It’s not as responsive as its internals suggest, though, and the software is bloated.
This OLED panel is still objectively marvelous, and Acer has squeezed a lot of power out of thisIntelandNVIDIAconfiguration… Disclaimer:This review was made possible by a review unit provided by Acer.
The company did not see the contents of the review before publishing.
I really just don’t like the look of this laptop from basically any angle.
You won’t find any extras in the box here.
The Acer Swift X 14 is even worse.
This is a boring, drab, utilitarian gear that even borders on downright unattractive.
The all-aluminum chassis does feel mostly well-constructed, though; I’ll give Acer that much.
Apart from some flex in the keyboard deck and bottom panel, everything is soundly pieced together.
The display panel is deeply inset behind plastic bezels, although they are suitably thin for a modern gadget.
The build quality is solid, and there are plenty of ports, but this hinge is ugly and limited.
I will praise Acer for its healthy selection of ports on the Swift X 14, though.
The port selection is great for a 14-inch machine, though.
You’re also getting similar response times, HDR support, brightness, and color accuracy.
This OLED display is still good, but odd choices make it worse than the identical panel in another laptop.
The Swift X 14 does differ in some ways, though.
The white balance is a little warmer than the ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED, but it still looks great.
Of course, you also get the boundless contrast levels OLED panels are known for.
I’ve seen this panel before, and it continues to impress with excellent color accuracy.
The Swift X 14 is one such unit, and its performance is very solid.
Most of the time.
Most people should be happy with it, especially with the surprising performance of the RTX 4050 GPU.
This laptop does a decent job keeping itself cool, but expect a lot of noise, heat, and (some) CPU throttling if you really push it.
It is consistent, though, and that counts for something.
Generating aWindows Battery Reportafter over a week of use returned similar results of 5 hours and 34 minutes.
The webcam is… Fine.
An impressively fast SSD, which usually results in fast loading and launch times. Emphasis on usually.(Image credit: Windows Central)
The speakers sound alright for a Windows laptop, so I can’t complain too much here.
Everything is just okay nothing stands out, but nothing is necessarily bad, either.
I can’t say as much for two areas: the fingerprint sensor and the Wi-Fi performance.
The Swift X 14 can pull quite a lot out of the Core i7 inside, and Turbo mode can help eke out more performance in short bursts.(Image credit: Windows Central)
It was frustrating, but it didn’t make the rig unusable by any means.
If you frequently download large files, though, it may become an issue.
The worst, though, is the preinstalled software.
A quick SSD helps the Swift X 14 perform competitively in this general benchmark.(Image credit: Windows Central)
Prepare to spend a long time simply setting up this computer and removing all the gunk.
And what is that awful, grating beep every time you plug or unplug the charger!?
Acer Swift X 14 review: Competition
I’ll make this short.
Again, the Swift X 14 shows it can pull out a lot of performance in short bursts, like in Geekbench 6.(Image credit: Windows Central)
you might also opt for theAcer Swift X 16, a larger and beefier alternative to this machine.
you could always peruse our list of thebest Windows laptops.
All you sacrifice is a little bit of graphical oomph.
PCMark 10 is one area where the Swift X 14 beat its biggest competitor, the Zenbook 14X OLED, possibly because of the SSD speeds.(Image credit: Windows Central)
If it’s a choice between these two, choose the Zenbook.
Apart from that gorgeous OLED display, though, it’s not really exceptional.
This one will do, but why pay the same for less?
The RTX 4050 does offer a sizeable boost over the older RTX 3050, which may be important for some users.(Image credit: Windows Central)
Battery life is unexceptional with this laptop, but I’ve certainly seen worse.
Battery endurance isn’t great on the Swift X 14, although it at least feels consistent.
The touchpad is absolutely fine, but I’m not a big fan of this mushy keyboard.
All of this is just apps and deep hyperlinks preinstalled by Acer on the Swift X 14… This doesn’t even include all the third-party gunk.
I want to see great things from the Swift lineup, but this laptop just doesn’t quite compare to the competition right now.
A lid so drab and with such a flat color that my camera had trouble focusing on it.
