There’s also 8GB of DDR4 RAM, which worked well for intense tasks such as having plenty of Chrome tabs open with media playing and Spotify, too. You could even edit a video on the Swift 3, albeit a 1080p one.

When taking a typing test on 10fastfingers.com, I managed to hit 48 words per minute, which is not far off from my 53 wpm average. But while it was easy to type on the laptop, the palm rest area was tiny, which led to my accidentally brushing against the touchpad. 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.

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

We estimate Windows 11 support will end in October 2031. However, this laptop may be compatible with a future version of Windows that gets support beyond this date 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 is the sensible choice. Unlike the latest Dell XPS 13 or Microsoft Surface Laptop, it won’t inspire the awe and jealousy of your colleagues. It’s the laptop you buy if you want a competent, well-made machine that gets the job done, without breaking the bank. Our team ran a fullscreen HD video for 15 minutes and measured specific spots on the laptop once the time elapsed. The touchpad measured 79 degrees Fahrenheit, which is well below our 95-degree comfort threshold. Between the G & H keys, we measured 83 degrees, and on the underside, we got a reading of 86 degrees. Acer Swift 3 webcam READ NEXT: The best laptops you can buy right now Acer Swift 3 SF314-57 (2020) review: What you need to know

Acer does go a bit beyond the brief with its software, but not in a good way. We get some officious software, Acer Jumpstart, popping up notifications here and there. If they were notifications for ways it can improve the system performance, maybe we shrug it off. But, when it’s a large promo for Forge of Empires, we’re inclined to uninstall the software on the spot. Lenovo’s Yoga Slim 7 did better thanks to its AMD Ryzen 7 chipset but we will have to wait for Intel 12th-geneneration Alder Lake processors to filter down to the more affordable end of the market before we see those sorts of numbers from a Core i5 chip. Benchmark numbers to one side, however, for everyday computing needs and office productivity tasks, the Swift 3 has more than enough power.Its 14-inch display features a relatively thin bezel, even with the top one housing a handy webcam. Unfortunately, this isn’t a flip-down panel, and nor is it a touchscreen. As I navigated Windows 10, I found that the Swift 3's silver 4.2 x 2.6-inch touchpad offers extremely precise scrolling and cursor control. Visually, you might not even notice it's there, were it not for the indentation around it. Acer Swift 3 (AMD) review: Audio Under the hood, you’ll find it features a 5th-gen AMD Ryzen 5 5500U processor with six cores and twelve threads. This helps it to achieve some pretty high-flying scores in our benchmark tests on Geekbench 5 and PC Mark 10, with the Swift 3 noticeably beating off the competition thanks to two extra cores of power.

While it may not be the most luxurious Windows 10 ultraportable on the market, it’s certainly one of the most keenly priced. The question is, can you spend less and do even better? The Swift 3 managed to last for around 11 hours or so in our battery test. This sits around an hour-and-a-half short of what Acer say it’ll go for, but rest assured that an eleven-hour battery will serve you well for a couple of days.

Wi-Fi 6E-compatible devices are required to reach the stated speeds/benefits of Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax). As a mid-range laptop, the Acer Swift 3 isn’t going to set the world alight when it comes to its spec sheet, yet nevertheless provides a great all-round experience for productivity. 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 Color accuracy on the Swift 3, though, isn’t half bad. The display has a Delta-E color accuracy score of 0.2 (0 is ideal). This beats the category average (0.3), the Swift 3’s Intel model (0.29) and the HP Envy 13 (0.29). Acer Swift 3 audio Technically, the screen is a very solid performer. It refreshes at 90Hz and has a pixel density of 243ppi so it’s smooth and sharp. And it’s bright, too, hitting peaks of 502cd/m2 in my tests. That’s not quite a match for the Samsung Galaxy Book’s 526cd/m2 but this is still a very good result. There’s an abundance of colour with the panel able to reproduce 119% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut (equivalent to 116% of Adobe RGB or 169% of sRGB).