Acer’s Swift 3 thin-and-light consumer laptop could be called a crowd-pleaser, if only because you can currently buy models ranging in price from $650 and up, with abundant in RAM and storage, as well as both AMD and Intel CPUs. With the upgraded unit unveiled Wednesday at Acer’s next@acer event in New York, the company’s raising the bar in all respects: a cooler look—and a higher price ceiling.
The Swift 3 we saw costs—are you sitting down?—$1,798. But don’t panic: Acer will continue to offer a long list of configuration options that should help you get this laptop down to a range that fits your budget. Whatever the features inside, you’ll enjoy an all-metal chassis with a brushed finish, and colors including gold, silver, blue, and rose.
Features and specs: Choices galore
Christopher Hebert/IDG
The Swift 3 sports an all-metal chassis with chiseled edges for a refined look.
CPU: A mix of 7th-gen and 8th-gen parts:
- Intel Core i7-8550U
- Intel Core i5-8250U
- Intel Core i3-8130U
- Intel Core i3-7130U
- Intel Core i7-7020U
The Core i7-8550U and Core i5-8250U are both quad-core parts, while the rest of the CPUs are dual-core. But the only reason to care about quad-core is if you’re working on CPU-intensive tasks like video or content creation. For mainstream applications, dual-core will do just fine.
Memory:
- Up to 16GB of DDR4 RAM, upgradeable to 32GB via two soDIMM modules
Christopher Hebert/IDG
Display choices for the Acer Swift 3 include 1920x1080 and 3840x2160 resolutions.
Storage:
- Hard drives in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities
- Up to 512GB SATA 6Gbps SSD
- Up to 512GB NVMe PCIe Gen3 8Gbps in up to four lanes
- Up to 16GB of NVMe PCIe Gen3 8Gbps in up to two lanes, supporting Intel Optane Memory. Adding Optane will boost your data drives’ speed significantly.
Display: Your choice of 15.6-inch display with IPS technology, one with an FHD resolution (1920x1080), the other with UHD (3840x2160). Note the latter will take a toll on graphics performance and battery life, because it’s pushing four times as many pixels.
Christopher Hebert/IDG
The Acer Swift 3 has a lock port, a USB-A port, and an SD card slot on its left side.
Graphics: In addition to Intel’s integrated HD 620 and UHD 620, you may also choose Nvidia’s GeForce MX150, which suffices for 720p gaming at medium to high settings.
Connectivity: For a laptop this slender it’s pretty good, including one USB-C, three USB-A, an SD card slot, and a full HDMI port. You also get 802.11ac/a/g/b/n Wi-Fi supporting 2x2 MIMO technology.
Christopher Hebert/IDG
The right side of the Acer Swift 3 has audio, one USB-C, two USB-A, and HDMI ports.
Dimensions: 14.1 x 9.56 x 0.67 inches
Weight: 3.74 to 3.96 pounds, depending on the configuration
Clearly the Acer Swift 3 is offering a lot of choices and a great new look. Lower-end models will likely have prices well below $1,000, if the current lineup is any indication. We’ll let you know if we hear more about prices and availability.