Design

The industry has come a long way in the last couple of years, and Acer has stepped up their game with the Swift 3’s design. It features an all-aluminum exterior with a brushed finish, and compared to any plastic model, it offers significantly better looks, along with that cool-to-the-touch metal feel that always adds a bit of luxury.

Opening the lid shows off the 15.6-inch display, which isn’t a thin-bezel design, but that’s not really expected in this category. The larger display as a percentage of the total size helps mask the bezels too.

Taking a look at the keyboard, we see the first issue with the Swift 3 on the 15.6-inch models, which feature a number pad squeezed in on the right. The 14-inch models don’t offer the number pad, and frankly, the 15-inch version shouldn’t either. It’s just too cramped. There’s likely some market that wants the number pad on a 15.6-inch notebook, but it just tends to not offer a great experience since there’s not really enough room to offer the correct size one. This one is missing the addition and enter keys that should be on the right, which really takes away from the reason to even have one to start with. You’ll also notice that the power key is part of the keyboard, which is something that can tend to be an issue, but since it’s above the number pad rather than replacing the delete key as it is on some notebooks, it’s not as big of an issue.

Keeping with the keyboard, Acer has added backlighting to this model, which is great to see. Unfortunately, the backlight isn’t tied to the trackpad use, so it will shut off if you’re just using the trackpad. It would be great to see Acer tie the trackpad to the backlighting so you have an easier time keeping it activated when you’re using the laptop.

Finally, the keyboard itself is not the greatest. There’s not a lot of travel on the keys, and the keys themselves are somewhat slippery, so trying to touch-type on this notebook is a bit of a challenge. With a larger, thicker notebook in the 15.6-inch model, it would be nice to see a better keyboard than this. Of the entire system, the keyboard is one of the most disappointing features.

The keyboard does offer backlighting though, which is always welcome, but the keyboard backlighting isn’t tied to the trackpad use like on most systems, so when using it in a dark room, the lighting turns off when you are moving the pointer, and then it’s hard to find where the keys are again.

Luckily the same isn’t the case for the trackpad. Acer’s generously sized trackpad features Microsoft Precision drivers, and has a nice smooth finish. It’s large, but not distractingly so, and works very well. Trackpads can still be a hit or miss item, somehow, but this one is a hit.

Looking at the sides we can see all of the I/O, and there’s plenty here for almost anyone. With a 0.75-inch thick notebook, you may have expected to see an Ethernet port as well, but it’s not there, and on a model such as this it makes sense to omit it. If this was a business focused machine, it would be important, but most consumers are going to want to keep this untethered you’d have to think. If they do need Ethernet, there’s plenty of USB ports to hook it to.

The Acer Swift 3 is a well-designed notebook, with plenty of inputs, a smart looking aluminum finish, and creature comforts like a fingerprint reader to make your life easier. It’s only let down by the less than stellar keyboard, and that’s a shame.

Introduction System Performance: Testing the AMD Ryzen 7 2700U
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  • Jimster480 - Monday, May 28, 2018 - link

    DDR4 vs LPDDR3 won't have a large affect on battery life.
    Ryzen supports NVMe, it has double the threads for a lower cost (in most cases).
    It has actual graphics support @ 15W TDP.
    It has a better overall GPU solution than anything Intel offers (outside of the new SKU's with Vega onchip).
    There is no excuse for a trash laptop like the one reviewed here, as the total cost of this laptop has to be around $450 for Acer max.
  • martixy - Thursday, May 3, 2018 - link

    Some might find the keypad a welcome feature, or lack of one a show-stopper. ^^^
  • TheBarron - Thursday, May 3, 2018 - link

    Sigh, seems single channel RAM for an APU...again.
  • TheBarron - Thursday, May 3, 2018 - link

    Nevermind, it seems not to be the case (although apparently the memory is soldered). Still a bit disapointed in the results.
  • Yomama6776 - Thursday, May 3, 2018 - link

    its nice that someone made a nice AMD laptop, all the others are crap

    *cough* Dell *cough*
  • neblogai - Friday, May 4, 2018 - link

    Actually, Dell 7375 is considered to be one of the most successful- if not the most successful RR laptop by early reviews- with excellent bios options, good hardware and pricing, and no really weak points- except the reuse of rather bulky/heavy late 2016 7368 chassis.
  • mr_tawan - Thursday, May 3, 2018 - link

    Now I want a Spin with Ryzen :)
  • niva - Thursday, May 3, 2018 - link

    I for one am very disappointed by the battery benchmarks. I honestly thought that the AMD system would stomp the i7s with dedicated graphics cards, instead it gets demolished on nearly every benchmark.

    What exactly is going on there? Is it that the software is completely not optimized for the AMD hardware?
  • Brett Howse - Thursday, May 3, 2018 - link

    Re-read the page. There's a lot of idle power draw.
  • niva - Tuesday, May 8, 2018 - link

    I hope that there's something defective with this system, or they forgot to enable some settings in the BIOS that should have had a better effect, especially on the idle power draw. The thing is I was disappointed by all the results, not just that one.

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