are always comparing to.
I did have to disable the Nvidea context menu from the desktop screen right click though, for some reason it was adding like 2-3 seconds to the time it took to load a File Explorer window, no idea how that works but that was an issue i had.
As for gaming, well, i never did game that much, but even less now with this swift 3, partially due to the lifestyle changes but also because gaming is harder with a laptop while on the move and also because i feel like the Swift 3 heats up and i have no idea what safe temps are with this thing.
Trying out league of legends for a bit this summer with friends in 720p resolution with lowspec mode and closing the client during games my laptop would get warm, with the CPU sitting at 80-85 degrees Celsius according to open hardware monitor after a few minutes and the graphics card at 70. League played smoothly though so far as i could tell, i was never in any big team fights though.
Playing Dragon Age Inquisition isn't so nice, i have that turned down to 1366x768 and medium graphics and it still is maybe 30 FPS and drops lower occasionally (I never downloaded anything that tracks FPS). the same temps from league apply here.
Path of exile is the same story, i needed to turn down the resolution and i ended up allowing the adaptive graphics option to help keep frame rates up, so every time things get busy the game looks like minecraft, that does keep better frame rates though.
My laptop claims 10 hours of battery life, but i can't really say i've gotten that before even when i am just reading webpages for a few hours.
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The power button on the Swift 3 is on the top right hand corner right above the backspace, i've never hit it before by accident, and just now i pressed it briefly as if i might if i hit it accidentally while typing and nothing happened, you need to hold it down for a couple seconds to enable it.
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"Can someone explain to me why 16:9 aspect ratio is a bad thing? Is it outdated now in favor of 3:2?"
I recently bought the Acer spin 13 and was worried about the 3:2 screen.
Man was I wrong.. At this size screen you seem to get more real usable screen.
This may not be true for a large desktop monitor but for a laptop, I now prefer this size
It's also a 2K screen which helps as well but my suggestion is to see one in real life and judge for yourself.
I recently bought the Acer spin 13 and was worried about the 3:2 screen.
Man was I wrong.. At this size screen you seem to get more real usable screen.
This may not be true for a large desktop monitor but for a laptop, I now prefer this size
It's also a 2K screen which helps as well but my suggestion is to see one in real life and judge for yourself.
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This would be better as a ChromeOS laptop. If you need windows then you are going to want more performance.
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At least the as-reviewed(and certainly the 'best') seem to live the the opposite(but similarly bad in its own way) of the zone occupied by computers so cut down to fit a price point that they just aren't really worth touching(the whatever-atom-is-cheapest-and-32-gb-eMMC specials, say).
As an entry level device it looks fine-ish; and the mediocre overall package is to be expected; but once you spec it up to $900 it starts to look dangerously shabby compared to the lower end of non-budget laptop ranges.
That's within spitting distance of, depending on your taste and exactly what has a discount code today, a Macbook air; T490, Surface Laptop 2; XPS 13; or similar.
You don't want to be a plasticky looking toy and price-comparable with a Mac or T-series Thinkpad. Not a good look, or a good deal.
As an entry level device it looks fine-ish; and the mediocre overall package is to be expected; but once you spec it up to $900 it starts to look dangerously shabby compared to the lower end of non-budget laptop ranges.
That's within spitting distance of, depending on your taste and exactly what has a discount code today, a Macbook air; T490, Surface Laptop 2; XPS 13; or similar.
You don't want to be a plasticky looking toy and price-comparable with a Mac or T-series Thinkpad. Not a good look, or a good deal.
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A web browser on Windows doesn't use significantly (any?) more resources than a web browser on a locked-down Linux distro. Honestly, what advantage would ChromeOS offer other than a faster boot time? (Please don't say "no viruses".)
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It probably doesn't help that the MX150 is kind of an unflattering chip.
It has the great virtue of being able to lift games that are just plain unplayable on 'low' in an Intel 620/630-level integrated GPU to something north of 30FPS; making them at least passable; but while that's a significant real world virtue at the low end it's also the case that it gets beaten up and has its lunch money stolen by any real GPU; while even the lower-power variant(Nvidia is apparently so proud of this that the 10w "N17S-LG-A1" and the 25w and somewhat faster "N17S-G1-A1" are both sold as "MX150") is a good 50% extra TDP on top of the CPU, which does the battery and fan noise no good at all.
It has a niche, and it's not surprising to find a part there; but it's not a very glamorous niche. It's a pretty gimpy GPU by GPU standards; and a pretty thirsty part by ultrabook standards; which puts it in the fine tradition of mutually disappointing compromises.
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I'm surprised u didn't mention its lack of WiFi 6. That would be something I look for to future-proof any new PC.
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It's sad that they're out of the chipset manufacturer market because for a while you could buy a low-to-mid end PCs with an embedded nVidia GPU. Obviously nothing compared to a discrete video card but miles ahead to what Intel was -and still is- offering.
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There are two screens available: the 14" and the 15.6". Both are 1920x1080 IPS.
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Thanks for this - good to know! On my Aspire you barely have to touch it in order to instantly shut the computer down. And the fact that it's right next to the USB port means I have to be very careful when plugging anything it.
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