Acer Swift Edge 14 AI review: Maximum impact, minimum weight

The Acer Swift Edge 14 AI joins a new generation of laptops that redefine the old slim-and-light category. LIke the Asus Zenbook A14 and Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition, it's a wafer-thin ultraportable weighing in at under 1Kg. Also, like those models, it comes packing a gorgeous high-resolution OLED screen and the performance and AI capabilities you'd look for in a cutting-edge business device.

Effectively, you're getting something that doesn't take up much more bag space or weight a whole lot more than a super-sized tablet, but with the features of a full-sized laptop. For high-flying execs and mobile workers, it's practically ideal.

There aren't too many options in this class yet, and the Swift Edge 14 AI sits in something of a sweet spot. It's more expensive than the Zenbook A14, but it's arguably a better-rounded and more capable computer. And if it's not quite as desirable as the ThinkPad, you can have it with a high-resolution OLED screen at a significantly more affordable price. But are there other areas where it falls behind the competition? We've benchmarked and used the Swift Edge 14 AI over a long working week to find out.

Acer Swift Edge 14 AI: Design

In many respects, Acer has made similar design choices to Asus with the Zenbook A14. The chassis is fashioned from a lightweight magnesium-aluminum alloy with an attractive powder-coated white finish, very reminiscent of the ceramic finishes Asus has used on several recent models. The lid even has some fairly subtle gold inlays along with Acer's logo and AI symbol, for a little extra flourish. Most importantly, it's compact at 313.7 x 229.3mm and extremely slim, at under 10mm thick. The 990g weight feels like practically nothing. In fact, there's something about the way that weight is distributed that makes the Swift Edge 14 AI feel light as a feather. It's hard to think of another laptop that would be easier to carry around while travelling or shuffling from meeting room to meeting room.

While we wouldn't describe it as rugged, it's not as fragile as it looks, either. Acer claims that the magnesium-aluminium alloy chassis makes it tougher than primarily aluminium rivals, and it's passed MIL-STD-810H certification. There's quite a lot of flex in the lid, which can open almost flat against the desk thanks to a 180 degree hinge, but you won't find any significant movement elsewhere. What's more, it sits very comfortably on the lap; it's well balanced with no rough edges on the base, and it doesn't even put out much in the way of heat.

Normally, with a laptop this thin and light, you take minimal connectivity as a given. Yet Acer has managed to cram in two USB 4 ports on the left-hand side, plus a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type A and an HDMI 2.1 output. There's a further USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port on the right, along with a headset socket. Throw in Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4, and there's no desperate need for a docking station for any reason beyond hotdesking convenience. Bar Ethernet, you have everything you need onboard. It's a slight shame that both charging ports are on the left-hand-side, but hardly a disaster.

Acer's record isn't flawless when it comes to laptop keyboards, but the keyboard on the Swift Edge 14 AI is one of its best efforts. The layout keeps things simple and spacious, with the exception of a weird split shift and backslash key and the tiny function keys in the top row. The power button in the top-right corner doubles as a fingerprint scanner, and works rapidly and accurately in the role. Most importantly, the typing action is clean, light and slightly clicky, with none of the soft, mushy action you get on some slimline laptop keyboards. You can get serious amounts of work done.

It helps that the touchpad is also very usable. It's plastic rather than glass, but very smooth and responsive to motions and multitouch gestures, including taps and two-fingered scrolls. The inlaid AI indicator, which glows when the NPU is active, still seems more like showboating than something actively useful, but if you want proof that the AI hardware is doing something, there it is.

Acer Swift Edge 14 AI: Display

We've seen some great 14-inch OLED panels appearing on laptops recently, but the Swift Edge 14 AI's example isn't just gorgeous but also considered and practical. It's the first laptop we've seen with a Corning Gorilla Matte Pro surface treatment, meaning reduced glare and minimal reflections during use. We measured the maximum SDR brightness levels at 406.8cd/m2, and when you combine that with the matte surface, you have an image that's perfectly visible when sitting right next to a window with the sunlight streaming in, or even outdoors in most conditions. For some users, this might be a game changer.

What's more, that surface really makes the most of the other qualities of the screen. It covers 100% of both the sRGB and DCI-P3 gamuts and a credible 93.4% of Adobe RGB - figures that compare well with specialist creative laptops. Contrast is perfect, and color accuracy is close, with an average Delta E of just 1.14. The 14-inch size, 16:10 aspect ratio and 2,880 x 1800 resolution are perfect for productivity multi-tasking, but the vibrant colors and VESA DisplayHDR True Black 600 certification scream out for Netflix binges and blockbuster movies. And if you're travelling on business, is that such a crime?

In the more mundane world of video calls and conferencing, the results from the 1080p webcam aren't the crispest I've ever seen, but colours are natural and well-balanced and neither bright nor gloomy light conditions throw up any serious concerns.

All that slimming down was bound to have an impact somewhere, and it's the sound output where you'll notice it most. To be fair, the audio is clear with a nice three-dimensional soundstage, but it's all a bit mid-range and treble heavy without a huge amount of body or bass. Video calls won't be a problem, but you might want some headphones handy for background music or watching movies when you're travelling home.

Acer Swift Edge 14 AI: Performance

The Swift Edge 14 AI uses Intel's Core Ultra 7 258V CPU, which, like all Lunar Lake processors, features four Performance cores and four Low Power Efficient cores running a maximum of eight threads with no SMT. On the Core Ultra 7 258V these run at a maximum 4.8GHz and 3.7GHz respectively.

With just eight simultaneous threads, this CPU can't match the multi-threaded performance of processors like AMD's Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (12 cores, 24 threads) or Intel's own Core Ultra 7 255H (16 cores, 16 threads). The Asus ProArt PX13, equipped with the former, scored 15080 in Geekbench 6's multithreaded benchmark, and the Acer Aspire Vero 16, equipped with the latter, scored 14800. The Swift Edge 14 AI scored just 11024. In Cinebench R24's multi-threaded rendering tests, the ProArt P16 scores 1023, and the Aspire Vero 16 770. The Swift Edge 14 AI falls far behind, with a score of 1023.

Yet the single-core scores are much closer - 2751 for the Swift Edge 14 AI in Geekbench 6, against 2767 for the Aspire Vero 16 and 2750 for the ProArt X13. In PC Mark 10's Modern Office benchmark, the Swift Edge 14 AI scores 6812 to the Vero 16's 7450 and the ProArt X13's 7534; a loss, but not an absolute drubbing.

Against its super-slim-and-light competition, the Swift Edge 14 AI holds up pretty well. The Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition has the same processor and scores 2725 (single-core) and 10,937 (multi-core) in Geekbench 6 and 6909 in PC Mark 10. The Zenbook A14 uses one of Qualcomm's entry-level Snapdragon X processors and falls behind both in Geekbench 6, with scores of 2121 and 10623.

What's more, the Core Ultra 7 258V is a solid all-rounder. Its Intel Arc 140V GPU is one of the best integrated GPUs out there; it scores in 3DMark's TimeSpy and Steel Nomad Lite benchmarks

(4323 and 3272 respectively) show there's enough performance to handle GPU-accelerated processes in creative apps and 3D simulations. Meanwhile, its NPU gives you 47 TOPS of AI processing power, meaning the Swift Edge 14 AI qualifies as a Copilot+ PC and can accelerate any apps that support an NPU. These are still thin on the ground, but that is slowly changing.

Acer has fitted a 1TB Kingston PCIe 4.0 drive here, giving you plenty of storage even if it isn't particularly speedy: 4803MB/sec and 3889.5MB/sec sequential read and write speeds aren't slow, though, and they're perfectly adequate for the kind of scenarios in which this laptop is likely to be working.

Battery life is stellar, with the Swift Edge AI 14 lasting 19 hours and two minutes in our video playback test with the screen brightness set to 170cd/m2. That beats the Zenbook A14 (16 hours, 40 minutes), even if the Lenovo managed another hour and 43 minutes in the same test.

Acer Swift Edge 14 AI: Is it worth it?

The Swift Edge 14 AI isn't cheap, and if you're happy with a slower but still AI-ready Snapdragon X Plus processor and a lower-resolution OLED screen, the Zenbook A14 gives you a similar form factor on a lower budget. However, the Acer has the edge on screen resolution and quality and all-round performance, and gives you much the same experience as the high-end ThinkPad for less.

Lenovo's lithe laptop has its rock-solid carbon fibre/aluminium build and some additional enterprise features to recommend it, but Acer's new model is a serious alternative, especially for smaller businesses. Maybe one day all business laptops will offer so much while weighing so little.

Acer Swift Edge 14 AI specifications