Which has best specification with competitive price – Acer Swift 5 vs Swift 7? 14.0″ full HD (1920 x 1080) widescreen LED-backlit IPS antimicrobial corning gorilla glass display with integrated touch, 340nit brightness, 100% SRGB, Intel Iris XE graphics make them incomparable among top 10 laptops. The 11th Gen Intel Core processor with vivid Intel Iris Xe graphics and fast Intel Wi-Fi 6 connectivity allow you to focus, create, and engage at new levels. Also has stunning features like – 1TB NVMe SSD, DTS Audio, featuring optimized bass response and micro-speaker distortion prevention, Two built-in front facing stereo speakers, Acer Purified.Voice technology with two built-in microphones and more. Get more in Acer Swift 5 vs Swift 7 comparison chart.
Pros & Cons – Acer Swift 5 vs Swift 7
Acer Swift 5
Pros
- Unbelievably lightweight
- Excellent performance
- Stellar battery life
- Gorgeous design
- Affordably priced
Cons
- Irritating keyboard layout
- Weak speakers
- Excessive bloatware
Acer Swift 7
Pros
- Inconceivably thin and lightweight
- Elegant design
- Gorgeous 14-inch display
- Surprisingly long battery life
Cons
- Frustrating keyboard layout
- Practically unusable webcam
- Runs warm
- Weak speakers
Acer Swift 5 vs Swift 7 Specs
Acer Swift 5
Price: $1,299
CPU: Intel Core i7-1165G7
GPU: Intel Iris Xe
RAM: 16GB
Storage: 1TB SSD
Display: 14-inch, 1080p touchscreen
Battery: 13:37
Size: 12.6 x 8.2 x 0.6 inches
Weight: 2.31 pounds
Acer Swift 7
CPU: 1.5GHz Intel Core i7-8500Y (dual-core, 4MB cache, up to 4.2GHz)
Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics 615
RAM: 8GB LPDDR3
Screen: 14-inch, Full HD (1,920 x 1,080) CineCrystal IPS touch display
Storage: 512GB NVMe SSD
Ports: 2 x Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C), headset jack
Connectivity: Intel Wireless-AC 9260 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
Camera: HD (720p) webcam with dual microphones
Weight: 1.96 pounds (0.89kg)
Size: 12.48 x 7.55 x 0.39 inches (31.7 x 19.2 x 0.99cm; W x D x H)
Acer Swift 5 vs Swift 7 Price
Acer Swift 5
The Acer Swift 5 is priced at $1,299 and comes with an Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor, Intel Iris Xe Graphics, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD.
This is the top-tier configuration; the base option starts at $999 and includes an Intel Core i5-1135G7 CPU, Intel Iris Xe graphics, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. Stepping up to $1,099 gets you an Intel Core i7-1065G7 CPU, Intel Iris Plus graphics, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. The final configuration goes for $1,149 and offers the Intel Core i7-1065G7 CPU, an Nvidia GeForce MX250, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. All four variants are available in either Mist Green or Safari Gold.
Acer Swift 7
Our $1,699 base model (in black) is equipped with an Intel Core i7-8500Y CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. A white version costs $50 more.
Business users might want the $1,899 edition of the Swift 7, which has the same specs but upgrades you from Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Pro. But we recommend you do that yourself to save some money.
What are the key differences – Acer Swift 5 vs Swift 7
Design
Acer Swift 5
It’s actually slightly heavier than Swift 5 (2020) that was released this spring, at 2.3 pounds compared to 2.2 pounds, but at 12.6 x 8.2 x 0.6 inches, it’s still smaller and lighter than most of its competitors, like the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (2.4 pounds, 12.7 x 8.5 x 0.6-inches), Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 (2.9 pounds, 12.1 x 8.8 x 0.6 inches) or the new MacBook Air (2.8 pounds, 12 x 8.4 x 0.6 inches).
Acer Swift 7
At 0.4 inches and 1.9 pounds, the Swift 7 is considerably thinner and lighter than the LG Gram 14 2-in-1 (0.7 inches, 2.5 pounds), the Asus ZenBook 14 UX433 (0.6 inches, 2.6 pounds) and the Apple MacBook Air (0.6 inches, 2.8 pounds). Note, every 10th of an inch is massive when you get down to this scale.
Ports
Acer Swift 5
Along its left side, you will find a DC-in charging port, HDMI 2.0, a USB Type-A port (USB 3.2 Gen 1) and the aforementioned USB Type-C Thunderbolt 4 port.
Turning to the right side, things are a little more minimal: just a Kensington lock port, another USB Type-A port (USB 3.2 Gen 1) and a combo headphone/mic jack.
Acer Swift 7
Dual Thunderbolt 3 ports on the right side of the Swift 7 are all you get on this superthin laptop. At least you can charge the laptop and another device simultaneously, which you couldn’t do on Apple’s now-retired 12-inch MacBook.
Display
Acer Swift 5
The Swift 5’s 14-inch, 1920 x 1080-pixel display produced a sharp and vibrant image. While it doesn’t deliver 4K or a high refresh rate, it has a solid 1080p experience that won’t disappoint. The bezels aren’t the slimmest we’ve seen, but pretty thin along the edges and what remains at the top and bottom certainly doesn’t make the Swift 5 look dated. While the Swift 5 isn’t a 2-in-1, it does feature a touchscreen display that is excellently responsive.
Acer Swift 7
I thoroughly enjoyed watching videos and browsing the web on the Swift 7’s 14-inch, 1080p touch-screen display. Thin bezels drew my eyes into the wide panel, which greeted me with reasonably vivid colors and decent brightness.
When I watched a trailer for Jumanji: The Next Level, Kevin Hart’s saturated red neckerchief stood out against the lush green jungle.
Brightness
Acer Swift 5
Brightness isn’t a massive strength for the Acer Swift 5, which peaks at 350 nits, but that’s a solid result and puts it on even footing with its competitors. The MacBook Air (366 nits) has a slight edge, while the Surface Laptop 3 (348 nits) is nearly identical and the category average slightly eclipses all of them at 386 nits.
Acer Swift 7
the Swift 7’s display reached 293 nits, which makes it brighter than the panels on the Gram 14 2-in-1 (253 nits) and the ZenBook 14 (217 nits) but dimmer than the MacBook Air’s display (343 nits). The average premium laptop (346 nits) has a brighter display than all of these devices.
Graphics
Acer Swift 5
The Intel Iris Xe in the Swift 5 isn’t up for playing demanding games at high settings, but it’s vastly more capable than its predecessor in this regard, and holds up well in its category. If you are dead set on gaming, you aren’t going to find anything this thin and light, but some of the best gaming laptops in this price range are reasonably portable and will deliver much better gaming performance.
Acer Swift 7
You can forget about playing the best PC games on the Swift 7. The integrated Intel UHD 615 graphics paired with Intel’s Y-series chips can’t do much beyond play online games and load web animations or videos.
The Swift 7 proved as much by playing the racing game Dirt 3 at a measly 18 frames per second, well below our 30-fps playability threshold and far behind what the Gram 14 2-in-1 (51 fps), the ZenBook 14 UX433 (45 fps) and the average premium laptop (61 fps) notched.
Camera
Acer Swift 5
Despite its thin bezels, the Acer Swift 5 gives you a top bezel webcam and that’s about the only positive thing I have to say about it. It will serve you just fine if you have no other option, but it is completely incapable of handling anything without bright light and, even then, you are going to see a fair amount of visual noise.
Acer Swift 7
To get the camera to capture your face, you either need to lift the deck of the laptop so that it’s at eye level with you or hunch your back like Quasimodo. It’s a real shame, because of all the integrated webcams I’ve tested, the Swift 7’s 720p lens has some of the best image quality; my face had natural colors in a selfie I snapped, and there was plenty of detail without all the noise I’m used to seeing.
Battery life
Acer Swift 5
It lasted 13 hours and 37 minutes in our official battery test, which involves continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. This puts it well ahead of the Surface Laptop 3 13-inch (9:17) and the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (10:45), coming in behind only the new MacBook Air (M1, 2020) (14:41), but that’s certainly good company to keep.
Acer Swift 7
I’m really impressed by the Swift 7’s battery life. Not that the laptop’s runtime on our battery test (which involves continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits) of 8 hours and 56 minutes breaks any records; I just never would have guessed that such a thin device could last an entire day on a charge.
The Swift 7 even outlasted the ZenBook 14 (8:37), the MacBook Air (8:51) and the premium laptop average (8:15), if only by a few minutes.
Acer Swift 5 vs Swift 7 Performance review
Acer Swift 5
Our Handbrake video transcoding test, which requires the laptop to convert a 4K video to 1080p resolution, was also well ahead of the curve for the Swift 5, finishing in 13 minutes and 55 seconds. While the MacBook Air (9:15) trounced this result, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon (18:29) and the Surface Laptop 3 (24:55) put it back in perspective.
The Acer Swift 5’s 1TB SSD is no slouch either, managing a 1,141 MBps transfer rate in our 5GB file transfer test. Again, Apple wrecks the curve for the class with the MacBook Air (2,897.8 MBps), while the Surface Laptop 3 (541.4 MBps), the ThinkPad X1 Carbon (997.9 MBps) and the category average (780.9 MBps) all reveal that the Swift 5 lives up to its name when it comes to SSD speed.
Acer Swift 7
The Swift 7 scored a 6,374 on the Geekbench 4.3 overall performance test, which is less than half of what the Gram 14 2-in-1 (15,943, Core i7-8565U) and the average premium laptop (15,581) achieved. The Swift 7 also got crushed by the ZenBook 14 (11,804, Core i7-8565U) and even fell behind the MacBook Air (7,880, Core i5-8210Y).
You could watch an entire Breaking Bad episode in the time it took the Swift 7 to transcode a 4K video into 1080p resolution using the Handbrake app. The 50 minutes and 22 seconds the laptop took to complete the task is more than twice what the Gram 14 2-in-1 (21:17), the ZenBook 14 UX433 (24:46) and the premium laptop average (22:25) needed.
Fortunately, the Swift 7 rebounded on our hard-drive test, thanks to its relatively quick 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD. It took the Swift 7 just 12 seconds to duplicate 4.96GB of multimedia data for a transfer rate of 424.1 megabytes per second. That’s quicker than the Gram 14 2-in-1 (391 MBps, 512GB M.2 SATA SSD) but not quite as pacey as the ZenBook 14 (508 MBps, 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD) or the premium laptop average (504.6 MBps). Apple’s hard drives, like the one in the MacBook Air (1,011 MBps, 256GB PCIe NVMe SSD), are just crazy fast.
What are the Similarities – Acer Swift 5 vs Swift 7
Keyboard
Typing on the Swift 5 keyboard feels great. Given its thinness, you don’t have an abundance of key travel, but it offers just enough and the keys are springy and responsive. However, the layout on the Swift 5 drove me nuts for a few reasons and while I’m certain I would get used to it over time, there might be a bit of a learning curve with some of the key placements.
Touchpad
Turning to the touchpad, the 4.1 x 2.6-inch surface is sufficiently large to execute any of the Windows 10 gestures. I didn’t have any issues with responsiveness when it came to either gestures or basic navigation and,if you prefer, you always have the touchscreen to fall back on.
Finger print
The built-in fingerprint sensor is just below the cursor keys and color-matched to the chassis, but slightly recessed so it’s easy to find. I have just one odd complaint about the interior of the Swift 5: there’s an “Antimicrobial Corning Gorilla Glass” logo on the bezel at the top-left corner and it draws my eye for some reason. I’d probably get over it eventually (or I’d find a way to cover it up) but why include it at all?
Audio
Whether you bust out a pair of headphones or connect some computer speakers, do yourself a favor and don’t use the Swift 7’s built-in speakers as your primary means of listening to music. The laptop’s quiet and shrill bottom-firing speakers evoke the intercom system in an aging New York City subway train.
Apps
Feel free to delete Acer Collection S and App Explorer, both of which give you Windows Store app recommendations. Content creators might want to keep PhotoDirector and PowerDirect for when they need to edit photos and videos.
Also installed on the Swift 7 are a handful of Windows 10 Home apps, including Bubble Witch 3 Saga, Candy Crush Friends, Amazon, Booking, eBay, Evernote and Hearts Deluxe, to name a few in a list that should be much shorter on a premium laptop.
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