Acer Swift X 14 2023 OLED review – The multimedia laptop with an RTX 4050 is only impressive on paper

The Acer Swift X 14 claims to be a quick multimedia laptop, and this year the Acer device has been given an extensive update. It now features a bigger 14. 5-inch OLED screen and a faster chip from Intel’s H45 series acts as the laptop’s processor.

The old GeForce RTX 3050 has been replaced by a new RTX 4050 Laptop , which, at the same time, uses more power. Our test device carries the name Swift X SFX14-71G-77BA and is sold by Acer for around $1,400. For this price, you receive a 120-Hz OLED screen which has a 2.

8K resolution, Intel’s Core i7-13700H , Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop, 16 GB RAM and a 1 TB NVMe SSD. Alternatively, you can purchase the device with 32 GB RAM, but this version will set you back a few hundred dollars more. Compared to last year’s Swift X 14 , Acer have completely revamped its case.

The shape of the aluminum case is straighter and in total, the gray laptop looks a little more stripped-back. Of course, there are always some accents – the black keyboard and screen frame differ a little in color from the rest. The only annoying thing is all the sponsored stickers on the base unit.

The case tapers at the sides, leading to an overall slimmer appearance. The bezels are also very slim, so all-in-all, the device looks quite modern. Fingerprint marks don’t seem to be a big issue on the laptop’s smooth surfaces.

The base unit is nice and stable – only a considerable amount of pressure applied to the keyboard makes it bend slightly. The lid is a little more flexible, but thanks to its OLED panel, the screen shows no image errors. Both of the hinges do their job well – you can easily open the laptop with one hand and they prevent the lid from wobbling effectively.

Its maximum opening angle is about 135 degrees. At 4 mm tall, its back foot is a little higher than average, meaning that the laptop sits at a bit of an angle. The Swift X 14 is the thickest of all the comparison devices and the same can be said for its footprint.

Its weight of around 1. 53 kg is average. Its compact 100-watt power supply weighs an additional 365 grams, which you should factor in when carrying the laptop with you.

The laptop’s connectivity options include everything important: the usual USB-A ports as well as modern USB-C connections including Thunderbolt 4 support. Although, we weren’t able to connect an external monitor to the Swift X 14 via the USB-C port – instead, we had to use its HDMI port. As a result, its Nvidia GPU is constantly active, leading to an unnecessary increase in power consumption in everyday use.

Compared to its predecessor , the new Acer model has been equipped with a microSD card reader which achieved transfer rates of 80-85 MB/s using our reference card (Angelbird AV Pro V60). The installed WLAN module Killer AX1675i takes care of wireless network connections, which already supports modern 6-GHz networks. Using our reference router from Asus, transfer rates were high and stable.

The WLAN module is not soldered on and can be swapped out if needed. The 1080p webcam can still achieve decent pictures in good lighting conditions. In addition, an IR module is installed that enables facial recognition via Windows Hello.

The bottom case cover is secured by a row of Torx screws (T5), but these can be removed quite easily. You do have to be careful, as the battery is only held in place by two guide pins, so it is then effectively loose within the case. As a result, you should make sure to open the lid with the device lying flat on a table.

The RAM is soldered on; the M. 2 SSD, the WLAN module as well as the fan can be accessed. The previous gen’s second M.

2 slot, however, has been cut from this device. The laptop’s keyboard has the same precise and crisp feel as that of its predecessor – in addition, its tapping noise is nice and quiet. All-in-all, this is a good keyboard, only the two vertical arrow keys are quite small.

A fingerprint scanner is integrated into the power button, which is on the top right side and can easily be confused with the delete key. In dark lighting conditions, you can choose between two levels of white backlighting. The click pad (12.

6 x 7. 8 cm) works just fine and its clicks have quite a high-quality feel, as they are subtle and quiet. The display is one of the laptop’s biggest changes, namely the 14-inch IPS panel found on its predecessor has been replaced with a bigger OLED panel which measures 14.

5 inches diagonally. Its resolution is 2,880 x 1,800 pixels and its surface is really quite reflective. Subjectively, we like how the screen looks; it shows nice levels of contrast and colors appear nice and vibrant.

Furthermore, it operates at a high refresh rate of 120 Hz. The display’s measurements lay within the usual values for modern OLED panels. Its SDR brightness measures around 390 cd/m² and its black value is 0, which leads to a very high contrast ratio.

We didn’t note any backlight bleeding on the OLED panel and the display supports HDR – although, this has to be activated manually in the settings. Depicting specific images which contain small amounts of light content, the screen can depict brightness levels of up to 610 cd/m² and when the laptop shows a completely white screen, then it can achieve a value of 480 cd/m². We measured the panel using the professional CalMAN software (X-Rite i1 Pro2) and its depiction was already good in its delivered state, with no color tint.

However, a few colors lay above the important deviation value of 3 compared to the P3 reference color space. Acer do not offer any software with additional profiles and even after our calibration (with which we can improve color depiction), certain colors still had a deviation value higher than 3. Together with the full P3 coverage, it is still possible to edit images on this laptop, however its color depiction is far from perfect.

The Samsung OLED panel suffers from PWM with a frequency of 240 Hz – however, within a brightness area of 40-100 %, Acer utilizes a function called DC dimming, which makes the flickering a lot less of a disturbance. You do have to take into account a potentially harmful PWM at screen brightness levels which are below 40 %. At the time of writing, there is currently no software solution which mitigates the effects of PWM, as can be seen in certain Asus products, for example.

Outside, the new Swift X 14 behaves a lot worse than its predecessor with the matte IPS panel. Reflections on the strongly mirroring OLED display tend to be an issue even on cloudier days. Its viewing angle stability is good; only extreme angles cause the usual blue haze which is common on OLED screens.

Acer offer various performance profiles (Silent, Normal, Performance, Turbo) which you can select via the key combination Fn+F or through the quick-start software. However, it has to be noted that you have to first know that this software even exists – presumably, most people won’t utilize it at all. We used the Performance mode for our benchmarks and measurements, as it constitutes the best compromise between performance and noise emissions.

Aside from updating to a current Raptor Lake processor from Intel, Acer have taken a step further: instead of using the P chip which could be found in the old model, this new version of the Swift X 14 uses the 45-watt processor Core i7-13700H . This processor features two additional performance cores, however, its cooling was a little overwhelmed at times and the laptop only managed to keep to its maximum TDP of 80 watts for a short period of time. After a short while, its consumption dropped to 40 watts and in the later course, it only consumed 20 watts at times.

All-in-all, the new Swift X 14 is only a little bit faster than its predecessor under continuous load, and its competitors did much better in this aspect, too. Its Core i7-13700H is, of course, fast during short periods of load, but this takes its toll on its cooling unit. In battery use, the processor is allowed to consume a maximum of 29 watts, which is why its multi-core performance was around 30 % worse off.

Further CPU benchmarks can be found here . Subjectively, the Swift X 14 performs very well, which isn’t that big a surprise due to its quick components. To be fair, you do have to note that the same can be said for virtually any modern multimedia laptop and in everyday use, you likely won’t be able to notice that big a difference between each model.

The test device showed strong restrictions in our standardized latency test (web browsing, YouTube 4K playback, CPU load) with the present BIOS version, which is why the Swift X 14 is not suitable for using real-time audio applications in this form. Acer have installed a fast PCIe 4. 0 SSD – the one in our test device is made by Samsung.

The PM9A1 (OEM version of the 980 Pro) has a storage capacity of 1 TB, of which around 900 GB are still free to use after the first start-up. Its transfer rates of over 6 GB/s are very good, at continuous load, its performance does drop considerably (at times down to below 500 MB/s), which will make all the difference during large copying tasks. A slightly slower PCIe 3.

0 SSD – but one that could stay cooler – would’ve been a much better solution. More SSD benchmarks can be found here . As mentioned in our introduction, Acer have swapped out last year’s GeForce RTX 3050 for a new GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop , namely the 45-watt version.

In Turbo mode, the GPU consumed up to 50 watts. It performed very well in the GPU benchmarks and the Swift X 14 was even able to place itself ahead of its direct multimedia competitor, the RTX 4050 Laptop. In gaming laptops whose GPUs have access to more power, the RTX 4050 Laptop’s performance was much better.

Even so, these results are great for this class of device and the old RTX 3050 model in its predecessor, and the RTX 3050 Ti in the Schenker Vision 14 , were clearly beaten. In contrast to its processor and SSD, the GPU also didn’t seem to have any performance issues under continuous load and it passed the Time Spy stress test easily with a result of 98. 6 %.

In battery use, the GPU consumed a maximum of 40 watts, which didn’t seem to have too big an impact on its performance levels (-6 %). Further GPU benchmarks can be found in our tech section . As a multimedia laptop, this of course includes the Swift X 14’s ability to run games – all-in-all, this seemed to work just fine.

Depending on the game, it does become quite obvious how fast the CPU’s performance is throttled, for example in Far Cry 5 . In total, you can play current games smoothly in high/maximum details on the Swift X 14, however, its direct multimedia competitors such as the Yoga Pro 7 or the Aero 14 OLED do this slightly better despite their theoretically lower PGU performance. Its cooling system is the Swift X 14’s clear weakness, as its singular fan even runs when the laptop is idle.

Only in Silent mode is the fan switched off when the laptop is idle, but as soon as you do anything it starts to spin again. Using all the other modes, the fan is constantly active – whether it be in idle mode or attempting the simplest of tasks. At 28-32 dB(A), you can’t ignore it.

Under load, the Swift X 14 gets extremely loud and at 50 dB(A), it is one of the loudest devices of all the ones we compared; during the stress test, it even peaked at 52 dB(A). We didn’t note any electronic noises. Although it doesn’t struggle with any increased surface temperatures in everyday use thanks to its constant fan activity, you do start to notice the cooler reaching its limits under load or when you’re playing games.

It is mostly the middle and left side of the case that heats up; we measured a temperature of over 45 °C on the keyboard, including the ever-so-important WASD area. You definitely notice this while gaming and it could easily get uncomfortable after extended periods of use. On the bottom, we even measured peaks of about 50 °C.

During the stress test, the GPU was clearly prioritized, running at a constant 45 watts – while the processor was quickly throttled at 20 watts. Aside from its cooling system, the laptop’s speakers are another clear weakness. In total, their sound is very hollow and not particularly loud.

For a modern multimedia laptop costing around $1,400, this is simply not enough. You have to use headphones anyway while you are playing games as the fan is so loud, but even if you are just watching films or listening to music, the integrated modules are barely fit for use. Due to the Swift X 14’s OLED panel, its power consumption is largely dependent on what content is depicted on the screen.

With its dark standard background depicted, its idle values weren’t actually all too bad. Especially light pictures (oftentimes web pages) led to a higher consumption. In HDR mode, we measured up to 27 watts.

Under load, we noted a maximum of 104 watts, meaning the power supply was pushed toward its limits – but the consumption sank again quite quickly and during the course of the stress test, it evened out around 90 watts. Subsequently, we can say that the supplied power adapter is sufficient. When switched off, the laptop’s power consumption lies at around 0.

58 watt – a little on the high side. Its battery capacity may have risen from 58. 7 to 76 Wh, but its runtimes are considerably worse than those of last year’s model.

If you don’t have access to an outlet, then you need to be sure to switch to 60-Hz mode, as using 120 Hz leads to even worse runtimes. With an adapted brightness of 150 cd/m² (on our test device this is 59 % of its maximum SDR brightness), our WLAN test only lasted just over 7. 5 hours (at 120 Hz ~7 hours), meaning three hours less than its predecessor.

Using full brightness, its WLAN runtimes sank to around 6 hours (or 5:15 hours using 120 Hz). Only the video test resulted in decent runtimes of 9. 5 hours.

If you’re watching an HDR video at full brightness, then you can expect runtimes of around 4 hours. It takes about 100 minutes to completely charge the device, and 80 % of its capacity is available after 56 minutes. Acer have given their Swift X 14 a big update including more powerful hardware, however, the device remains to only have one fan working as its cooling unit.

The RTX 4050 Laptop ‘s GPU performance is good and stable, but its new H Series processor only manages to perform highly for a short period of time before dropping back down to the standards of last year’s Swift X 14 with a Core i5 1240P. Of course, on the data sheet, the Core i7-13700H appears much better and in many (short) benchmarks, its performance was better – but this won’t bring much in everyday use. Due to its high 80-watt power limit (in all energy modes), the laptop quickly heats up considerably, leading to increased fan activity.

The same can be said for Samsung’s PCIe 4. 0 SSD – a cooler PCIe 3. 0 model would’ve been a much better choice.

Changing the display has also made quite a difference to the laptop. Subjectively, the 120-Hz OLED panel’s picture quality is of course sublime, but due to its reflective surface, the old Swift X 14’s matte IPS panel was much better suited for working outdoors. Furthermore, you can’t ignore its PWM flickering.

Although the DC dimming helps at higher display brightnesses, this only works down to 40 % – anything below that suffers from the usual and harmful PWM flickering. Asus do not currently offer any software solution to help mitigate this problem. Fast components don’t automatically equal a good total package: On the spec sheet, the new Acer Swift X 14 appears to be a great device, but in practice, the fan and short runtimes due to the laptop’s new OLED panel are really quite annoying.

The real crux of the matter is its cooling system, which continues to rely on just one fan. Aside from the CPU and SSD performance drops, the constant fan noise also becomes incredibly noisy in everyday use. It has been quite some time since we last reviewed a laptop with this level of insufficient fan management.

In addition to this, we would like to have seen a bigger spread in the laptop’s energy profiles. What good is a quiet mode, when its CPU still uses up to 80 watts, ultimately leading to extremely high temperatures and even higher fan activity? The Swift X 14 quickly makes it clear that fast individual components do not automatically mean a good total package. Taking into account its good competitors, such as the Lenovo Yoga Pro 7 14 (thanks to its IPS panel without PWM) and the Gigabyte Aero 14 , we find it even more difficult to recommend the new Swift X 14.

Furthermore, we are currently also in the process of testing the MSI Stealth 14 Studio and in addition, the new updated Schenker Vision 14 is likely to be available soon. The new Acer Swift X 14 is currently not yet available to purchase online in the US, however you will be able to find it on Acer’s website once it is. It will retail for around $1,400.

Alternatively, you can find last year’s model on Amazon for $1,099. 99. .