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Acer Swift 3 SF314-42 14 Inch Laptop - (AMD Ryzen 7 4700U, 8GB, 512GB SSD, Full HD Display, Windows 10, Purple)

£354.995£709.99Clearance
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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. Both CPU variants employ integrated graphics. On the Intel laptop, you’re getting Intel Iris Plus Graphics, while on the AMD machine you’re getting RX Vega 7 graphics. In the GFXBench OpenGL benchmark (above), the Intel machine edges in front but in DirectX based games (below), the Ryzen chip streaks ahead. READ NEXT: The best laptops you can buy right now Acer Swift 3 SF314-57 (2020) review: What you need to know

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. 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 The Acer Swift 3 (2021) may be making up for its looks with its performance. That upward-facing exhaust vent that we find unsightly may be the very thing that helps it come out ahead of similarly specced Ultrabooks that go for a more impressive build, like the Dell XPS 13 (Late 2020). In fact, the Acer Swift 3 beat that laptop in every single one of our performance benchmarks while both were running on the same processor.The Acer Swift 3 offers amazing performance for its mid-range price, with its AMD Ryzen 7 4700U CPU, long battery life and a lightweight chassis. However, the display isn't as bright as it should be and its speakers could use more pep as well. Unfortunately, the 512GB SSD inside the Acer Swift 3 isn’t quite as good. In the AS SSD test, it recorded a sequential file read speed of 1,567MB/sec and a write speed of 1,382MB/sec. The write speed is fine, but the read speed is way behind that of competitors like the XPS 13 and MagicBook 14. 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. The Acer Swift 3 speakers, which are located on the bottom sides of the laptop, provides sound that is simply mediocre. While listening to “Hate Me” by Blue October, I noticed that guitars sounded clear and bold, including the bass that came through accurately. However, the vocals sounded so low, almost like someone was covering their mouth while trying to sing to me. Even with the volume at 100%, the speakers didn’t play any music very loud, which can be chalked up to the Swift 3 being designed with bottom-firing speakers. Battery life is measured under specific test settings and conditions pursuant to MobileMark 2018. Actual battery life may vary considerably by specifications, depending on product model, configuration, applications, power management settings, operating conditions, and features utilized. Performance variation also arises based on components in use, which includes but is not limited to the processor, RAM capacity, storage, display, resolution, etc.

The Micron 1TB SSD that shipped with my review machine had fast sequential write speeds, too, at 3,127MB/sec while the sequential read speed of 3,110MB/sec was only meaningfully beaten by the Samsung Galaxy Book 3. Except for the plastic bottom cover, the Swift 3 is made entirely from aluminium and feels very solid. It looks smart, too, thanks to the all-over matte effect silver finish, which seems to be impervious to fingerprints. The Aspire does an excellent job of dissipating heat. I popped open 30 tabs in Google Chrome, all playing various Full HD YouTube videos while working on a document and there was no discernible rise in temperature.USB Type-C port supporting:USB 3.2 Gen 2 (up to 10 Gbps), DisplayPort over USB-C, USB charging 5 V; 3 A, DC-in port 20 V; 65 W Measuring 12.7 x 8.4 x 0.6 inches and weighing 2.6 pounds, the Swift 3 is slightly lighter than the MacBook Air(2.8 pounds and 12 x 8.4 x 0.6 inches). Both being much lighter than the HP Envy x360 15which comes in at 4.42 pounds, 14.1 x 9.6 x 0.74 inches. Our lightweight champion is the Microsoft SurfaceBook Pro 7+, which came in at (11.5 x 7.9 x 033 weighing a waifish 1.8 pounds. Acer Swift 3 ports The Acer Swift 720p webcam is standard and performs well. Like most webcams, the color is a little off in tone and the details are grainy, especially if the lighting isn’t right. If you need better quality, I suggest purchasing an external webcam. However, the Swift 3's camera will be sufficient for Zoom and Google Meet calls. Acer Swift 3 software and warranty Let’s take a moment of silence for the tragic color coverage of the Swift 3’s display. According to our colorimeter, the ultrabook’s screen reproduces just 62% of the sRGB color gamut, which is four percentage points less than the Intel variant (66%). The category average crushed the Swift 3’s color coverage (91%). The HP Envy 13 is the most colorful competitor with a decent 99% sRGB gamut coverage.

Configuration tested: Intel Core i7-13700H CPU, Intel Iris Xe iGPU, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, 14in, 90Hz, 2,880 x 1,800 OLED non-touchscreen. A weight of 1.14kg also means this is one of the lighter mid-range laptops out there, resulting in a super-convenient design for the likes of students who need to move from lecture to lecture.

With all-day battery life, peppy performance, and then some, the Acer Swift 3 is a solid choice for your college-bound student.

There’s also some convenient support for Windows Hello, which can work either via the webcam or the fingerprint sensor. 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.

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