Acer’s latest rev of the Swift Go 14 is one thing of a stealth performer of a laptop computer. At $899 for our mannequin SFG14-63T-R1F4 check configuration (and a beginning worth of $699), it sits within the midrange market however places up spectacular specs, like its “Hawk Level” Ryzen 7 8845HS processor and 1TB of storage. (We reviewed a Core Extremely 7 model of this machine earlier this 12 months.) It attracts first rate efficiency out of its internals and shows all of the motion on an easy-on-the-eyes matte display. Whereas options just like the Lenovo Yoga 9i 14 Gen 9 and Asus Zenbook 14 OLED Contact (UM3406) present some superior advantages, resembling OLED shows, Acer ably trades blows with them and comes out a compelling different for anybody targeted on getting work completed.Configurations and Design: The Naked Ultraportable NecessitiesThe Swift Go 14 is a plain design. It appears about as bland as most Acer Aspire fashions however will get an improve on construct high quality and parts. The chassis is sturdy aluminum, giving the entire unit a strong really feel. The Swift Go is aggressive with rival ultraportables on dimension, measuring 0.59 by 12.3 by 8.6 inches. These dimensions, mixed with the hardy metallic body, masks spectacular lightness, with the Swift Go weighing in at simply 2.76 kilos—respectable for a 14-inch laptop computer.
Since 1982, PCMag has examined and rated 1000’s of merchandise that can assist you make higher shopping for selections. See how we check.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
4 tiny rubber toes assist the Swift Go 14, retaining it regular in use, even when they’re not fairly grippy sufficient to carry it nonetheless if you’re lifting open the show. The show lid, when open, barely elevates the laptop computer’s again edge, offering further airflow to the consumption vents beneath, which blow out via an exhaust vent alongside the underside fringe of the show. The show itself is flanked by skinny plastic bezels, the one facet of the laptop computer that appears low cost. The higher bezel has a thicker house for the 1440p webcam and a sliding privateness cowl. A purple dot on the quilt makes it simple to see when the digital camera is roofed. The laptop computer’s lid is surprisingly thick, and this provides rigidity to the show.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
The Swift Go 14 has a fundamental keyboard, with the principle spotlight a fingerprint scanner constructed into the facility button. The show is a touch-input 14-inch, 16:10 IPS panel with a 1,920-by-1,200-pixel decision, a 60Hz refresh price, and a matte end. Two audio system sit alongside the perimeters of the laptop computer’s underside.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
By not taking pictures for a similar slice-thin design as some ultraportable rivals, the Swift Go 14 has one thing the competitors doesn’t: a good collection of ports. The laptop computer’s left edge contains two USB4 ports, a full-size HDMI 2.1 connection, and a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Kind-A port. You may discover one other USB-A port on the laptop computer’s proper facet, a headset jack, a microSD card slot, and a Kensington lock slot. Along with the wired connectivity, the laptop computer options Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 radios.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
This newest Swift Go 14 doesn’t include many configuration choices. It begins at $699 for a configuration with a Ryzen 5 8645HS CPU, 8GB of LPDDR5 reminiscence, and 512GB of solid-state storage. The SFG14-63T-R1F4 configuration examined right here prices $899 and jumps that as much as a Ryzen 7 8845HS processor, 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and a 1TB SSD. Given the reminiscence is soldered down, the up-spec mannequin is probably the most smart, as 8GB has turn out to be much less and fewer adequate for a lot of duties, and you’ll’t improve it after the very fact.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
Utilizing the Acer Swift Go 14: A Contact-and-Go Keyboard, a Prime-Notch Contact ScreenI’ll be the primary to confess that I don’t love a lot of Acer’s laptop computer keyboards. From high-end fashions to its most reasonably priced ones, too usually the corporate makes use of almost-domed keycaps with a tricky-to-learn really feel. Nonetheless, Acer opted for some satisfying mechanisms beneath, leading to a keyboard that may nonetheless work effectively when you get used to it. Having examined many Acer laptops through the years, I’ve grown comfy and might hit the bottom working, typing at 116 phrases per minute with 98% accuracy in my first move via Monkeytype’s velocity check. That is largely due to the poppy nature of the switches, which reset shortly and supply first rate stability to the keycaps, serving to me keep away from missed presses.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
Past the respectable typing really feel, the Swift Go 14 doesn’t current a lot to get enthusiastic about from its keyboard. It nonetheless depends on shrunken arrow keys, swapping out the suitable Ctrl key in favor of the brand new Microsoft Copilot AI key. It not less than gives a fingerprint scanner within the energy button. Primary white backlighting is out there and might run at two ranges. It’s efficient however doesn’t present completely even lighting.Acer suits a large touchpad under the keyboard. It’s easy and spacious sufficient for four-finger gestures, even for big palms. Faucet-to-click works persistently, however the pad will also be bodily depressed to click on. That tough click on has a number of journey and takes a reasonably agency movement, nevertheless it has a satisfying thunk when it actuates.Along with the trackpad, the Swift Go 14 has a touch-screen show. Whereas many contact screens have shiny finishes, the Swift Go has a easy, matte coating that feels pretty to glide a finger throughout and doesn’t simply present the fingerprints and smears left behind. The show can also be splendid for productiveness. It hits 98% of the sRGB colour house, which is a little bit quick however nonetheless much better than the numerous price range and workplace machines that hardly cowl 60% of sRGB. It is also simply legible between the matte end and 436-nit peak brightness. Even the 1,920-by-1,200-pixel decision is sufficient for the 14-inch panel, and the 16:10 facet ratio additional helps with productiveness, offering that little further little bit of vertical display house.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
The audio system should not fairly as respectable because the show. They pump out first rate quantity however don’t sound all that high-fidelity whereas they’re at it. Particularly at most quantity, the audio system have a harsh high quality that’s disagreeable to take heed to for lengthy. Like most laptops, the audio system additionally don’t carry out effectively pushing out bass, in order that they lack fullness for music and flicks. For all its credit, the Swift Go 14 nonetheless makes Acer’s common sin of sticking just a few too many little items of extraneous software program onto the machine. It’s not outrageous, however the laptop computer comes with a handful of video games and apps loaded proper into the Begin menu.Testing the Acer Swift Go 14: AMD Brings Its A-GameThe Swift Go 14 stays true to its lineage, offering a good quantity of functionality for the cash. It’s able to rival a number of productiveness laptops from Asus, Dell, and Lenovo—particularly on worth. The Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1 (7445) comes equally outfitted however prices $949. The latest Asus Zenbook 14 OLED Contact (UM3406) contains a comparable processor and graphics setup, as a lot reminiscence, and half the storage. It is available in barely lower than Acer’s worth, at $849, however with the privilege of an OLED show. The more expensive Lenovo Yoga 9i 14 Gen 9 ($1,449 as examined) and the Lenovo ThinkBook 14 2-in-1 Gen 4 (begins at $1,036, $1,149 as examined) each match into this similar class, however they go for Intel’s Core Extremely 7 155H and Core Extremely 5 125U, respectively.
Productiveness and Content material Creation TestsWe run the identical common productiveness benchmarks throughout each cell and desktop techniques. Our first check is UL’s PCMark 10, which simulates a wide range of real-world productiveness and workplace workflows to measure general system efficiency and in addition features a storage subtest for the first drive.Our different three benchmarks concentrate on the CPU, utilizing all obtainable cores and threads, to price a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 makes use of that firm’s Cinema 4D engine to render a posh scene, whereas Geekbench 5.4 Professional from Primate Labs simulates fashionable apps starting from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine studying. Lastly, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to transform a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p decision (decrease instances are higher).Final, we run PugetBench for Photoshop by workstation maker Puget Techniques, which makes use of the Artistic Cloud model 22 of Adobe’s well-known picture editor to price a PC’s efficiency for content material creation and multimedia functions. It is an automatic extension that executes a wide range of common and GPU-accelerated Photoshop duties starting from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving a picture to making use of masks, gradient fills, and filters.
The Swift Go 14 confirmed its may in our suite of productiveness assessments. In PCMark 10, scores of greater than 5,000 factors are greater than respectable, and for the Swift Go to exceed 7,000 factors is spectacular, indicating ample aptitude for general-purpose use and office-related duties. Many of the competitors wasn’t far behind, and the Asus laptop computer even narrowly exceeded the Swift Go, however the distinction was marginal. PCMark’s storage check additionally confirmed how Acer has opted for a succesful SSD, which performed into its success within the common PCMark 10 check, as weaker drives can crush the outcomes. Certain sufficient, the system was snappy and responsive when booting and loading functions. Even in picture modifying, as examined in PugetBench, the Swift Go 14 got here out forward, exhibiting velocity that outstripped the Intel entries right here.AMD’s Ryzen 7 8845HS contained in the Swift Go proved much more potent than the Intel Core 5 Extremely 125U seen within the Lenovo ThinkBook 14 2-in-1 Gen 4 and even readily outpaced the Lenovo Yoga 9i 14 Gen 9’s Intel Core 7 Extremely 155H in a few assessments. It wasn’t a hands-down winner, however its velocity throughout the vary of assessments was thrilling, particularly contemplating this is likely one of the most cost-effective laptops of the bunch.Graphics TestsWe check the graphics inside all laptops and desktops with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark, Night time Raid (extra modest, appropriate for laptops with built-in graphics) and Time Spy (extra demanding, appropriate for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs).To additional measure GPUs, we additionally run two assessments from the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which stresses each low-level routines like texturing and high-level, game-like picture rendering. The 1440p Aztec Ruins and 1080p Automobile Chase assessments, rendered offscreen to accommodate completely different show resolutions, train graphics and compute shaders utilizing the OpenGL programming interface and {hardware} tessellation respectively. The extra frames per second (fps), the higher.
AMD’s Radeon 780M built-in graphics chip (IGP) is sufficient for on a regular basis productiveness work. It is no rival to a discrete graphics chip, not even an older resolution just like the GeForce GTX 1650. However for built-in graphics efficiency, it was first rate, and Acer made probably the most of it. Contained in the Swift Go 14, the Radeon 780M IGP ran quicker than it did within the Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1, although it typically carried out higher within the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED Contact. Reminiscence velocity was possible at play right here, since IGPs depend on system reminiscence for video sources. On this case, Acer used LPDDR5X-6400 reminiscence, whereas Asus’ laptop computer had faster-clocked LPDDR5X-7500. Nonetheless, if the quickest efficiency is what you’re after, the Intel Arc IGP baked into the Lenovo Yoga 9i 14 Gen 9’s processor proved a high performer in additional demanding graphical duties; we noticed it lead in UL’s 3DMark Time Spy and GFXBench’s Aztec Ruins check.Battery and Show TestsWe check every laptop computer and pill’s battery life by taking part in a regionally saved 720p video file (the open-source Blender film Tears of Metal) with show brightness at 50% and audio quantity at 100%. We make sure that the battery is absolutely charged earlier than the check, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.To gauge show efficiency, we additionally use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Home windows software program to measure a laptop computer display’s colour saturation—what share of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 colour gamuts or palettes the show can present—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per sq. meter).
At first look, the Swift Go 14 would not seem like a staggering battery-life success. With a run time of 15 hours and 40 minutes in our check, it lagged behind each in contrast laptop computer. It’s humorous to see 15-plus hours as a low rating, given the place laptops had been just some years in the past, however the Acer laptop computer trailed the pack right here, by just a few hours in some instances. Since every system was set to 50% brightness in testing, all of them operated on completely different ranges when it comes to nits, and the Swift Go could have needed to work the toughest. At 50% brightness, the Swift Go nonetheless hit 210 nits, which was considerably brighter than any of those different laptops, and it nonetheless ran for almost 16 hours. With that in thoughts, the Lenovo ThinkBook 14 2-in-1 Gen 4’s consequence doesn’t look so spectacular, with the show at simply 80 nits and the letterboxing across the video not illuminating its OLED pixels. Asus additionally acquired an edge from its OLED pixels and 100-nit brightness within the check. So, whereas the Swift Go could have appeared as the underside canine on this check, it held up fairly effectively whereas offering the brightest visuals all through.The Swift Go 14 can get hit a little bit tougher outdoors native video playback. Utilizing the Swift Go for an hour, working and watching YouTube movies with the show set to 100% brightness, the battery drained by 16%, suggesting an general working time of about six hours for workplace duties in a worst-case state of affairs. Given the simple visibility of the show, you might have little motive to make use of it at 100% brightness until you’re outdoors in daylight, so you’ll possible see significantly higher battery life.That simple visibility is a little bit of a trade-off, because it comes from a show that’s not among the many finest. The IPS display isn’t probably the most colourful, solely protecting 98% of the sRGB colour house and with out significant protection of Adobe RGB or DCI-P3. Brightness is that this laptop computer’s power, hitting a peak brightness of 436 nits, which noticed it lead the pack right here. It’s splendid for productiveness, as glare will hardly ever be a problem. Nonetheless, the Lenovo Yoga and Asus ZenBook offered extraordinarily colourful OLED shows with respectable brightness in case you’re after all-around high quality.Verdict: A Scrappy Rival to Larger-Finish Ultraportables The Acer Swift Go 14 will get some minor demerits for its show’s modest color-gamut protection, the training curve of its keyboard, and the final design blandness. However behind that lies a potent work machine that retains up with the competitors and delivers first rate battery life. With speedy internals and loads of ports, this machine is prepared that can assist you get issues completed. And at $899, it’s a marked worth that shall be much more compelling throughout Prime Day and Black Friday gross sales. Nonetheless, in case you’re after a extra luxe expertise, contemplate both the Lenovo Yoga 9i 14 Gen 9 or the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED Contact (UM3406) as options.
Acer Swift Go 14 (2024, AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS)
Execs
Vibrant, simply legible matte show
Potent efficiency for the worth
Ample ports, together with USB4
Sturdy, light-weight design
View
Extra
The Backside Line
Acer’s newest Swift Go 14 is not modern, nevertheless it’s well-built and well-connected. With quick AMD Ryzen 8000-series efficiency for the worth and an eye-pleasing matte show, this laptop computer will get work completed.
Like What You are Studying?
Join Lab Report back to get the most recent opinions and high product recommendation delivered proper to your inbox.
This article could include promoting, offers, or affiliate hyperlinks. Subscribing to a publication signifies your consent to our Phrases of Use and Privateness Coverage. You could unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.
About Mark Knapp
Contributing Author
Mark Knapp has coated tech for many of the previous decade, retaining readers on top of things on the most recent developments and going hands-on with the whole lot from telephones and computer systems to e-bikes and drones to separate the advertising from the fact. Catch him on Twitter at @Techn0Mark or on PCMag, IGN, TechRadar, T3, Enterprise Insider, and Reviewed.
Learn Mark’s full bio
Learn the most recent from Mark Knapp
