The Acer Swift 5 has been one of the lightest laptops on the market for the past few years, and I think it is one of the best alternatives to the extremely popular Dell XPS 13.
Today, Acer has updated the laptop to be even better than ever with the inclusion of the latest discrete Nvidia GeForce MX350 GPU and Intel CPUs.
The Acer Swift 5 is an ultrathin-and-light notebook that sits right at the intersection of style, power and portability. Its 14.95 mm (0.59 in) chassis is made from high-grade magnesium-lithium and magnesium-aluminium.
The press release doesn’t state which Intel CPU exactly, but last years Swift 5 had options including the Intel Core i5-1035G1 and i7-1065G7 both with a TDP of 15 W. I don’t think there have been replacement parts for these yet, so expect the same.
Nvidia Geforce mx350 vs Geforce mx250
The new GPU provides a bit more oomph, and it should make light gaming possible, which is amazing considering this is a sub kilo laptop.
The Geforce mx350 has benchmarked showing a 20-30% performance uplift in various 3D Mark benchmarks
| Geforce mx250 | Geforce mx350 | |
| Structure | maxwell | pascal |
| GPU chip | GP108 | GP107 |
| CORES | 384 | 640 |
| ROPs | 16 | 16 |
| Base Clock (MHz) | 1519 | 1354 |
| Enhance clock (MHz) | 1582 | 1468 |
| Reminiscence clock (MHz) | 1752 | 1752 |
| Reminiscence dimension (GB) | 2GB OR 4GB | 2GB OR 4GB |
| Reminiscence sort | GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
| Reminiscence bus width (bit) | 64 | 64 |
| TDP | 25W | 25W |
| DirectX model | 12.0(12_1) | 12.0(12_1) |
| Know-how | 14nm | 14nm |
| Launch date | Q1.2019 | Q1.2020 |
RAM and Storage
To complement the CPU and GPU, there is up to 16 GB LPDDRAX and 1 TB of high-speed PCle SSD storage
Silent Mode
My original Acer Swift 5 review from 2 years ago criticised the fan noise, due to its high pitched frequencies. This seemed to be fixed with the next version, and it looks like Acer are taking things further with his.
You now the ability to control how much sound the device makes by choosing from one of three cooling modes: silent, normal or performance.
Display
The Acer Swift 5 has a 14-inch FHD IPS touchscreen which supports multi-finger gestures to offer an incredibly intuitive experience. The screen features 300 nits brightness1 and covers 72% of the NTSC gamut and is surrounded by ultra-narrow bezels on all four sides that allow for up to a 90% screen-to-body ratio, creating a vivid and immersive viewing experience that makes the Swift 5 perfect for enjoying movies and relaxing after work.
Full Connectivity and All-Day Battery Life
The Swift 5 features a large 56 Wh battery that lasts all day and can be fast-charged in a pinch, granting 4 hours of use off just a 30-minute charge-time. A host of connectivity options such as USB Type-C, Thunderbolt
and USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, in addition to dual-band Intel Wi-Fi 6 (GIG+) and Bluetooth 5.0, make it an excellent choice for professionals and users who need to work on the go. For convenience and security, the Swift 5 is also equipped with an embedded fingerprint reader for Windows Hello. It also supports Wake on Voice, enabling users to activate and query Windows 10 even when the screen is off.
Pricing and Availability
The Acer Swift 5 will be available in EMEA/UK in October starting at EUR 1,099 (£996); in North America in October, starting at USD 999.99.
It is worth noting that this is the from price, the Swift 5 I reviewed earlier in the year started at £799, but lacked the dedicated Geforce mx350, instead of relying on the iGPU of the Intel Core i5-1035G1 Processor
