Acer Swift 14 AI review: is it worth $1,199?

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Need-to-knows

– SnapDragon X Plus chip provides enough power for the majority of users

– Great display with a vibrant colour range

– Touchpad is spongy and not very responsive

– Ok for low-intensity gaming, runs Minecraft at about 40 FPS

I love it when I get to review a Windows laptop. I use an M1 MacBook Pro so any chance to experience something different is always interesting. However, as the Acer Swift 14 AI demonstrates, not as much as it used to be.

Windows laptop hardware has come a long way in recent years, so much so that finding one that has bags of power and never feels slow is no longer a surprise. As such, I had an unremarkable time with the Acer Swift 14 AI. And I mean that in an entirely positive way. It did what I wanted it to do and had some extra headroom that I wasn’t expecting.

Let me explain in a bit more detail with this review!

How did I review the Acer Swift 14 AI?

To comprehensively review the Acer Swift 14 AI, I used it as my primary laptop for a week. That means I used it for work and leisure, which mainly consisted of word processing, using the internet, video calling, light image editing and video content consumption.

I also played a variety of games on the laptop to test the GPU capabilities such as Minecraft and The Outer Wilds. I monitored the CPU and GPU usage percentage and frames per second to get some hard data.

Acer Swift 14 AI Specs

Design and display – aluminium build, great picture quality

Refreshingly, the Acer Swift 14 is a premium-priced laptop that actually feels premium thanks to the Aluminium chassis that has these nice, clean-cut edges. Other features like the edge-to-edge glass cover on the display and backlit keyboard bolster a look that you’ll be satisfied with after paying the money.

The keyboard feels responsive to type on and there’s loads of room thanks to the 12-inch width of the chassis. I would love it if the keys were ever so slightly larger though. There are a few special features on the keyboard such as a fingerprint sensor on the power button which adds a layer of convenience, and the AcerSense button brings up all of the laptop’s AI capabilities in one place.

But the touchpad is by far the worst bit about the design. I often find this with Windows laptops but the touchpad on the Acer Swift 14 AI is…doughy. That’s the best way I can describe it. Physically clicking anything feels like you get a delayed response and the pressure needed to depress the pad is too high. You’d get used to it obviously, but coming from a MacBook, it is hard to ignore.

As for the display, it’s great as it should be at this price point. At 14.5 inches it is a practical size for most people’s needs and hardware-wise, you get an LCD panel with a 2.5k resolution (equating to 2560 x 1600), 60Hz refresh rate and IPS technology which is what you want for gaming.

The display is sharp and the colours look really vibrant but there is a very slightly perceptible graininess to it when watching videos online. It looked brilliant when gaming though, bright enough and the colours popped as you would like them to.

Weighing in at 1.36kg, the Acer Swift 14 AI is very light too. What’s amazing is that you get a not-terrible gaming experience, and a very capable work laptop, bundled up in a frame this portable. It isn’t exactly a novel thing, other laptops do it better, but to know you can take this on a business trip without issues, whilst also being able to game in your spare time, is handy.

Performance – a reliable everyday unit

Most non-Apple laptop manufacturers have managed to up their hardware game significantly in recent years to the point that the average user wouldn’t bat an eyelid between models. And that’s certainly the case with the Acer Swift 14.

Providing the power is the 10-core SnapDragon X Plus, Qualcomm’s second most recent chip made specifically for laptops. Whilst not being a particularly mind-blowing processor, it does the job for the majority of medium workloads like word processing or light video editing.

I could go deep into the weeds here with lots of numbers about performance but instead, I’ll stick to the crucial things you need to know. Comparing laptops to MacBooks is a fool’s game these days because Apple Silicon is, plainly, more powerful by some distance. But for reference, the SnapDragon X Plus sits somewhere between the M2 and M3 chips in terms of performance.

The M3 chip is about 25% faster in single-core performance, but the X Plus is actually faster in multi-core tests. The SnapDragon also has a 32% higher theoretical memory bandwidth which, in simple terms, means it can process and read data faster.

I mentioned the touchpad above and that is the biggest physical annoyance I have with the Acer Swift 14 AI. The SnapDragon X Plus chip is good but I would opt for the Elite if I had the extra money. But honestly, unless you’re using it for heavy work like video editing or music producing, then the Plus is fine.

What does this mean in real life? Happily, the Acer Swift 14 is punchy in everyday tasks, handling my embarrassingly poor tab management with ease and I had no problems with multitasking. I often have a video on screen while working on something else and there were no noticeable slowdowns whilst this happened.

For the average user, that is those of us who word process, watch content and edit the occasional video/photo, then the Acer Swift 14 more than covers your needs.

The SnapDragon X Plus is also optimised for AI which comes in the form of Copilot for Acer. It is like, most other AI assistants; it writes, searches the internet for you and generates images amongst other things. It’s fine, and very handy to have it built-in to the laptop if you use AI a lot, but not as good as ChatGPT…although nothing is yet.

Battery and ports – all day battery life

One of the big advantages of the Acer Swift 14 AI is the battery life. Acer says you get up to 26 hours of video playback out of a 75Wh battery which easily translates into a full day’s work. And that pretty much checks out in real life.

I used the Acer Swift 14 AI as my main laptop for a week and the battery percentage was down to about 60% after 9 hours of use in a day, including watching videos. It is a really impressive battery that won’t let you down.

Charging happens via USB-C and you can choose to use either of the two USB4 ports to do so. There are also two USB-A ports, which I find especially useful these days for using accessories like a mouse or external keyboard, and a headphone jack.

For a laptop that costs this much, you’d expect a good selection of ports so I was happy to see two of each USB type.

Can you game on the Acer Swift 14 AI laptop?

The answer to this question is yes, but not everything. The Acer Swift 14 AI is not a gaming laptop, but hey, it’s certainly nice to have when dropping over $1000/£1000.

There is no dedicated graphics card inside the Acer Swift 14 AI but there is an integrated Adreno GPU which is more powerful than you think. That being said, it is still well behind other integrated graphics processing units from AMD and Intel.

But you can play games that aren’t too graphically demanding. For example, Minecraft ran well if not at a buttery smooth FPS; it sat at an average of about 40 FPS. But you can certainly play it without any major issues like lag or crashes. Anything 2D is handled well too, you just can’t play the more strenuous first-person shooters and the newest AAA games.

I mean, you can but it won’t be a very fun experience. The keys themselves are, as I said, a bit small which can be frustrating for playing games but it’s fine once you get used to it.

The Acer Swift 14 AI is, therefore, perfect as an occasional gaming laptop that isn’t the primary use case. If you travel for work and also want to be able to play Minecraft, then you’re good!

What don’t I like about using the Acer Swift 14 AI?

My main gripe with the Acer Swift 14 AI is Windows 11. Yes, this isn’t Acer’s fault but I really struggle to get on board with the software. And that is coming from someone who used a Windows laptop (and even a Chromebook!) up until two years ago. There are some good things of course, and for the most part, Windows 11 is totally fine, but it just feels so much more cluttered than MacOS.

I love the window management that Windows 11 offers, being able to quickly select a layout is something MacOS badly needs. And the free apps you get can be very user-friendly, like the Clips video editing app. The Microsoft Edge search bar on the home screen is also surprisingly useful. But it remains a sluggish software in comparison to MacOS and doesn’t feel like it is designed for laptops, rather tablets or mobiles.

This is a ‘me’ problem but I’m just being honest with you!

Conclusion – is it worth $1,199?

The Acer Swift 14 AI is suitable for a wide range of people. If you need to work with word processing, you’re absolutely fine. If you need to edit video, then you’re also fine although if you’re going really high intensity with it, you’ll probably want more power and RAM. If you are a so-called power user, then I would be looking at a beefier machine for the extra headroom needed.

It is also suitable for the occasional gamer, something you can’t say of most MacBooks and certainly not those as light and portable as this one.

Overall, I really like the Acer Swift 14 AI. There’s a surprisingly high level of power and it is versatile due to the long battery life and light weight. Of course, it is packed full of AI features that work to varying degrees of success but I am yet to be convinced by any on-device AI systems from any manufacturer. But this laptop has the capability for it if that’s what you want.

The only sticking point for me is the price. At $1,199/£1,199, it isn’t cheap and I think Acer has missed a trick by not keeping it at or just below $1000/£1000. For reference, you can buy a new M3 MacBook Air for $1,099/£1,099. Granted, that only comes with 256GB of SSD storage compared to the Acer’s 1TB, but it has the same 16GB of memory. 

It definitely gives you something to think about. In my opinion, for working, the M3 MacBook Air is a better choice overall. It is simply more powerful and the M3 chip is better futureproofed than the X Plus. But it is an Apple device. If you want/need Windows with some gaming capability, this isn’t even a dilemma for you; the Swift 14 AI remains an excellent choice.