We see more and more laptops that are equipped with an AMD processor instead of an Intel processor. Acer also has a variant of the Swift 3 SF314-42 equipped with an AMD Ryzen. A good choice?
Acer Swift 3 SF314-42-R2MP
Price € 699,-Processor AMD Ryzen 5 4500U
Memory 8GB
Screen 14 inches, ips (1920 × 1080p)
Storage 512 GB (nvme SSD)
Dimensions 32.3 × 21.9 × 1.8cm
Weight 1.2 kilo
Battery 48.85 Wh
Connections USB-C (Gen1), USB 3.0, USB 2.0, HDMI, 3.5mm audio jack
Website www.acer.nl 8 Score 80
- Pros
- Smooth hardware
- Good battery life
- Fingerprint Scanner
- Negatives
- touch pad
- Backlight keyboard
With a price of 699 euros, you can't possibly call Acers Swift 3 SF314 (tested in the SF314-42-R2MP version) an expensive laptop. That you don't mind, because the Swift 3 has a beautiful design. The housing is made of an aluminum-magnesium alloy and probably therefore has a light weight of 1.2 kilograms for the price range in which this laptop falls.
The laptop has three USB ports, one of which is designed as USB-C and works at USB3.0 speed. Of the two USB-a ports, one works at USB3.0 speed and one at USB2.0 speed. The USB-C port supports charging and is capable of video output via DisplayPort. In addition, the laptop is also equipped with an HDMI connection. Strangely enough, Acer has provided a separate charging connection with a matching charger. Furthermore, Acer has placed a 3.5 mm sound connection, a card reader is missing.
Hardware
AMD is doing good business with its mobile processors and the AMD Ryzen 5 4500U is no exception. This processor has no less than six cores with a base clock speed of 2.3 GHz and a turbo up to 4 GHz. Not bad for a 699 euro laptop. The processor is combined with 8 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD. I also opened the laptop. The ram is soldered and cannot be upgraded. You can replace the SSD with a larger one. The laptop is equipped with WiFi 6 in the form of an Intel WiFi card that also offers Bluetooth 5.0.
The screen is a 14-inch panel with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. The screen is sufficient for everyday use and office work, but the color reproduction is too short for serious photo editing.
Keyboard and touchpad
With a size of 15 x 15 mm, the keys are a bit on the small side, but with some getting used to you can type fine. The keyboard is backlit in one level. Something I'm not too keen on is the silver keys. Although it is not so bad compared to some other laptops with silver keys, the contrast of the letters with the lighting on is too low in my opinion. And in the dark, the lighting is quickly too bright because there is only one position. A fingerprint scanner is placed next to the trip pad that you can use to log in to Windows. The fingerprint scanner works smoothly and quickly.
I'm not that happy with the touchpad. The touchpad feels jittery and sometimes doesn't respond at all. It does get better if you turn off tap for click, tap for right, and two finger taps. This means you actually have to physically press the touchpad and that ensures a smoother experience.
Performance
The AMD Ryzen 4500U is a potent chip, something that we see reflected in the PCMark 10 score of no less than 4768 points. Despite the name Radeon, the GPU remains a processor processed copy. In 3DMark Time Spy, the laptop scores 943 points with a graphics score of 836 and a CPU score of 3647 points. The performance of the gpu can be compared with an Nvidia GeForce MX250. It will be difficult to game in Full HD, a GPU of this caliber is more suitable for gaming in 720p. This laptop has a battery with a capacity of 48.85 WH. It lasts about 12 hours. The SSD is a Samsung PM991, a smooth NVME SSD with a read and write speed of 1743.73 and 1196.89 MB/s.
Conclusion
AMD is doing good business, the Ryzen 5 4500U is a powerful processor. Certainly for the 699 euros that Acer asks for this Swift 3, that is an excellent deal. The Swift 3 is also a beautiful laptop with an excellent battery life. The biggest drawback is the not always smooth functioning touchpad and the key lighting.
