Acer Swift 5 Ultra-Thin & Lightweight Laptop Review: Budget Ultra Thin-n-Light laptop is now a reality in 2019!
Historically ultra thin and light laptops have always been out of the reach of budget minded customers. They have almost exclusively been in premium segment. But this year Acer has altered the landscape with new line of ultra thin & light laptops under Acer Swift 5 series. We recently reviewed these laptops on Techno Panda channel and were mightily impressed
Most of the other thin-n-light laptops in the market have smaller 12 to 13 inch screen. But not this one. Acer has packed a 15.6 inch screen in a 14 inch laptop body. They have accomplished this by trimming the bezels which gives it an impressive 87.6% screen to body ratio. Interestingly even with thin top bezels, Acer managed to put the webcam in the top. Many thin-n-light laptops put the webcam down near the keyboard which created awkward angles
The screen has FULL-HD 1920X1080 resolution. It is an LED backlit IPS panel with great viewing angle. Its plenty bright registering 300 nits. This makes it perfect for use in bright rooms be it home, office or classrooms. It is a full multi-touch display and supports all windows 10 gestures. The hinge allows turning the screen all the way back to 180 degrees flat. This makes it great for binging netflix on your bed or couch!
There are two different configurations of this laptop available on amazon. Checkout the prices of cheaper configuration and the more expensive configuration on amazon.
Unfortunately the RAM is soldered to the motherboard and it is not user upgradeable. This means you cannot buy a 8GB model and upgrade the memory at a later time. But on the bright side, the laptop does have a m.2. SSD slot for adding an additional SSD drives.
The build quality of this laptop is top notch. It's made of magnesium alloy and gives the laptop a very premium look and feel. Even though the laptop weighs under 2.2 pounds, it feels very solid in hands. It's so light that the first time when you lift it you may get the feeling that someone forgot to install the battery in it. Its crazy light
There are two different configurations of this laptop available on amazon. Checkout the prices of cheaper configuration and the more expensive configuration on amazon.
Unfortunately the RAM is soldered to the motherboard and it is not user upgradeable. This means you cannot buy a 8GB model and upgrade the memory at a later time. But on the bright side, the laptop does have a m.2. SSD slot for adding an additional SSD drives.
The build quality of this laptop is top notch. It's made of magnesium alloy and gives the laptop a very premium look and feel. Even though the laptop weighs under 2.2 pounds, it feels very solid in hands. It's so light that the first time when you lift it you may get the feeling that someone forgot to install the battery in it. Its crazy light
The keyboard is also pretty good. Plenty of thin-n-light laptop have keyboard that sucks. Not this one. There is ample key travel and the keyboard doesn't feel mushy like the apple keyboard. The keys offer adequate resistance while typing making it a pleasant experience. The trackpad is large and supports multi-finger gestures and comes with windows precision drivers.
Port situation is also pretty good considering that this is a thin-n-light laptop. There is 1 USB type C 10 gigbit port. You can charge the laptop using this port which we really like because you can use the same charger to juice up your laptop and smartphone (sorry, no iPhone!). This port also supports displayport over USB, so you can use it to connect to a compatible monitor. In addition there are two USB 3.0 ports and an HDMI ports
So overall we think this is one of the best thin-n-light laptops in the market. Our final recommendation is to go with the cheaper configuration and save some money unless you can't live without 16GB RAM.
Purchase links:
Upgrade to 1TB compatible SSD
Disclosure: Some links may be affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases
Disclosure: Some links may be affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases