If you’re looking for a reliable mid-range laptop that won’t cost you a lot, then you should be interested in this Acer Swift 3 SF314-42-R9YN. The Acer Swift series has given us some solid devices; this one here is no different. The laptop is made for people who need a bit of power but can’t spend a ludicrous amount of money on it.
This Acer laptop comes with a good list of hardware that puts a smile on our faces. We have an octa-core processor from AMD and specs that beautifully complement this processor. You also get some premium features on this laptop that we’ll discuss later. So is this laptop worth your time and hard-earned money? We think so. Find out why in the full review below.
Acer Swift 3 (SF314)
Specifications:
- AMD Ryzen 7
- DDR4 8 GB RAM
- 512 GB SSD
In our mid-range, the Acer Swift 3 SF314-42-R9YN is a top-notch product. As far as performance goes, this is one of the best from Acer.
Acer Swift 3 (SF314) – Design
The design of the Acer Swift 3 SF314-42-R9YN laptop is pretty good. The first impression is neat. The laptop comes with a combination of aluminium and magnesium-aluminium materials and gives you a nice premium look. When you pick the laptop up, you know that this is not a cheap laptop.
With dimensions of 12.73 x 8.62 x 0.63 inches, this laptop is not that big in measurements. The laptop is quite slim with a thickness of 0.63 inches and weighs 2.6lbs, making it very portable. This portability makes this an excellent choice for students, people who work on the move, and others who want a travelling companion.
The keyboard on this laptop is a nice one. It has a solid layout, and the keys have decent travel, making your typing experience a good one. It does make a bit of noise when you’re typing, but that’s not a dealbreaker in any way. The keyboard also comes with backlighting that comes in handy when you need to burn the midnight oil without a lot of light.
The trackpad here is a fine one as well. It is a precision trackpad that takes all your hits and responds quickly without missing anything. You can have quite some fun playing with the gestures as this trackpad gives you full support for them.
In addition to the keyboard and the trackpad, you have another input device on this Acer Swift 3 SF314-42-R9YN. We have a fingerprint reader that utilizes Windows Hello for authentication. This allows you to log into your user profile with ease. You don’t have to type your complex password every time, as a simple touch of a finger might be sufficient.
Acer Swift 3 (SF314) – Display
The display we have on this Acer Swift 3 SF314-42-R9YN is a 14-inch LED-backlit display that comes with a resolution of 19 20 by 10 80 pixels. This full HD resolution is pretty good on this display as we deal with a smaller display. The pixel density here is much better, resulting in increased sharpness in both images and text.
The display has a contemporary look thanks to the reduced size of the bezels. These narrow bezels are 0.21 inches thin and give the laptop a refreshing look and a screen-to-body ratio of 82.73%. The overall visual experience is also better, as this display offers an immersive viewing experience.
The color accuracy of the display is pretty good. The contrast ratio helps in achieving deep blacks and bright whites. The color accuracy might not match the ones you find in high-end laptops, but it is quite impressive for a laptop in this price range. The viewing angles of this laptop are also fantastic, making this a suitable device for media consumption, presentations, and other everyday stuff.
Acer Swift 3 (SF314) – Processing Power
The Acer Swift 3 SF314-42-R9YN comes with a lot of processing power in the form of an AMD Ryzen 7 4700U processor. This is an octa-core processor from AMD and has a base clock speed of 2.0 GHz. The processor can clock to a maximum of 4.1 GHz, which is quite a lot of power for most users. The processor gets a CPU Mark benchmark score of 13,828, which is very good and puts this laptop in the high-performance category.
As far as real-life performance is concerned, the processor does a fantastic job. It runs all your applications without any issues whatsoever. You can do anything you want on this laptop with the process. I like this, which is an advantage not many users have. People usually don’t trust AMD when it comes to processors, but they have proven it is wrong with this chip.
The memory on this laptop is made up of eight gigs of LPDDR4 RAM. This memory is perfect for a laptop in this price range and gives you all the flexibility you need for efficient multitasking. You can run several applications simultaneously without bringing down the device’s performance, thereby improving your productivity.
Acer Swift 3 (SF314) – Storage
The storage option on this laptop is a 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD. First, we have to come and Acer for including a solid-state drive on this laptop as opposed to a mechanical hard drive. Second, the solid-state drive a spacious enough and gives you excellent speed and performance.
Once you start using this SSD, you will get used to the quick opening times of applications and the super-fast booting times, which are very hard to let go of. Even moving data from one local folder to another takes very little time. This SSD will make a workflow much smoother and make it impossible to go back to traditional mechanical hard drives.
Acer Swift 3 (SF314) – Graphics
The Acer Swift 3 SF314-42-R9YN does not come with a discrete graphics card. It utilizes the integrated graphics card in the processor to handle your graphics requirements. The AMD Radeon graphics card does a pretty good job when it comes to handling your everyday graphics needs. You can also work on photo editing, simple video editing, and graphic design.
You can play some light and mid-range games without any excellent issues. You may not be able to play the latest and greatest games, but for a light gamer, this laptop is more than enough.
Acer Swift 3 (SF314) – Connectivity
Acer Swift 3 SF314-42-R9YN comes with decent connectivity options. It has 1 USB Type-C port, 1 USB 3.2 gen one port, 1 USB 2.0 port, an HDMI port, and an audio jack. All these ports are excellent for day-to-day use, and you don’t have to buy any adapters as they cover a wide range of use cases.
The lack of an SD card slot is a bit disappointing as you may not be able to add more memory or use an SD card to browse its contents. The laptop also comes with wireless standards like WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0. WiFi 6 is extremely fast and gives you almost zero latency which is fantastic for gaming. Bluetooth 5.0 has an improved range, and the overall reliability is way better.
Acer Swift 3 (SF314) – Battery Life
With easy use, this Acer Swift 3 SF314-42-R9YN can last for about 11.5 hours which is pretty good. This battery life makes this laptop a good contender for students, both at school and college, people who travel a lot, and those who work primarily outdoors.
With some heavy usage, this battery life will come down. Even then, you will have a decent amount of battery left on your laptop that should help you get through your day.
Acer Swift 3 (SF314) – Summary
Overall, the Acer Swift 3 SF314 is a solid and reliable mid-range device that comes at an affordable price and delivers excellent performance. It comes with premium features like a fingerprint reader, built-in Alexa, and WiFi 6. If you’re looking for an almost no-compromise laptop that doesn’t make you rob a bank, then this laptop might be the right one for you.