Acer Swift X (14-Inch, 2021)

“The Acer Swift X is a performance-first laptop that plenty of students and creatives will appreciate.”

Powerful performance ; Slim Ultrabook form factor ; Gorgeous 2.8K OLED screen with HDR

Webcam doesn’t have facial recognition ; Somewhat pricey ; Trackpad can be kind of tricky

The Acer Swift X14 comes with a gorgeous screen, a fairly sleek Ultrabook profile, and an outsized amount of power thanks to its Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU. However, it's pricey and there are a couple issues with the trackpad and webcam. Still, this...

High-quality, large and practical display ; Solid specs for the cash ; All-aluminium shell

Battery doesn’t quite offer all-day use ; Intel Arc GPU’s true power isn’t proven yet ; Plastic touchpad isn’t that firm or fancy

The Acer Swift X is a competitively priced trailblazer with one of Intel’s new Arc GPUs. They have specific appeals for content creators and streamers. But for all-round general use and gaming, the last generation was ultimately easier to recommend.

Potent eight-core Ryzen 7 CPU and Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti graphics ; Affordable price ; Attractive 1080p screen

No SD or microSD card slot ; Finicky keyboard ; Blossoming with bloatware

Acer's AMD Ryzen 7-based Swift X gives you two-thirds the power of a basic mobile workstation laptop in two-thirds the weight.

Stellar ultraportable performance. ; Sneaky gaming laptop with RTX 3050 Ti graphics. ; Impressive battery life considering high-end parts.

Display feels cramped for creative work. ; Fan gets loud during heavy workloads. ; Poorly placed Pg-Up and -Down buttons.

There’s no question that the Acer Swift X provides enough CPU and GPU performance for on-the-go content creators. With an octo-core Ryzen 7 5800U, the Swift X offers blazing application performance and strong multimedia performance. Add in the RTX 3050...

Outstanding performance ; Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti in a portable chassis ; Good battery life ; Competitively priced

Chassis feels less premium than rivals ; Plastic touchpad and screen bezels ; Drowning in bloatware ; Poor 720p webcam

Acer's Swift X is a great option for consumers who want top performance and good battery life in a portable chassis — but beware of the trade-offs.

Discrete graphics as standard (RTX 3050/Ti) ; Competitive pricing - under four-figures

Just one USB-C port ; Not all aspects of the build quality shout premium

If you're looking for a portable yet discreet-looking laptop with big power but without a big price tag, the Swift X ought to offer plenty.

high system performance;RTX 3050 in the compact 14-incher;matte 2.2K 16:10 display;11h battery life ;crisp keyboard;fast SSD + available M.2 slot;HDMI 2.1, 2x TB4 and fast WiFi 6E;acceptable FHD webcam and sound;robust metal case

25W performance limit;RTX 3050 performance crashes in battery operation;maximum of 16 GB soldered RAM;visible backlight bleeding;constant fan noise;no 90-Hz- or OLED options

Theoretically, the

Compact and light ; Seriously powerful ; Good value

Display only 60Hz ; Speakers could be louder ; Soldered RAM

The Acer Swift X is a strikingly successful example of the art of squeezing seriously powerful components into a surprisingly small space, which makes for an impressively versatile machine.