Acer Swift 3, either with Core i7-1065G7 or Ryzen 7 4700U: The Laptop Market Just Blew Wide Open
by Dr. Ian Cutress on January 6, 2020 6:30 PM EST
Everyone wants a notebook that fulfills their needs, is super light, lasts forever, and only costs a dime. We’re not in fantasy land just quite yet, but Acer is trying with its new Swift 3 for 2020. There’s one kicker in these units though – there will be AMD and Intel variants, using the latest and greated from both – Intel’s 10nm Ice lake vs. AMD’s new 7nm APUs.
The new Acer Swift 3 ultraportable is a 14-inch unit weighing 1.2 kg (2.6 lbs) that has either up to an octo-core AMD Ryzen 7 4700U inside or up to an Intel Core i7-1065G7, 16 GB of LPDDR4X memory, and up to 512 GB of NVMe storage. Acer is going for a premium design feel here, with the lightweight chassis, narrow bezels (4.37mm), and support for features like Windows Hello and Wake on Voice supported. The full unit is 16.55mm / 0.65-inches thick.
AMD Variant
AMD Prices will start from $599 for the base configuration, and exact specifications will come closer to the launch in May. Intel will start from $699 and be available from March.
Intel Variant
If one thing is going to be clear at this year’s CES, it’s going to be that AMD and Intel are going to be hitting each other with design wins. Normally for design wins we talk about flagships, but I suspect we’ll see AMD in a lot of mid-price notebooks with good all-round specifications, which is going to be where Intel will feel the heat. Not to be outdone, Intel is expected to have a number of Ice Lake designs at CES as well – the Intel Acer Swift 3 has Athena certification for example, which might be where the extra base cost comes from, as it will likely have Thunderbolt 3, Wi-Fi 6, and an ultra-low power display. It would be interesting to square off Intel vs AMD here in a review later this year.
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The Hardcard - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link
I want more nits. With Ryzen 3000 call mobile you still had to choose between chassis with good thermals or a display with more than 300 nits. Hopefully some of these new design wins will combine the two and get my money. Actually, I’m glad the previous generation didn’t have what I wanted, because the CPUs are so much better. I would have been left coveting what I could not buy.Papaspud - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link
Who needs battery sucking 4k on a 14" screen?akvadrako - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link
People with good eyes who like reading clear text.StevoLincolnite - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link
1440P would be a better middle ground for that.Cliff34 - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link
Love to see more 1440P. 1080 just ain't sharp enough but 4k seems overkill for a laptop when battery life matters.Findecanor - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link
MacBooks are 2560×1600 (16:10) instead of 2560×1440. It's perfect. That's the one aspect that other brands should copy, IMHObrakdoo - Tuesday, January 7, 2020 - link
This one has 3:2 aspect ratio but I prefer 16:9 as I'm watching more videos than doing anything else that needs height.jospoortvliet - Tuesday, January 7, 2020 - link
Get a tablet for video, much nicer... a laptop is for productivity.brakdoo - Tuesday, January 7, 2020 - link
"productivity"... You don't see the reality of laptop usage aside from business models (Acer swifts are definitely not business models).Plus many higher spec'd tablets have 3:2 (surface) or even closer to 4:3 (ipad)aspect ratios.
Zagor Te Nay - Thursday, January 9, 2020 - link
Problem with some tablets, though, is poor repair-ability.My Surface Pro 5 has decided to kill battery after only ~100 full charges... poor thing can hardly idle over 2 hours, any any real use takes it down to 1 hour. Sadly, this happened a month after warranty has expired... and only "repair" option MS has is replacement of the whole tablet with refurbished unit, for close to NZD1000. In perspective, you can get decent (brand new) 13" Asus Zenbook with comparable specs from around NZD1200.
So my decision is to replace it with something with screws, not glued together, and replaceable battery and SSD. At least.