The Acer Swift X is a 14-inch laptop with the best performance and affordable price. The device also features a game-worthy Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU but it is not a gaming notebook. Point to be noted that Acer has already announced a higher-resolution heir with a 16:10 instead of a 16:9 screen aspect ratio. The laptop is more attractive due to its aluminum body with a chrome Acer logo on the top. The device measures 0.7 by 12.7 by 8.4 inches, much similar size to other 14-inch laptops such as HP EliteBook 840 Aero G8 and VAIO SX14. There is a significant amount of curve if you press the keyboard deck or enfold the screen corners. The slopes provide a smooth and comfortable typing environment, while the side and top screen bezels are significantly thin.
Moreover, the webcam is at the top bezel but without a security shutter, but one of the key functions at the top-row can mute the system’s microphone. You will also find a small, rectangular fingerprint reader under the keyboard to skip passwords with Windows Hello. The left edge of the laptop has 2 USB 3.2 ports (one Type-A & one Type-C) along with the power connector and an HDMI video output. There is a 2nd USB-A port, a security cable locking notch, and an audio jack are at the right side, but without a microSD card slot. It is important that some keys such as Right Shift and Enter are large, while the cursor arrow keys are combined with Page Up and Page Down keys. The latter ‘2’ performs double duty as Home and End with Fn key.
There are Escape, Delete, brightness, and volume controls in the top-row keys. The touchpad doesn’t feature buttons but it smoothly skates and taps. However, the viewing angles are comparatively large with nice and clean backgrounds. The webcam features the 720p resolution of a modern mainstream laptop. It has the ability to capture clear and colorful images. The speakers are placed at the bottom to produce soft and clear sound, but there is no bass. The laptop includes DTS Audio software for music, movie, and game presets as well as an equalizer with treble, vocal, and bass enhancement. You will also find a Quick Access utility for an anti-blue-light screen setting including normal, silent, and performance cooling modes. It is noteworthy that Acer Care Center provides software updates and recovery options.
The Swift X runs Windows 10 Home and features Norton Security Ultra for better security. The device is tested with UL’ PCMark 10 to measure the performance of various tasks like web browsing, word processing, spreadsheet, and video-conferencing. The laptop was tested with PCMark 10’s Full System Drive to find out the load time & throughput of the storage. The examination also involves an open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution. The device also tested with PugetBench of Puget Systems for Photoshop as it uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe image editor for performance. Two DirectX 12 gaming simulations were used for graphic testing including UL’s 3DMark, Night Raid and Time Spy. The Acer Swift X can easily get you through a full day of work and a movie in the evening.
