Without a discrete GPU, the Go 14 is clearly not intended as a gaming machine but it still ran Metro: Last Light Redux on High settings at 38fps at a resolution of 1,980 x 1,200 and Serious Sam 4 at 60fps and 2,880 x 1,800, which means that light gaming with relatively undemanding titles is well within its capabilities. Getting the bottom off the Swift 3 is easy enough but pretty pointless. All you can do is switch out the Intel AX201 wireless card and the Micron 2280 SSD. While I’m on the subject, the AX201 gives you full Wi-Fi 6 connectivity as well as Bluetooth 5.0, while the Gen 4 512GB SSD recorded perfectly decent (for the price) sequential read and write speeds of 2,026MB/sec and 1,085MB/sec respectively. Under the hood, you’ll find it features a 5th-gen AMD Ryzen 5 5500U processor with six cores and twelve threads. This helps it to achieve some pretty high-flying scores in our benchmark tests on Geekbench 5 and PC Mark 10, with the Swift 3 noticeably beating off the competition thanks to two extra cores of power.

When taking a typing test on 10fastfingers.com, I managed to hit 48 words per minute, which is not far off from my 53 wpm average. But while it was easy to type on the laptop, the palm rest area was tiny, which led to my accidentally brushing against the touchpad. A little light gaming isn’t out of the question either. The Metro: Last Light Redux benchmark scored nearly 49fps at 1080p, which is really rather good for a Core i5 laptop using Intel’s integrated Xe graphics processor. Even the 2016 Doom reboot ran pretty smoothly at around 50fps although I did have to reduce the resolution to 1,280 x 720 and video detail settings to medium.The speaker system can’t quite match the display for quality, though, despite carrying DTS certification. To start with there’s not a lot of volume on offer: at 1m distance, I measured an average of 71dB from a pink noise source and 72dB with peaks of 79dB from a music source. That’s pretty average. There’s not much in the way of bass, either, although the definition is good and there’s no break-up even at maximum volume. The Acer Swift 3 comes with a one-year limited warranty. See how Acer fared in our annual Tech Support Showdown and Best and Worst Brands special reports. Bottom line Acer has resisted the temptation to go for a radical design overhaul, presumably in the name of economy, and this brings us to what is, arguably, the most interesting thing about the Swift Go 14: it’s cheaper than the Swift 3 OLED. There’s also 8GB of DDR4 RAM, which worked well for intense tasks such as having plenty of Chrome tabs open with media playing and Spotify, too. You could even edit a video on the Swift 3, albeit a 1080p one.

The Acer Swift 3’s score on our Geekbench 4.3 overall -performance test blew our minds with a whopping 19,163. Not only did this number crush the Swift 3 Intel model (14,641), the HP Envy 13 (15,738) and the category average (14,197), but the Swift 3’s Ryzen 4700U CPU also ate the 13-inch MacBook Pro’s 10th-gen Intel Core i5 CPU with 8GB of RAM (18,221) and the Dell XPS 13’s 10th-gen Intel Core i5 CPU with 16GB of RAM (19,053). Ah, the taste of sweet victory. There are also some more peripheral upgrades here, though, like the webcam, which jumps from 1080p to 1440p, and the preinstallation of Intel’s new Unison smartphone integration software, which seems to be destined to become part of the Intel Evo standard. As what may have been expected, the color production wasn’t great for the Acer Swift 3. According to our colorimeter, the Acer Swift 3 produced 62% of the sRGB color gamut, falling short of the Intel Swift 3’s 66%, and falling below the HP Envy 13’s 99%. It doesn’t even come close to the category average of 91%. Acer Swift 3 (AMD) review: Keyboard and touchpadThere’s no doubt that the Swift 3 is a smart-looking laptop, with an all-silver outer shell helping to provide some business-class looks. It’s also nicely built and doesn’t feel cheap in the slightest, being comprised of some high-quality metal and plastics with a smooth finish. The Swift 3 brings all-day battery life and more to the plate. This means you will be able to run around all day and not worry about having to search for an outlet. When we ran the Laptop Mag Battery Test, which consists of continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness, the Acer Swift 3 lasted for 14 hours and 48 minutes, which crushed the ultraportable average (12:45). The HP Envy x360 came in second with a runtime of 11 hours and 23 minutes. The MacBook Air finished third (9:31) and the Surface Pro 7+ is, again, in last place (8:49). Acer Swift 3 heat While it may not be the most luxurious Windows 10 ultraportable on the market, it’s certainly one of the most keenly priced. The question is, can you spend less and do even better? Our team ran a fullscreen HD video for 15 minutes and measured specific spots on the laptop once the time elapsed. The touchpad measured 79 degrees Fahrenheit, which is well below our 95-degree comfort threshold. Between the G & H keys, we measured 83 degrees, and on the underside, we got a reading of 86 degrees. Acer Swift 3 webcam