The Acer Swift X: Powerhouse in a Pocket-Sized Package, But at What Cost?
The Acer Swift X is a compelling blend of portability and performance, designed to appeal to creators who need a machine that can handle demanding tasks without sacrificing on mobility. With its powerful AMD Ryzen 5 5600U processor, discrete Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 GPU, and a thin-and-light 14-inch chassis, the Swift X certainly has a lot going for it. But, does the Swift X deliver on its promises, and is it worth its rather hefty price tag of starting at Rs. 84,999? We put this versatile laptop to the test to find out.
Acer Swift X Design: Sleek and Subtle, Yet Functional
The Acer Swift X sports a standard laptop form factor but opts for a subtle, dual-tone color scheme to help it stand out. The silver body with champagne gold trim gives it a sophisticated look, striking a balance between elegance and practicality. The build quality is solid, with minimal flex around the palm rest area. While the lid exhibits some flex, the screen feels well protected and doesn’t warp under moderate pressure.
Weighing in at a manageable 1.39kg, the Swift X is surprisingly portable for its powerful hardware. Its compact size makes it easy to slip into a bag and take along anywhere. In terms of connectivity, the laptop offers a comprehensive selection of ports for its 14-inch form factor, including a USB 2.0 port, a USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-A port with power-off charging, a USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C port capable of charging the laptop, a full-sized HDMI port, a headphone jack, a Kensington lock slot, and a round-pin charging port. However, the Swift X unfortunately lacks an SD card slot, which might be a dealbreaker for some users.
Keyboard and Trackpad: Comfortable Typing, but Cramped Directional Buttons
The keyboard on the Swift X features well-spaced keys with a pleasant, quiet typing experience. The white backlighting evenly illuminates the keys, ensuring comfortable typing even in low-light conditions. However, the cramped arrow key cluster is a potential point of frustration. The positioning of the Pg Up and Pg Dn keys right above the direction pad can lead to accidental presses, disrupting the typing flow.
The spacious trackpad offers a smooth and responsive experience, although its accuracy falls short of what a glass trackpad offers.
Acer Swift X Display: Sharp and Bright, but Web Cam is Average
The Swift X boasts a 14-inch IPS panel with a 16:9 aspect ratio and a full-HD resolution. Its claimed brightness of 300 nits is more than enough for comfortable indoor use, and the narrow borders on three sides enhance the viewing experience. The display also houses a top-mounted webcam, which unfortunately delivers only average image quality. While the webcam captures decent colors, highlights tend to be overexposed and darker regions appear grainy, even in well-lit environments. While it’s better than what you’ll find on a MacBook Air (M1), it’s still a far cry from outstanding.
Acer Swift X Performance: A Powerful Package with a Price
The Acer Swift X packs an impressive punch for its compact size. The configuration we reviewed features an AMD Ryzen 5 5600U processor, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD, and a dedicated Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 GPU. This potent combination makes Windows 11 feel incredibly responsive, with apps loading quickly and smooth navigation being the norm.
Gaming Performance: Capable, but Gets Uncomfortably Hot
Despite its portable design, the Swift X can handle demanding games quite well. In our testing, Far Cry 5’s built-in benchmark averaged 51fps with Ultra graphics settings at the display’s native resolution. While occasional dips to the low 30s occurred during gameplay, the overall experience was smooth. Similarly, Shadow of The Tomb Raider’s benchmark returned an average frame rate of 49fps at the ‘Highest’ quality setting with DLSS enabled.
Doom Eternal, on the other hand, restricted texture quality to ‘medium’ due to the GPU’s 4GB of GDDR6 memory limitation, but we were able to push other settings to ‘ultra’. This resulted in an average frame rate of 65-70fps during gameplay. While this is commendable for a compact laptop, it comes at the cost of significant heat generation. The Swift X’s chassis, not initially designed for gaming, struggles to manage the heat output from such demanding workloads. Within minutes of launching a game, the exhaust fan kicks into high gear and becomes audible. More concerning is the heat radiating from the bottom portion and most of the keyboard area. While the right palm rest remains cool, the majority of the keys, left palm rest, and the area above the keyboard become uncomfortably hot. This makes gaming sessions less enjoyable unless a controller is used.
Acer Swift X Battery Life: Moderate, Depending on Usage Patterns
Acer claims a battery life of up to 17 hours of video playback for the Swift X, but real-world usage rarely matches these optimistic projections. With Windows 11’s battery profile set to ‘Balanced’, we only managed to squeeze out around four and a half hours of runtime with a mix of web apps, Spotify music streaming, and Prime Video videos.
However, switching to the ‘Power Efficiency’ mode yielded nearly double the runtime with a similar workload. While performance wasn’t dramatically affected for basic tasks like web browsing and music playback, even Photoshop CC 2020 ran smoothly under this setting. Battery Eater Pro delivered a respectable runtime of 1 hour and 50 minutes without utilizing the discrete GPU. Realistically, users can expect around eight to nine hours of runtime with moderate usage under the battery saver profile in Windows 11.
Acer Swift X Verdict: A Powerful Choice with Trade-offs
The Acer Swift X offers a unique proposition: high performance for creators packaged in a highly portable and compact design. It boasts a stylish design, performs well, provides a comfortable keyboard, and features a bright and vivid display. Battery life is also decent, albeit not as impressive as Acer’s claims.
However, the Swift X is not without its drawbacks. The webcam quality is mediocre, and the absence of an SD card slot might be a dealbreaker for some. The cramped directional buttons can also be a source of frustration. The laptop’s biggest shortcoming is its tendency to overheat considerably under load, particularly during gaming. This, combined with the high price point, might deter some potential buyers.
If portability and performance are top priorities, and the lack of an SD card slot isn’t a dealbreaker, the Acer Swift X is a compelling option. Its powerful hardware makes it a capable tool for content creation and even some gaming. However, if gaming is your primary focus, Acer’s Nitro or Asus’ TUF series of laptops offer more competitive specifications and better cooling for similarly priced or even lower options.
Overall, the Acer Swift X is a solid choice for users who demand power and portability. However, it’s crucial to consider the potential drawbacks of overheating and the relatively high price point to determine if it aligns with your specific needs and budget.
