Acer Swift 5SF514-55D Review: Antimicrobial 14 Inch Ultrabook

The Acer Swift 5SF514-55D sports an anthracite gray magnesium chassis with some gold inserts on the hinge, logo and keyboard screen printing. The small palette to trim the paint gives a very glossy plastic effect.

Once Swift 5 opens, we will find that there is a keyboard with separate keys in the same color as the shell. A tone-on-tone effect that is detrimental to reading with straw-yellow screen printing, beyond existing backlighting. The slightly larger touchpad is nicer than the space bar and is not affected by any particular drawback. The clicks are well marked, without sinking too much.

A little more, a fingerprint reader compatible Windows Hello is under the arrow keys. It is very responsive and allows you to open a Windows 10 session with a simple touch.

The connector consists of two full-size USB-A3.2 ports, a Type-C format Thunderbolt 4 port charging charger and an HDMI port. We regret that Acer did not choose to remove its classic charging port for the second USB-C port.

Most often, the network connection uses the Intel AX 201 chip, which allows the use of WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2. On the other hand, webcam technology is not on the cutting edge. It is satisfied with a non-standard 720p sensor. However, he will do the trick to show his face during video conferences.

The cooling of the Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor is provided by a fan, which extracts heat from the right side of the hinge. During our video compression test we found a maximum temperature of 43 C. The second hotspot is at the level of the “S” and “D” keys, i.e. just above the processor. The touchpad and the rest of the keyboard are almost immune to heat radiation.

Noise pollution (37.3 dB) is similar to temperature. The breath of air is clearly audible, but it is not aggressive or too low. Running the system is a little more troublesome as the ventilation then operates at maximum and audible for half a second.

Access to components is possible after removing less than 11 torque screws. You should slowly unwrap the shell, starting near the hinges and finishing at the front of the machine. We have WiFi card and SSD. There is a battery A Priory Changeable, but it is stuck; So it is necessary to be patient to change it. The only negative point is in the ignited RAM, so it cannot be upgraded.

We will conclude this overview with the originality shown by this ultraportable: antimicrobial treatment of the chassis (painting with aluminum ions) and specific Corning Gorilla Glass. Any other marketing argument, of which Acer seems to believe only half, refers to these therapies. “Do not provide complete protection or direct or indirect health “benefit” to users.“

The Acer Swift 5 in this test is an SF514-55T-71NL with an Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of NVM SST. The processor is designed to be ultraportable, equipped with 4 hyper-threaded cores running at 28 W and 1.2 GHz, increasing to 4.7 GHz if cooling is allowed.

We are starting to get acquainted with the Core i7-1165G7. The Acer Swift 5 is the third PC we will test with this processor. Its 62 code elevates it to an AMD Raison 5 4500U (62.5), but far from the most powerful Raison 7 5800U (101) on AMD processors – especially thanks to its 8 hyper-threaded cores, but still less than a 30 W thermal envelope. In all cases, the Acer Swift 5’s CPU does its job for office automation and some heavy on-off tasks.

In the game, the Intel Iris X graphics can be displayed under Part 42 i / s Diablo3 With all the details in full HD; A slightly better score than previous tests of this processor may be due to updates for Intel’s graphics drivers. Overwatch For its part, the full HD runs at 52 fps, with the details set to a minimum. So the Intel Iris X has its quality.

The screen is based on a glossy 14-inch IPS touchscreen (1920 x 1080 pixels definition). Its aggression rate for very thin borders is only 80.21%.

Through the study our measurements reveal a well-measured slope, with delta e 1.3, so far from the value 3, we can feel the slippage of the ceiling colors before the eye. The contrast ratio varies slightly above average (1619: 1), and the color temperature (6527 K) corresponds to the video quality (6500 K). On the other hand, we mentioned the restoration of 35 ms, which is a very high value. Thus, during the rapid movements of an object on the screen, you can observe the paths behind the movement. The most disabled is the particularly brilliant finish of the panel, resulting in 54.6% reflection. Unfortunately, this is not the brightness of 425 cd / m² facing reflections. It is important to look at this screen correctly to avoid any light coming from the back.

The Acer Swift is 31.9 x 8.5 inches and 2 inches thick. It weighs 1045 grams (1367 grams with a charger). We apologize for Acer’s choice to use the “antique” charger, which is certainly compact, but less so than the “smartphone” type chargers. As with competition, it may be time to offer USB-C module and cord, especially on laptops in this range.

However, thanks to its 56 Wh battery, the Acer Swift was able to last 9 hours and 40 minutes under our autonomous test (with the Netflix 200 CD / M² screen under Chrome). A score puts it on highly autonomous ultraportables. Note that the 65 W charger allows fast charging within 75 minutes. Note also that the USB port on the left can charge any external device; However, this will only work when the system is disabled.