Acer Swift 7 – Acer’s new fitness model

Manufacturer Acer
Where we got our copy Craving Novity

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Published June 7, 2017

Apple’s certainly set the bar with the Macbook. Their stripped-down minimal designs have their own appeal – and it’s not gone unnoticed. Almost every manufacturer out there has attempted to steal some of Apple’s limelight. So far I haven’t encountered one whose made a compelling alternative – at least until Acer sent me the Swift 7. It’s a slim and trim affair measuring in at 9.9 millimetres thick, with the weight to match it.

Acer opted to paint the Swift 7 in a two-tone black and gold, which to some might appear ostentatious but made this laptop quite pretty in my view. If I had to choose a word to fit the Swift 7, it’d be spartan. One could ask whether the Swift 7 is about looks alone – and the answer is a strong no. We’ll cover more on this later. As you can see below the Swift 7 is a fraction of the height compared to my regular work machine – an Asus X550LC.

Acer took some cues from Apple with the Swift 7, that’s for sure. There’s the minimal number of ports and connectors – by this I mean 2 USB 3.1c ports and a headphone jack. One of the USB 3.1c ports will remain dedicated to the charger. That’s all you’re going to get. Then there’s the massive touchpad (bigger than the Macbook’s) and 13.3″ Full HD 1080p display. The Swift 7 we received came with a 6th Generation Core i5 and 8GB of DDR4 memory. Acer also claims that this unit’s battery life sits at an enduring 8 hours. There’s no questioning it: They’re selling a more cost-effective alternative to the Macbook. It’s a great looking unit – so the one area it needed to prove itself was in its performance.

The main problem I’ve encountered with most Windows-based laptops is a lack of responsiveness. It’s a known fact that Mac OSX has an optimisation advantage over Windows. I attribute this to homogenised hardware and the closed ecosystem Apple has built. The only way to bring out better performance in a Windows-based computer is with faster hardware. Acer resolved this issue by packaging the unit with a 250GB SSD. Anyone who has used a solid state drive in their computer before will attest to the huge performance gain. Boot up time was speedy – a matter of seconds passed and the Swift 7 was ready for action.

The next area I checked out was battery life and portability. The best (and most reliable way) I’ve found is by using a device with a full battery charge over a working day. I reached a little over 7 hours – an hour behind the claimed 8 hours, still enough for me to not to depend on the charger. While running around I had no regular USB ports to work on – and had to depend on the huge trackpad as opposed to a mouse. Having worked an entire day on it, I can confirm that Acer pretty much nailed its implementation. The click felt firm but not stiff, and its generous tracking area helped with navigating around the bundled Windows 10 operating system. I’m happy that Acer built such a large clickpad into the Swift 7 – a smaller one would’ve been problematic to work for long hours given the lack of ports.

What about the keyboard? As expected the keyboard was soft but responsive. Acer’s decision to use wider key spacing was a good choice, though many of us are used to it. One criticism I did have is that there was no Fn Lock key, which left me a little frustrated when trying to use the windows shortcut keys.

While we’re on the topic of mobility – the lack of connectivity options in these types of laptops won’t suite power users. We’re in an age where flash drives and external hard disks are commonplace. Connecting to a projector is also going to be a problem because of the need to use a USB 3.1c to HDMI adapter. If you don’t have one, you’re out of options. Being unable to use them without an adapter is a major issue to me. I went ahead and priced out some of these adapters. Typical USB type-C to type-b (the regular type) adapters start at R90, all the way to R450, which includes USB 3.0b, HDMI and USB 3.0c ports. You’ll also be able to buy a USB 3.1c to Ethernet adapter for around R400. My guess is that if one can afford a laptop like this, buying add-

ins isn’t an issue; still, I cannot help but feel that the lack of input and output ports were a bit of a letdown.

Last, let’s move onto display technology. The Swift 7 uses Intel’s HD Graphics 615 and a 13.3″ IPS LCD. So it won’t play many games, but it will deliver multimedia quite well. I was a little disappointed that the model I received didn’t have a touch screen and 360-degree swivel, though. For those not aware – LCD displays come in two forms: Twisted nematic (TN) or Interplane Switching (IPS). IPS panels are more expensive but offer far better contrast, colour and brightness than their TN counterparts. Acer opted to use a 1920×1080 native resolution screen – which was a great tradeoff since it reduced the cost of the unit while still delivering decent visual quality. Apple’s Macbooks will have typically higher resolutions on their Retina displays, but their computers will cost more on average.

I felt like the Swift 7 was a solid compromise between mobility and power. The 7 hour battery life was a welcome feature and so were the others like the large clickpad and full HD screen. I assume that Acer had to keep within a budget while minimising the Swift 7’s form factor, otherwise we’d be seeing higher screen resolutions. One also has to keep in mind that we received the lower end model and there is one Acer sells with a 6th generation Core i7 processor.

For the user who’ll be mobile most of the time, 8GB of memory will be fine, and since the RAM isn’t upgradeable, this is a tradeoff you’re going to have to live with. While the 7 hours of time I achieved off power was great, I feel as if the Swift 7 could’ve done with a higher capacity battery. I recommend the Acer Swift 7 to anyone looking for a thin and fast ultrabook with strong battery life. Just be aware of the additional costs when buying an Swift 7, considering the lack of input and output options. Expect to pay around R19000 to R22000, depending on the specification you’re going to get.

Apple's certainly set the bar with the Macbook. Their stripped-down minimal designs have their own appeal - and it's not gone unnoticed. Almost every manufacturer out there has attempted to steal some of Apple's limelight. So far I haven't encountered one whose made a compelling alternative - at least until Acer sent me the Swift 7. It's a slim and trim affair measuring in at 9.9 millimetres thick, with the weight to match it. Acer opted to paint the Swift 7 in a two-tone black and gold, which to some might appear ostentatious but made this laptop quite pretty in my view. If I had to choose a word to fit the Swift 7, it'd be spartan. One could ask whether the Swift 7 is about looks alone - and the answer is a strong no. We'll cover more on this later. As you can see below the Swift 7 is a fraction of the height compared to my regular work machine - an Asus X550LC. Acer took some cues from Apple with the Swift 7, that's for sure. There's the minimal number of ports and connectors - by this I mean 2 USB 3.1c ports and a headphone jack. One of the USB 3.1c ports will remain dedicated to the charger. That's all you're going to get. Then there's the massive touchpad (bigger than the Macbook's) and 13.3" Full HD 1080p display. The Swift 7 we received came with a 6th Generation Core i5 and 8GB of DDR4 memory. Acer also claims that this unit's battery life sits at an enduring 8 hours. There's no questioning it: They're selling a more cost-effective alternative to the Macbook. It's a great looking unit - so the one area it needed to prove itself was in its performance. The main problem I've encountered with most Windows-based laptops is a lack of responsiveness. It's a known fact that Mac OSX has an optimisation advantage over Windows. I attribute this to homogenised hardware and the closed ecosystem Apple has built. The only way to bring out better performance in a Windows-based computer is with faster hardware. Acer resolved this issue by packaging the unit with a 250GB SSD. Anyone who has used a solid state drive in their computer before will attest to the huge performance gain. Boot up time was speedy - a matter of seconds passed and the Swift 7 was ready for action. The next area I checked out was battery life and portability. The best (and most reliable way) I've found is by using a device with a full battery charge over a working day. I reached a little over 7 hours - an hour behind the claimed 8 hours, still enough for me to not to depend on the charger. While running around I had no regular USB ports to work on - and had to depend on the huge trackpad as opposed to a mouse. Having worked an entire day on it, I can confirm that Acer pretty much…

Tech Review: Acer Swift 7 – Acer’s new fitness model

2017-06-07

plut

7.8

Total - 7.8

78 7.8

The Acer Swift 7 is a slim laptop with a user-friendly design and decent battery life, though the form factor does come with trade-offs and a higher cost as opposed to regular laptops.

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Zubayr could be defined as any one of these traits: Grizzled, optimistic, jaded, blunt, opinionated, irreverent and reserved. His experience was once carbon dated to the glory days of Doom and Duke Nukem 3D. It still amazes him how irrelevant those have become these days.Some say his tears generate DLC unlock codes, and that the WASD combination was discovered by his typo while on Yahoo Chat.