THERE’S a saying that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, but ACER’s recent update of its popular Swift 5 laptop completely blows that theory out of the water. Updated internals, a sleeker design and a greater commitment towards sustainability have all made the refreshed ACER Swift 5 a welcome improvement of a popular workhorse device.
Right out of the box, the Swift 5 surprised me with its lightweight 1.2kg design. I also appreciated the feel of its self-described “aerospace-grade aluminium chassis” which felt resolutely solid, yet was not bulky at all.
One new design development was its eco-friendly OceanGlass touchpad, which is made from ocean-bound plastic and is a symbol of the brand’s commitment to increasing the sustainability of its products.
The gold-plated accents at the sides, the hinge and the ACER logo also added a subtle touch of class, which I appreciated. The review unit I received was Mist Green, which in reality is a lot more grey than green, but it nonetheless fit with the more sophisticated look that the company is going for. In terms of ports, the ACER Swift 5 has two Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, a HDMI port, a Kensington lock port – for added security in business use – and a headset jack.
Setting up the ACER Swift 5 was a rather painless affair, taking just under 10 minutes between pressing the power button – which has a built-in fingerprint reader – to reaching the home screen. The device comes with Windows 11 and Microsoft Office Home and Student 2021 pre-installed, and is powered by the new 12th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 CPU and 16GB of RAM, with a 1TB drive.
Its display is a 14”, WUXGA 1900x1200p Corning Gorilla Glass panel, with slim bezels at the sides to maximise view space. I fired up a video to test it, and was instantly surprised by how crisp and clear the images were. In addition, the device’s speakers were top-notch, and can project the sound of everything from music videos to movies with little blowback, should you choose to utilise them instead of using headphones.
