Acer Swift 7: the thinnest and lightest laptop

Presentation

833 grams on the scale (charger excluded) and a wasp size of 10 mm, that's what the Acer Swift 7 offers for its ultra-portable 14 inches.

The Swift 7 is the thinnest PC of 2019, it is actually not the thinnest PC released to date, this title going back to last year's Swift 7 (8.98 mm thick). The title of the lightest 13-14 inch PC on the market was held by - yet - another product from Acer, the Swift 5 with its 970 grams.

In an increasingly competitive IT world, Acer manages to stand out with this laptop, but is it a good PC?

---

Construction

The finesse and lightness of the Swift 7 is surprising when you first take it in hand. Compactness allowed by the aluminum and plastic chassis (under the keyboard). Acer went to the simplest, with angular shapes and few frills in terms of design.

To gain weight and place, Acer trimmed wherever it could. For example, the screen has thin edges, even on the bottom, which has the effect of narrowing the width of the PC and saving a few grams. The webcam is placed between the keyboard and the screen, hidden in a mechanical button, as had done before the Huawei Matebook X Pro. In addition to saving space, this obviously avoids the age-old piece of adhesive tape that sticks on the camera the most suspicious.

However, this compact format involves some flaws. The PC is indeed fragile. The chassis tends to bend when held by one side, which also activates the click of the trackpad. The Swift 7 also cracks under the fingers during handling. Embarrassing. Acer thus delivers a PC certainly fine, but has not really thought to be rigid. Pity. In addition to that, its cover easily removes fingerprints.

Note that the Swift comes with a faux leather pouch for transport. A good way to protect it from breakage and scratches.

Finesse requires, the connection is also reduced to a bare minimum. The Swift 7 thus has two USB Type-C 3.1 Gen.2 ports (which do not include fast charging) as well as a headphone output. To fill this gap, Acer provides a USB-C dongle with a USB Type-A 3.0 port, an HDMI port and another USB Type-C port.

The keyboard is of good quality. 14 inch format requires, it does not have a numeric keypad. The keys themselves are of good quality, with an extremely short stroke and a pleasant click. In addition to being at the right end of the keyboard, the enter key is quite large, which is nice. In reality, the faults of this keyboard are inherited from the construction of the PC. Indeed, the chassis tends to bend with each press, which is a little tiring - in addition to being not very reassuring - and the user's wrists tend to rest on the corners at the bottom of the chassis, which which can hurt the user in the long run. The trackpad fulfills its contract and offers an efficient mechanical click. But as we said above, this click tends to activate when the PC is carried in one hand. Special mention for the fingerprint sensor, integrated into the ignition button of the PC and rather successful.

The Acer Swift 7 can be disassembled using a precision screwdriver. Which is not really useful, all the elements being welded. It is therefore impossible to change a component, not even the SSD.

This laptop handles heat well when tested and stays cool during simple office use. During our usual test protocol (Unigine Heaven benchmark for one hour), the aluminum located between the keyboard and the screen rose to 46 ° C. Extreme conditions far enough from the actual practical use of the laptop. However, there is a weakness in the noise. If the PC does not emit any sound as a rule, we have noticed, sporadically, a shrill squeak (up to 39 dB, imperceptible outside an extremely quiet room) which comes from inside the chassis when the processor work. Nothing to worry about, the noise never lasts very long, but it should still be reported.

---

Screen

The Acer Swift 7 has a 14 inch IPS touch screen with a resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 px. The reduction of the edges allows to reach a screen / facade ratio of 92%. Impressive! This is one of the best scores in our comparison (only the Zenbook S13 from Asus does better with its 94%). The absence of a lower edge gives the impression of a 21: 9 screen at first, but we have here 16: 9.

contrast 1,530: 1 Delta E 2 temperature 7,255K

Passed under the screen of our probe, the panel delivers good results: high contrast (1500: 1), extremely deep blacks and impeccable colors (Delta E average of 2). The color temperature is a little less controlled (7255 K), but relatively close to 6500 K of the video standard. This results in a screen that pulls very slightly towards blue, which is imperceptible if it is not directly compared with a screen at 6500 K.

The remanence of the 16 ms slab is a bit above average (15 ms). The brightness was measured at 343 cd / m², which is good in absolute terms, but insufficient to compensate for the effects of this screen, which is too sensitive to reflections.

---

Performances

Our test Swift 7 is equipped with an Intel Core i7-8500Y processor (2 cores, 4 threads, frequency at 1.5 GHz, max frequency at 4.2 GHz). Do not be fooled by the name Core i7 here, the Y series being composed of so-called "very low consumption" chips and therefore not very powerful. The PC also has 8 GB of RAM (a 16 GB version is also marketed) and has a 512 GB SSD. As we said above, it is impossible to change the components of the computer.

With such a processor, you should not expect breathtaking performance, but the Swift 7 manages to improve those of the previous model and rise to the level of competition. During our usual test protocol (photo editing, video editing, file compression and 3D calculation), the computer reached the index of 61 on our scale. It is thus more powerful than the Swift 7 of 2018 (with a Core i7-7Y75) and is on par with the latest MacBook Air (Intel Core i5-8210Y). Note that it is still far behind the Acer Swift 5, which offers a U-series processor, also low consumption. The Swift 7 is therefore not very powerful, but sufficient to make simple office automation or Internet browsing. However, you should not expect to use greedy applications, such as photo editing or video editing software, unless you arm yourself with patience.

---

Mobility / Autonomy

With its 830 grams and its thickness of 10 mm, it's difficult not to see in the Swift 7 the king of mobility. The charger unfortunately weighs 275 grams and recharges the PC via USB Type-C. To carry the computer, Acer offers a small protective pouch in imitation leather.

In terms of autonomy, the PC keeps its promises. During our usual test protocol (Netflix in Chrome, keyboard backlight off, headphones plugged in and screen brightness set to 200 cd / m²), it went out after 8 h 19 min. Good autonomy that the user can hope to double in classic office automation. He can therefore take his Swift 7 with a light heart all day without the charger.

---

Audio

With a chassis so thin, no need to expect quality sound. The speakers deliver a sound that focuses only on the treble and therefore sorely lacking in seating. Voice communication is also complicated on the Swift 7, the timbre of the voices not being respected. Finally, let's add a bad placement of the speakers, located under the chassis, at the front, which gives a sound far from the screen and unnatural. The Acer PC has speakers worthy of a smartphone and could not hope for more in such a small space.

The headphone jack is for its part correct, provided that the volume of the output is less than 94%. Indeed, beyond this border, the socket suffers from distortion and frequency response problems.

---

Conclusion

Seeking to develop its old Swift 7, Acer wanted to repeat its tour de force (finesse of 10 mm), but sin by excess of confidence and gives birth to a fragile and not very reassuring PC. However, it delivers a good technical copy, in particular a good screen and good autonomy. The chassis is ultimately the best asset of this laptop, by its compactness, but also its Achilles heel. The Swift 5, for example, offers better for less.

---