Acer Swift 5 laptop review: the virus will not pass!
Contents:
• Today, a year after the start of the pandemic, we can already say with confidence that the world will not be the same: our way of life has changed in many ways.
This is indirectly confirmed by electronics manufacturers – today companies produce laptops with an antimicrobial coating that prevents the spread of viruses and infections. One of these laptops is updated Acer Swift 5, the hero of our today's review.
Specifications Acer Swift 5 (NX.A6SER.002)
| Characterization | Details |
|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Core i7-1165G7 (12 MB cache, 2.8 GHz processor frequency, 4.7 GHz Turbo Boost, integrated Intel Iris Xe Graphics) |
| Video card | Intel Iris Xe Graphics supporting OpenGL 4.5, OpenCL 2.2, Microsoft DirectX® 12 |
| Screen | 14.0" inch IPS , Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution, Acer CineCrystal LED-backlit TFT LCD, multi-touch support, 16:9 aspect ratio, 100% sRGB color space, 170 degree viewing angle |
| Chassis | 318.9x206.98x14.95 mm, 1.05 kg, metal, antibacterial coating |
| Ports | 1 – Thunderbolt 4; 2 – USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A; 1 – HDMI 2.0; 1 – 3.5mm audio. |
| RAM | 16GB, memory type LPDDR4X Dual-channel SDRAM |
| Drive | 512 GB SSD M.2 |
| Battery | 56 Wh Li-ion battery, 65 W power supply |
| Touch screen | Yes, multi-touch |
| Sound | 2 speakers |
| Webcam | 1280 x 720 HD, SHDR, |
| Wi-Fi | Intel Wireless Wi-Fi 6 AX201, Dual Band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, 2x2 MU-MIMO |
| Bluetooth | 5.1 |
| Color | deep green |
| Operating system | Windows 10 Home |
Design and equipment
Traditionally, the Swift line is compact and lightweight laptops that are convenient to carry with you everywhere. The new Swift 5 does not break the trend: the body of the 14-inch machine has a thickness of less than 15 mm, and the weight of the device is about 1 kg.
• The laptop is made of alloys of magnesium, lithium and aluminum – it looks decent, the materials are not cheap to the touch, even with a slight touch of premium. The case has a matte finish, it does not leave fingerprints – a trifle, but nice.
• Swift 5 looks concise: a minimum of decorative elements, only a neat golden Acer stamping on the top cover. The taste and color, but perhaps the silver lettering looks more restrained and therefore more appropriate.
• From the interesting appearance of the laptop – a deep green color, which replaced the dark blue. If there are a lot of the latter on the market, then devices in green tones can be seen infrequently – I must admit, the laptop looks cool.
• The delivery package did not present surprises: in addition to the laptop itself, there is a power supply, cable, instructions and a guarantee. The block, by the way, at 65 W is also a kind of gold standard.
Main feature: silver antimicrobial coating
The surprises begin when you take out your laptop. The most important is, of course, an antimicrobial coating based on silver ions. There are modifications without it – we got the maximum configuration for the test, where, in addition to the screen, other surfaces of the laptop were also processed: the keyboard and all covers.
• The coating complies with BPR and EPA certifications and provides bacteria reduction according to JIS Z 2801 and ISO 2219 test protocols. The screen itself is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass. You can understand that you have a modification with an antibacterial coating in front of you by the letters TA in the name of the specification.
• “Why does a laptop need an antibacterial coating on the screen?” the perplexed reader may ask. The fact is that the Swift 5 display is touch-sensitive. The screen itself has a diagonal of 14 inches, the matrix and resolution are traditional – IPS, 1920x1080 pixels. Viewing angles are decent, color reproduction and brightness are pleasantly surprised, especially considering the type of matrix.
• The only nitpick is that the screen can glare in the sun, apparently, the case is in the protective glass. Here, who is more important – protection from microbes or the absence of glare. According to subjective experience, in most cases this does not interfere, glare is visible only in completely sunny weather.
Acer Swift 5 Performance
A few words about performance. Swift 5 is one of the first devices on the 11th generation of Intel "stones". We reviewed a machine with an Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor: 4 cores, 8-thread Hyper Threading, frequency from 1.2 to 2.8 GHz. In turbo mode, the frequency of a single core can be accelerated to 4.7 GHz, or up to 4.2 GHz for all cores. The processing power of the processor is impressive: few devices in this form factor can boast such performance.
• There is no discrete video card in our laptop (although there are modifications with the GeForce MX series), we have to be content with the integrated one – the Intel Iris Xe chip is responsible for the video here. As always, you can't demand much from an integrated video camera, but you can't help saying that Iris Xe is much better than previous integrated video chips from Intel.
• It is clear that new AAA titles will not work normally on it, but simple games like CS:GO and Dota 2 at medium settings give out quite comfortable 45-50 FPS.
The manufacturer did not spare the RAM either: our laptop has 16 GB of LPDDR4X RAM on board – a decent figure by modern standards. Storage – M.2 SSD 512 GB. Let's say right away: the data transfer rate is not the top, but quite decent, in any case, exactly corresponds to the class and cost of the device.
• Despite its compact size, Swift 5 has a lot of connectors: here you have HDMI, USB Type-A, and USB Type-C (the latter, by the way, is compatible with Thunderbolt 4). The headphone-microphone combo jack hasn't gone away either. From wireless interfaces – fast and relevant in 2021 Wi-Fi 6 (GIG +) and BT 5.1.
• While we were testing the video, thoughts about cooling also appeared: a gaming stress test showed that one cooler and two copper pipes are enough to heat up the device's filling to about 60 degrees (at first the temperature reached 75, after the system adapted it dropped to 60). The cooling works almost silently: neither in the office, nor even on the street, you will not hear it. At home – perhaps, and then under serious load.
Laptop autonomy
Let's talk about autonomy. The manufacturer promises up to 17 hours on a single charge – of course, this figure is too high, at least for everyday conditions. Tests showed that the machine can withstand an eight-hour working day without any problems and restrictions: several programs were launched at the same time, quite demanding editors were periodically launched, the brightness was also close to the maximum.
Cost and Conclusions
In the official Acer online store, the Swift 5 laptop of this modification is sold for 119 rubles.
• As a result, Acer has turned out to be a worthy successor to the Swift line: it fully complies with the philosophy of compactness and lightness, while providing good performance. The processor is beyond praise, and the video, sound and memory are at the traditional level for the segment. What exactly is worth praising the manufacturer for is a cool design with a very pleasant green color and a decent build quality.
• The antimicrobial coating that the new model boasts of has not been tested, but I want to believe that it really works. Acer made a laptop in the spirit of the time – and it definitely has its own audience.
Evgeny Leonov Expert of the Hi-Tech section on engineering and technology.
