The Acer Swift 3 SF314 Notebook Review: Swift Gets Swifter With Ryzen 4000
by Brett Howse & Andrei Frumusanu on May 5, 2020 8:00 AM ESTDisplay Analysis
Acer offers just a single display option on the 14-inch AMD based Swift 3, which is a 1920x1080 IPS display. Considering the price, this is the right option, although it is interesting that they are offering a 13.5-inch 3:2 Intel based Swift 3 in the SF313-52. The 3:2 works quite well for productivity, although less-so for gaming where 16:9 generally suffers from fewer issues.
There is no touch capability with this display, which is a bit of a shame, but also understandable with the other features offered. Acer did well to hit their target price range, and they made overall good decisions on where to invest. Touch is a nice to have, but not a necessity, although when you are used to having it, it is amazing how often you try to touch the screen.
To see how the display stacks up, the laptop was tested with Portrait Display’s CalMAN software suite. For brightness and contrast, the X-Rite i1Display Pro colorimeter was used, and for color accuracy readings the X-Rite i1Pro 2 spectrophotometer was employed.
Brightness and Contrast
The Acer Swift 3 does not get off to a great start. In a budget notebook, displays tend to be one of the first things on the chopping block. Luckily, we’ve moved past the era where these types of notebooks would offer 1366x768 TN panels, but Acer’s 1920x1080 IPS choice doesn’t offer very good black levels, and their backlight is somewhat weak. It is an inauspicious start.
Grayscale
Grayscale measures the laptops ability to display white levels, from 0% (black) to 100% (white), and the Swift 3 performs quite poorly here. The blue levels are far too strong across most of the range. Gamma is also way off of the expected 2.2 level.
Gamut
Windows 10 is still an sRGB system first and foremost, so proper sRGB gamut support is required for proper color accuracy. The Acer Swift 3 unfortunately does not cover anywhere near the sRGB gamut, which means that the LED backlighting was likely another area where some money was saved. Although grayscale can be salvaged with some ICC profiles, without full sRGB backlighting this laptop would likely suffer further if an ICC was applied because it simply cannot cover the entire sRGB spectrum.
Saturation
The saturation test covers the primary and secondary colors, but unlike the gamut where they are just measured at 100% level, we test them on 4-bit steps from 0% to 100%. Since we’ve already determined the laptop can’t hit the full sRGB gamut, it is no surprise to see the saturation sweeps suffer.
Gretag Macbeth
The Gretag Macbeth tests colors off of the primary and secondary axis, including the important skin tones, but with a display that can’t reproduce the entire sRGB range, the Acer Swift 3 naturally performs quite poorly on this test.
Colorchecker
Finally, we have the colorchecker, where you can more easily visualize the color errors with this display. This is a relative test, since any errors in your own display will influence the result, but on the bottom of the swatches is the color requested, and the top shows the color produced by the display. It is not pretty.
Display Conclusion
Overall, despite the poor showing here, the display is in-line with expectations at this price point. Over the last couple of years, there has been a push for better displays, and laptop makers have made the jump to 1920x1080 IPS panels pretty much across the board; so even though this display is poor compared to better IPS-based laptops, it still does offer the good viewing angles an IPS panel enjoys, and 1920x1080 works very well on a 14-inch screen size.
The very poor backlighting really does hamper the capabilities of this notebook. If you wanted to use it for editing photos or video, the internal components like the CPU, memory, and GPU, really would help, but the included display with its lack of sRGB coverage would certainly hinder the work. For basic office tasks, or even gaming, most people who are looking at a laptop at this price point will likely not be too concerned about the display, but just be aware that this one is deficient in several areas.
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LaMpiR - Friday, May 8, 2020 - link
So, a 649$ laptop costs in Europe 890$. How is this possible?neblogai - Saturday, May 9, 2020 - link
Something was probably wrong with the sample Anandtech got. Here is a video of FarCry5- Swift 3 4700U temps stay at nice and cool ~69C even in the long and action packed scene: https://youtu.be/8A2XFdAZLPQ . There is also another test with a 4500U model from the same channel- no temperature issues there either, nor in any of the ~20 games tested. Other channels, like Dave Lee, also say that cooling is just so capable and quiet, that Acer should have upped cTDP higher.Oxford Guy - Saturday, May 9, 2020 - link
Maybe it's just me, but the whole article seems very deceptive.The headline should be: "The Acer Swift 3 SF314 Notebook Review: Swift Gets Slower With Kneecapped Ryzen 4000"
The little TDP graphic should be 8+ watts, not 15.
neblogai - Sunday, May 10, 2020 - link
It is just you. Acer would not be wrong to call Intel models 'Swift 3', and AMD models - 'Swifter 3'.watzupken - Sunday, May 10, 2020 - link
The throttling is to be expected when you see a 1.2kg laptop. Where can they cut in order to lose few hundred grams, when the battery size is the same? Surely its got to be the cooling solution. If you are looking for performance, these ultra slim laptops are not for you. The same problem plagues Intel based laptops as well. As PC maker/ manufacturers go crazy about cutting weight and size of laptops, a lot of these thin laptops suffer from thermal throttling, poor upgradeability and missing port convenience.In this case, I think there may be something wrong with the fan curve and should be resolved through some software updates. The cooling solution looks normal to me after cracking open a few of these laptops with low power processors. Only observation is that the heatsink is getting thinner over the years, which will certainly impact cooling. Mid end models should have a longer heatsink with slightly bigger fan to cover the longer heatsink, while high end models may end up with dual heatsink and fan cooling solution to get around the slimness.
Oxford Guy - Monday, May 11, 2020 - link
Yes, it's "just me" because apparently 8 watts is "Swifter" than the 15 it's supposed to run at.At least the 15W graphic appears to have been removed. That's something.
Oxford Guy - Monday, May 11, 2020 - link
"The throttling is to be expected when you see a 1.2kg laptop. Where can they cut in order to lose few hundred grams, when the battery size is the same? Surely its got to be the cooling solution. If you are looking for performance, these ultra slim laptops are not for you."I don't buy this excuse.
When a company sells a product it shouldn't be a bait and switch deal.
If Acer wants to post "8+ watts" as the TDP of the CPU in a prominent place that's one thing. If it lists 15W and/or just the CPU model then that's not good enough.
Moreover, it should be made clear to the consumer that the CPU is throttled to get to that 8 watts, not that it's just so efficient it can function at 8 watts to do the equivalent of what should take 15 for the same CPU because of something special about the machine's design.
If the machine can't handle a 15 watt CPU then it should be throttled to what it can handle and that should be the spec sold to consumers, not the spec it can't handle.
ReallyBigMistake - Sunday, May 17, 2020 - link
"Key to this is a much-needed jump from GlobalFoundries' 12nm process to TSMC's class-leading 7nm process"I am calling it but GF days are numbered.
Cirecomputers12 - Sunday, June 7, 2020 - link
What you guys don't get is the internals are great at the price of a very CRAP display. Just look up the srgb and the Adobe rgb its terrible. The brightness nits are 250 which is pretty much as dark as you can go with laptops. SO if the display doesn't mean that much, this an awesome deal. If it does all the power in the world isn't going to make that Display any better. It's also made out of plastic......It's up to you ......AdriaticAdrian2 - Tuesday, April 27, 2021 - link
Does someone know if I charge it with anything lower than 65w through USB-C? I have it but I don't want to buy anything that will not work