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   Specifications

  • 14-inch 1920 x 1080 IPS touchscreen
  • 10th-gen Intel Core i5-1035G1 quad-core 1GHz or i7-1065G7 quad-core 1.3GHz
  • 8GB of RAM
  • 512GB SSD
  • 2.18 pounds
  • Ports: one USB-C (supporting Thunderbolt 3), one USB-A 3.1, one USB-A 2.0, one HDMI, one headphone jack
  • Windows Hello fingerprint reader
  • Starts at $899.99

 

Display

Acer Swift 5 SF514 52 screen

In another departure from the previous model, Acer has put a matte touchscreen on the new Swift 5. It’s a 1920 x 1080 IPS panel in a 16:9 ratio with a maximum brightness of 300 nits, which is about what I’d expect for an ultrabook at this price. The 3.97mm bezels are noticeable ( Acer is saying an 86.4 percent screen-to-body ratio), but didn’t invade my experience. There’s still many screen in this relatively small chassis.

The display looks good. Blacks are very black, even at maximum brightness, and colours are strong, though you won’t see an equivalent vibrant detail as you’ll on a machine just like the Mac Book Pro. Creators might want a screen that gets a touch brighter, but this could suit everyday browsing and streaming just fine.

 

Keyboard

acer swift 5 sf514 54t open 01 e1581951309914

The Swift 5’s keyboard may be a bit flatter than my favorite keyboards, but it offers decent travel and a satisfying click, and it’s not super loud. I tended to score between 120 and 130 on typing tests, which is on the brink of but a bit below my average speed.

As is usually the case with compact machines, Acer had to get creative to cram all the keys in. None of the unorthodox placements would stop me from buying the laptop, but they were a touch of a nuisance. for instance , the Page Up and Page Down buttons are located right above the identically sized left and right arrow keys, and that i accidentally hit the previous keys a couple of times once I meant to hit the latter. the power button, shaped a bit like a function key, is additionally right above Backspace, and i knocked that accidentally on a few occasions as well, which was even more of a hassle. I’ll also note that I even have very small fingers; larger-handed folks may have more issues.

 

 

Fingerprint Reader

We found the previous Swift 5’s fingerprint reader finicky, but this one is sort of accurate; it took less than a moment to set up, registered my print correctly each time, and typically took between just 0.5 and 1.5 seconds to authenticate and log me in. Do note that you simply need to press moderately hard to get your fingerprint to register; you can’t just tap as you’d on a smartphone.

 

Battery

The stamina of the Swift 5’s 56Wh battery was disappointing. Acer is saying up to 12 hours — I got about six hours of online multitasking, Slack, and occasional Spotify streaming at 50 percent brightness and default power settings. This isn’t a disastrous result for a battery of this size, and it’s about on par with the Swift 7, which also hits about six hours, but it’s worse than the previous Swift 5, which hit between eight and nine hours in our testing, and it means it can’t quite last a day.

I do like that you simply can charge the Swift 5 with USB-C, so if you’re carrying around a Switch, MacBook Pro, or other device with a USB-C charger, you’ll leave the Swift’s barrel-port brick at home.

 

 

Compact Build

acerAs compact and powerful as this machine is, calling it an “ultrabook” doesn’t feel quite right. There’s no other thanks to say it: it just doesn’t feel premium. The chassis is formed from what Acer calls “advanced alloys”; the highest and bottom covers are made from magnesium-lithium, the palm rests magnesium-aluminum. they appear and feel like cheap plastic.

The laptop is portable compared to previous models. Though it has a 14-inch screen it is comparatively very light.

 

Cooling System

It was also difficult to get this thing to noticeably heat up. I didn’t perceive any temperature change until i used to be running the device at full brightness with Slack, Word, and 28 Chrome tabs open. Even then, only the left side of the bottom of the chassis was hot — the warmth was very tolerable on my lap, and the wrist rests remained cold. and therefore the single cooling fan is extremely quiet; I couldn’t hear it unless I lifted the laptop up to my ear.

 

Should you BUY it?

If you are looking for a practically weightless laptop which is portable and has an amazing cooling system, this is the one for you. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]