Home » News and reviews » Acer Swift 3 OLED review: an OLED laptop under $1,000

Blog

Acer Swift 3 OLED review: an OLED laptop under $1,000

admin

September 5, 2022

3 Views 0

SaveSavedRemoved 0

Acer Swift 3 OLED

MSRP $1,230.00

“The Acer Swift 3 OLED comes with a spectacular display and impressive performance.”

Pros

• Solid midrange construct
• Spectacular OLED display
• Excellent productivity performance
• Good keyboard
• 1080p webcam

Cons

• Touchpad is simply too small
• Below-average battery life

Acer has been slow to leap on the OLED laptop bandwagon. But finally, the corporate has brought an OLED panel to its popular midrange 14-inch laptop, the Swift 3.

That is greater than just the usual Acer Swift 3 with a greater 90Hz OLED screen swapped in. This laptop can be thicker to handle its 45-watt Twelfth-gen processor, so it’s best to expect some higher performance out of this 14-inch laptop. Price is very important though, and although the bottom configuration is available in under $1,000, my review unit landed at $1,230. Fortunately for Acer, there’s enough to justify a rather higher price, making the Acer Swift 3 OLED a solid upgrade over the unique.

Specs

OLED, yes, but at what cost?

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

OLED was once reserved for the cream of the crop, but recently, it has dropped into some reasonably priced laptops. For instance, the HP Pavilion Plus 14 also offers a 90Hz OLED display for just $800 with equivalent specs to the high-end Acer (apart from a smaller 256GB SSD). That’s only one configuration, mind you, and in the event you use HP’s custom configurator, the worth is higher.

The Asus Vivobook S 14X is one other midrange laptop with an OLED display, this one running at 120Hz, that’s $1,100 for a similar Core i7 CPU, 12GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. The Asus can be available at around $900 when configured identically to the $930 Swift 3 OLED.

Point is — the Acer Swift 3 OLED is correct in the identical ballpark as lots of its close rivals, however it needs to supply something unique to rise above.

To start out with, the Swift 3 OLED’s 14-inch 16:10 display is superb and competes well against each midrange and premium alternatives. You may tell from the table below that, outside of color accuracy that’s barely behind the very best, the Acer’s panel is vibrant, colourful, and offers the standard OLED inky blacks. It’s a display that can please nearly everyone, including creatives and content creators.

It’s an ideal display for Netflix binges too, though the Acer Swift 3 OLED’s audio doesn’t quite match it.

The speakers are adequate, with sufficient volume for a small office and clear mids and highs which might be high-quality for system sounds and the occasional YouTube video. But when you wish to watch a movie, you’ll want more bass than the 2 upward-firing speakers provide, so a pair of headphones or external speakers are prone to be appreciated.

Sometimes faster does mean faster

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

As I discussed earlier, manufacturers have installed Intel’s 45-watt Twelfth-gen CPUs in 14-inch thin and lightweight laptops with various success. In some cases, performance was thermally limited to the purpose where there was little advantage over Intel’s 28-watt CPUs with fewer cores. Essentially the most common alternative CPU is the 28-watt 12-core/16-thread Core i7-1260P.

As we are able to see from the table below, the Swift 3 OLED performs more in step with the 14-core/20-thread Core i7-12700H within the larger and thicker Dell XPS 15 across all our benchmarks. The HP Pavilion Plus 14 and Asus Vivobook S 14X are closer to the Core i7-1260P in Geekbench 5 and our Handbrake test while running faster in Cinebench R23.

One test where the Swift 3 OLED fell behind was PCMark 10 Complete, which tests a combination of productivity, multimedia, and inventive tasks. Note that I’ve listed each balanced and performance mode results, achieved by utilizing each manufacturer’s utility for dialing in CPU frequencies and fan speeds.

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

All these laptops throttled to at least one extent or one other, however the Swift 3 OLED managed to keep up its performance more consistently. Since it’s limited to Intel’s Iris Xe graphics, it would not break any records with applications that use the GPU to hurry up certain tasks, like Adobe’s Creative suite. But, for demanding productivity workflows and CPU-intensive creative apps, the Swift 3 OLED is a powerful performer.

The Swift 3 OLED’s gaming performance was surprisingly poor, even by integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics standards. I’m unsure why the laptop was so slow, hitting just 11 frames per second in Fortnite at 1200p and epic graphics, however it’s definitely not a gaming machine. I only include these results to emphasize the purpose.

A value in longevity

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

With performance as a strength, the subsequent query is, how long does it last on a charge? Using the faster CPU and a high-res OLED display should strain the 57-watt-hour battery, which isn’t large for a 14-inch laptop.

In our suite of battery tests, the Swift 3 OLED did OK in comparison with the opposite 45-watt laptops in our comparison group while falling behind the 28-watt machines. That’s to be expected, and it’s one in all the prices of using the faster chip — although battery life is one other area where the Acer beat the HP Pavilion Plus 14. Overall, the Swift 3 OLED won’t last a full day’s work, meaning you’ll must carry the facility brick together with you.

The whole lot else is ho-hum

By way of its design, the Swift 3 OLED advantages most from the switch to a taller 16:10 display over the non-OLED version’s old-school 16:9 panel. That makes the laptop look more modern and provides a more productive experience. Otherwise, the identical silver chassis with easy lines and no bling makes for a minimalist design that borders on boring. HP’s Pavilion Plus 14 is a more attractive laptop.

The construct quality stays the identical, with an all-aluminum chassis that resisted most bending and flexing during my testing. It’s a solid construct for a midrange laptop, although again, the Pavilion Plus 14 wins, by a hair on this case. The Swift 3 OLED is thicker than the non-OLED model at 0.70 inches versus 0.63 inches and heavier at 3.09 kilos versus 2.76 kilos. Again, that’s obligatory to accommodate the faster and warmer CPU. Despite its uptick in thickness and weight, the Swift 3 OLED is a fairly sized 14-inch machine.

Connectivity stays a strength, with Thunderbolt 4 and the newest wireless standards available. The 14-inch laptop typically has benefits over 13-inch machines in terms of plugging in, and the Swift 3 OLED maintains that trend.

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

The Swift 3 OLED’s keyboard appears to be similar to on the opposite model, with light and snappy switches and many key spacing. The keycaps are large enough, although the silver keys are hard to read with the backlighting turned on with any ambient lighting. Then again, the touchpad can be similar to the previous model, which is a shame — given the taller display, there’s more room on the palm rest for a bigger touchpad. It really works well enough with quiet and precise buttons, however it’s just too small. The display isn’t touch-enabled, which I all the time miss.

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

The webcam is a 1080p version, which is welcome, and it provided a vibrant image with Acer’s Temporal Noise Reduction technology helping out in low-light conditions. It’s a great webcam for videoconferencing.

Finally, Windows 11 Hello passwordless login support is provided by a fingerprint reader embedded in the facility button, which is precisely the precise spot. It worked quickly and reliably during my testing.

A good first go at an OLED machine

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

In the long run, there’s much to love in regards to the Swift 3 OLED. It leverages its faster CPU, unlike another 14-inch machines, and its OLED display is pretty much as good because it gets. Its construct quality is solid for a midrange machine, although not the very best in its class, and its connectivity and keyboard are excellent. The touchpad’s too small and the battery life is simply too short, that are the laptop’s two most important weaknesses.

Besides, it competes well against the 2 most pertinent alternatives within the HP Pavilion Plus 14, which is out there in a single configuration for around $400 less, and the Asus Vivobook S 14X, which is closer in price. And also you’re only paying $100 more in comparison with the non-OLED Swift 3, which makes the OLED version a relative bargain. The Swift 3 OLED’s price is likely to be a smidge too high, however it’s mostly justified.

So, do you have to buy it? Yes, if faster performance to go along with the spectacular display is your objective. You’ll suffer in battery life, but outside of the one incredibly low-cost HP Pavilion Plus 14 configuration, the Swift 3 OLED provides a compelling enough value to belong on anyone’s shortlist.

Editors’ Recommendations