THE GREAT ULTRAPORTABLE SHOOTOUT 2021 EDITION
Acer Swift 5
ASUS ZenBook 14 Ultralight
Dell XPS 13
Huawei MateBook 14 AMD
Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon
LG gram 14
MSI Prestige 14 Evo
Razer Book 13
ACER SWIFT 5
AT A GLANCE
CPU
Intel Core i7-1165G7
GPU
el Iris Xe
Display
14-inch, Full HD, touchscreen
Memory
16GB
Storage
1TB SSD
Price
$2,298
The Acer Swift 5 has been with us in some form for a couple of years now. This year’s model, however, looks like it could be Acer’s best yet.
The Swift 5 has a magnesium alloy chassis. This makes it very light at just 1kg. Thickness is just a smidge under 15mm. The overall design can be best described as functional. It isn’t a notebook that drips with desire, but fortunately, the Swift 5 feels like a quality item.
The display is 14 inches large, supports touch inputs, and is Full HD resolution. It’s also protected by antimicrobial Corning Gorilla Glass. Acer claims it supports 100% of the Adobe sRGB colour space. From what I’m seeing, it looks to be one of the better displays in this shootout. Colours look vivid and it gets fairly bright. My only criticism is it isn’t quite as sharp as some of its rivals.
There’s not much to lament about these specs. It has a good amount of memory and a generous amount of storage. In terms of ports, users are getting a single USB-C port that supports Thunderbolt 4 and two USB-A USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports. There’s also a full-size HDMI port. However, there’s no memory card reader of any sort. The USB-C port can be used for charging but there’s also a separate DC-in jack too. If I could change anything, I’ll swap one of the two USB-A port for another USB-C port and do away with the DC-in jack.
The trackpad is on the smaller side but it’s fluid, accurate, and usable. The keyboard could do with more travel but it’s fairly nice to type
