Acer’s Swift range has provided us with some excellent laptops over the years… but also some somewhat-mediocre models. The Swift Go 14 aims to emulate the former and our first impressions were positive.
Design and Build Quality
The Swift’s solid, aluminum lid looks good in all settings and the small, Acer logo complements it well. Opening it up tilts the chassis to improve both the airflow and typing position. It also reveals the screen’s nicely contrasting, black bezel, but it’s quite thick.
There’s hardly any flexing in any part of the body which gives it a very solid feel. We used it as our daily-driver workhorse until Acer demanded it back. So, it might answer the question, ‘What meat does the butcher eat?’ For laptops.
Features
The screen makes use of an OLED display that’s bright, has an Ultra High Definition, 2,800 x 1,800 resolution and exhibits the vibrant colours and excellent contrast inherent in the technology. It also supports 100% of the tricky DCI-P3 colour gamut which designers will like. There’s some light banding in colour gradients and these get a little more noticeable in black-and-white transitions, but we’ve seen much worse elsewhere. Just note that, in dark scenes, the glossy coating can transform it into a black mirror.
The Swift’s screen also has a faster-than-usual, 90Hz refresh rate and this, coupled with a fast pixel response time, means that fast-moving objects have noticeably less blur than non-gaming rivals.
Above the screen there’s a very impressive UHD, 1,440p webcam that’s good at avoiding graininess in low light. The dual-microphone array is also better than most at cancelling out background noise on conference calls.
The keyboard makes use of well-weighted, Scrabble-Tile keys and the trackpad is glass-coated for extra smoothness. The latter is also accurate and its hidden buttons actuate nicely.
The dual speakers get loud but there’s not much bass and treble can crackle a bit. They’re better than some on the market, though.
Performance
The Swift Go 14 is powered by a 3.7 – 5.0GHz Intel i7-13700H processor which has 6 Performance cores and 8 Efficiency cores. This is flanked by 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM and a rather-stingy-but-fast 512GB hard drive. They combined to produce a level of power that’s bang-on average for the entire laptop market, but also one of the highest scores we’ve seen for any thin-and-light laptop. You’ll be able to do some graphic design and rendering, without waiting around too long.
3D Performance comes via the integrated Intel Xe graphics processor. That means it’s no gaming laptop and you’ll only be able to play casual and competitive games without having to dial the resolution and graphics all the way down on current AAA-titles. Still, those that do suit low-power, 3D processing will look good on the quick, OLED screen.
The cooling system is efficient, but it does mean that the Swift Go 14 can get often get warm when performing basic, general computing tasks and that the fan can ramp up to a low whoosh. It’s not too distracting but it’s not silent unless you put it into Acer’s Power Efficiency Mode which cuts out the fans in expense of more heat (useful for web conferencing).
Ports and Connections
The Acer Swift Go 14 has Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 inside for wireless connectivity. Meanwhile, on the left are two Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI 2.1 and a USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port. On the right is another USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port plus, a 3.5mm audio jack and a microSD card slot. That’s a useful collection to have!
How portable is the Acer Swift Go 14?
The Swift is Evo-certified meaning it’s thin, light and fast (amongst other things including having fast Wi-Fi and good web conferencing). At 1.33KG it’s certainly easy to carry around and the small power supply (and cables) only add another 369g. This, combined with very good build quality makes us confident that it will cheerfully survive life on the road.
Inside there’s an above-average 65Wh battery and this enabled the Swift Go 14 to run the PCMark 10 Modern Office test for an impressive 11 hours and 20 minutes which translates to more than a day out of the office.
Overall
The Acer Swift Go 14 retails for $1,799 but is currently on sale for $1,529 which is great value for such a portable and (relatively) powerful laptop. Potential rivals include Lenovo’s Yoga 7i and ThinkPad Z13, plus Asus’ Zenbook 14 OLED and HP’s Envy X360 – but all are usually more expensive. It’s a great workhorse of a portable computer and the fact we lamented having to give it back after our review might be an endorsement.
Rating 8
The Acer Swift Go 14 is an Intel-Evo-certified workhorse that’s relatively powerful for a lightweight ultraportable. It’s well-built, has few faults, there’s an OLED screen and good battery life. It looks good, is well built and is (relatively) affordable too.
Pros
- It’s light, well-built and has good battery life.
- It’s got a quick OLED screen.
- It’s cheaper than many rivals.
Cons
- It’s got average speakers.
- It can run warm and often spins up the fans.
The laptop is available now at Bing Lee for $1,498 and other retailers.
