Acer Swift 5 2022 – a pretty perfect (laptop review)

The Acer Swift 5 2022 embodies pretty well everything you could want – colourful touch screen, Intel EVO processor, lots of ports including Thunderbolt and HDMI, and Acer heritage and quality.

This review is for the Acer Swift 5 2022, which is more about the 2022 chassis. Acer has lots of options, so it is important that you decide on a checklist

The review unit is Acer Swift 5 2022 Model SF514-56T-71CL and includes

• 14”, 1920 x 1200, touch screen Model B140UAN02.2 (there is a 2560 x 1600 brighter option)
• Intel 12^th gen Core i7-1260p (also in i5-1240P)
• 16GB LPDDR5 (8GB available, but why bother)
• 1TB SSD PCIe NVMe 4.0 x4 (256/512GB available)
• Intel Killer AX1675i Wi-Fi 6E and BT 5.3 (some models don’t have 6E/5.3)

Don’t confuse this with the 2021 model with the 11^th Gen Intel Core.

Australian review: Acer Swift 5 2022

Website	2022 Product range and manual
Price	Unknown as the new range is not in stores or online We expect the review unit is <$2500
From	Harvey Norman and Bing Lee soon
Warranty	12 months ACL and international travellers warranty
Country of manufacture	China
Company	Acer is a Taiwanese multinational specialising in desktop PCs, laptop PCs (clamshells, 2-in-1s, convertibles and Chromebooks), tablets, servers, storage devices, virtual reality devices, displays, smartphones peripherals, gaming PCs and accessories (Predator brand). Acer is the world’s 5th-largest PC vendor by unit sales as of September 2022
More	CyberShack Acer news and reviews

We use Fail (below expectations), Pass (meets expectations) and Exceed (surpasses expectations or is the class leader) against many of the items below. We occasionally give a Pass(able) rating that is not as good as it should be and a Pass ‘+’ rating to show it is good but does not quite make it to Exceed.

You can click on most images for an enlargement.

First impression – Well done – Exceed

It is nice in an elegant, understated way. Our review unit is Mist Green – a kind of superb dark grey metallic colour with gold highlights (like the early HP Spectre).

My only slight concern is that you need the keyboard backlight set to maximum because the key letting blends a little too well with the key cap colouring.

What you will notice and appreciate is two Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI 2.1 port (external monitor etc.) and 2 x USB-A 3.1 ports. This is the perfect laptop that you don’t need a dock to expand.

Screen – 16:10 is a good ratio – Pass+

The 14” 1920 x 1200, 161ppi, 16:10 60Hz, 8-bit, 16.7m colour, touch WLED LPTS, has an anti-microbial screen Gorilla Glass cover. It covers 92.22% screen-to-body ratio – quite small bezels mean a 14″ in a 13″ body.

Acer claims (test in brackets) 400 (405) nits and 1000:1 (1150:1) contrast. It has 100% sRGB. The 2560 x 1600 version reaches 550 nits, 1200:1 contrast and 90% DCI-P3.

It is one of the best LPTS panels and is perfect for office productivity and multimedia.

Processor – Pass+

• Intel 12^th gen Core i7-1260p 12 cores/16 Threads from 1.5-4.7GHz
• Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 96EU – good for general productivity and browser-based games.
• OpenCL: battery 18326, power 19465
• Vulkan: battery 14365, power 18,168
• Geekbench 5 single/multi-processor score: battery 1128/7913, power 1712/9869

There is a huge difference between battery (balanced mode) and power (performance), but all Windows laptops automatically throttle to about 80% on battery. Hidden in settings are silent, normal and performance modes – the latter utilises the full 28W TDP.

Ram: 16GB DDR5-4800 – soldered to the motherboard, so it is not upgradeable

Storage: WD SN810 – Super fast PCIe 4.0 x 4.

CPDT is a measure of sustained throughput – this is seriously fast at 4130/1510MBps sequential read/write.

Crystal Disk Mark is more a measure of peak performance and accordingly gives the highest results.

This is a Samsung T7 Shield Portable SSD – fast and tough (storage review) USB-C 3.2 Gen 2

This is a Plugable Thunderbolt3 external SSD – so very fast (storage review)

Throttle: Pass

Even at 100% load, the chassis never exceeded 34°, courtesy of the 59-blade dual-fans and copper heat pipes.

Comms – Pass+

• Intel Killer AX1675i Wi-Fi 6E but unable to see 6GHz channel. Needs a firmware update.
• BT 5.3 supports quick connect and multip-point

The laptop can connect at up to 2400Mbps full-duplex and has a strong signal strength.

Ports – Exceed

• 2 x Thunderbolt 4 5V/3A/15W (USB-C backwards compatible)
• 2 x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, 5Gbps
• HDMI 2.1 4K@60Hz
• 3.5mm 4-pole jack

I particularly like the dual TB4 ports and a separate HDMI 2.1 4K@60fps port. You can run three external monitors of this.

Battery – Pass

Acer claims 10 hours battery with fast charging – four hours in 30 minutes.

The brick charger provides 5V/3A/15W, 9V/3A/27W, 15V/3A/45W or 20V/3.35A/65W. You can use it on any USB-C PD device.

Tests

• VLC Video loop 50% volume/brightness: 13 hours and 12 minutes
• PC Mark 10 Battery: 11 hours 52 minutes (typical office workload)
• Heavy use: 5 hours and 22 minutes
• Charge time: 1.4 hours
• Discharge time 100% load: 4 hours and 2 minutes

Build – Exceed

It is 206.98 x 318.9 x 14.95 x 1.2kg – light and quite small for a 14″ screen. it uses 6053 Aerospace aluminium with a nice textured 75V hardness anodised finish.

When open the spine (hinge) lifts the deck to allow for better cooling.

Webcam – Pass+

It is 1080p and pretty good with Acer’s TNR technology for high-quality imagery in low-light conditions. Dual mic array (on top) with PurifiedVoice AI Noise Reduction

Keyboard – Pass

It has large, well-spaced, Chiclet keys and a 2-level backlight. The keys can be hard to see under office light and almost impossible in direct sunlight.

They have 1.3mm travel (good) and about a 35g (light) activation. It has a good tactile feel and an excellent touchpad supporting a four-finger swipe.

There is a fingerprint sensor on the power button.

Sound – Pass but no bass

There are Left and Right 2.0 under deck down-firing speakers. The DTS Audio app has three pre-sets: Music, Movies and Games and a custom EQ. It makes no difference to the bass (there is none) but can help with clear dialogue.

The sound volume maximum is 85dB – fine for a personal device. The sound stage is wider than the keyboard (good), and there is some spatial effect with Dolby Atmos and DTS content.

Sound quality

Deep Bass 20-40Hz	Nil
Middle Bass 40-100Hz	Nil
High Bass 100-200Hz	A slow build to 200Hz
Low Mid 200-400Hz	Still building to 350Hz.
Mid 400-1000Hz	Flat
High-Mid 1-2kHz	Flat
Low Treble 2-4kHz	Flat
Mid Treble 4-6kHz	Flat
High Treble 6-10kHz	Small decline to help manage treble harshness
Dog Whistle 10-20kHz	Flat to 20kHz
Sound Signature type	Bright Vocal (bass recessed, mid/treble boosted) – for vocal tracks and string instruments but can make them harsh. But there is very little high bass, so the thump becomes a whump. And while it has mid-high treble levels, the notes are a little thin and lack preciseness.
Soundstage	Only as wide as the phone, and DA settings don’t add any wider sound stage. There is a distinct bottom speaker bias.
Comment	The sound signature is average, so use BT headphones or a stereo speaker.

You can read How to tell if you have good music (sound signature is the key – guide)

Windows and lots more – Pass(able)

It comes with Windows Home 11, but Acer has succumbed to the dark side and loaded lots of bloatware. I don’t want trials of Norton, Adobe, Dropbox, Disney+, Express VPN, and apps like Forge of Empires, Booking.com, Amazon, App Explorer and low-end games. Not to mention Acer User experience and other Acer apps that simply gather data.

Maintenance – Pass

We could not find a service manual, but the base is easily removed. Ram is soldered to the motherboard, so get 16GB. The SSD and The 3-cell battery are replaceable.       

CyberShack’s view – The Acer Swift 5 2022 is pretty perfect

This ticks all the boxes for the perfect 14” clamshell laptop. I can forgive Acers bloatware, the lack of keycap/letter contrast, and average sound, as everything else is just right.

Personally, I prefer the 360° hinge style to clamshell, but I can see where it fits.

I don’t know the price, but it is good value if it is <$2500 for the review configuration.

Rating Explanation

Features 90

It has more ports and features than many that simply have TB4 ports.

Value 90

Undetermined at this time, but at around A$2500, it would be good value

Performance 90

As expected, the i7-1260P is great on mains power and 80% less on battery—still heaps for productivity and portability.

Ease of use 80

Yes, you can get 10 hours of use. It is also very well-made and portable. Loses points for the lack of colour contrast in the keyboard and difficulty in seeing the keys or display in direct sunlight

Design – 95

Well done for producing the nicest looking laptop since the early HP Spectre days