We see more and more laptops that are equipped with a processor from AMD instead of an Intel processor. Acer has also equipped a variant of the Swift 3 SF314-42 with an AMD Ryzen. A good choice?
Acer Swift 3 SF314-42-R2MP
price € 699, –
Processor AMD Ryzen 5 4500U
Memory 8 GB
Screen 14 inch, ips (1920 × 1080p)
Storage 512 GB (NVME SSD)
Dimensions 32.3 × 21.9 × 1.8 cm
Weight 1.2 kilos
Battery 48.85 Wh
Connections USB-C (Gen1), USB 3.0, USB 2.0, HDMI, 3.5mm audio connection
Website www.acer.nl 8 Score 80 
- Pros
- Smooth hardware
- Good battery life
- Fingerprint scanner
- Negatives
- Touchpad
- Keyboard backlight
With a price of 699 euros, you cannot possibly call Acers Swift 3 SF314 (tested in the SF314-42-R2MP version) an expensive laptop. That you don’t mind, because the Swift 3 has a beautiful design. The housing is made of an aluminum-magnesium alloy and probably therefore has a light weight of 1.2 kg for the price range in which this laptop falls.
The laptop has three USB ports, one of which is designed as USB-C and works at USB3.0 speed. Of the two USB-A ports, one works at USB3.0 speed and one at USB2.0 speed. The USB-C port supports charging and is suitable for video output via DisplayPort. In addition, the laptop is also equipped with an HDMI connection. Strangely enough, Acer has provided a separate charging connection with a matching charger. Furthermore, Acer has placed a 3.5 mm sound connection, a card reader is missing.
Hardware
AMD is doing well with its mobile processors and the AMD Ryzen 5 4500U is no exception. This processor has no less than six cores with a base clock speed of 2.3 GHz and a turbo up to 4 GHz. Not bad for a 699 euro laptop. The processor is combined with 8 GB of ram and a 512 GB SSD. I also opened the laptop. The ram is soldered and cannot be upgraded. You can possibly replace the SSD for a larger one. The laptop is equipped with WiFi 6 in the form of an Intel WiFi card that also offers Bluetooth 5.0.
The screen is a 14 inch panel with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. The screen is sufficient for everyday use and office work, but the color reproduction is too short for serious photo editing.
Keyboard and touchpad
With a size of 15 x 15 mm, the keys are a bit on the small side, but with some getting used to you can type fine. The keyboard is provided with backlighting in one level. Something I’m not too keen on is the silver keys. Although compared to some other laptops with silver keys, the contrast of the letters with the lighting switched on is too low for me. And in the dark, the lighting is quickly too bright because there is only one position. A fingerprint scanner has been placed next to the nevpad that you can use to log into Windows. The fingerprint scanner works smoothly and quickly.
I am not very satisfied with the touchpad. The touchpad feels nervous and sometimes does not respond at all. It gets better if you turn off tap to click, tap to right, and two-finger tap. This means that you actually have to physically press the touchpad and that makes for a smoother experience.
Performance
The AMD Ryzen 4500U is a potent chip, something that we see in the PCMark 10 score of no less than 4768 points. Despite the name Radeon, the GPU remains a copy processed in the processor. In 3DMark Time Spy the laptop scores 943 points with a graphics score of 836 and a CPU score of 3647 points. The performance of the GPU can be compared with an Nvidia GeForce MX250. It will be difficult to game in Full HD, a GPU of this caliber is more suitable for gaming in 720p. This laptop has a battery with a capacity of 48.85 WH. It lasts about 12 hours. The SSD is a Samsung PM991, a smooth NVME SSD with a read and write speed of 1743.73 and 1196.89 MB / s.
Conclusion
AMD is doing good business, the Ryzen 5 4500U is a powerful processor. Especially for the 699 euros that Acer is asking for this Swift 3, that is an excellent deal. The Swift 3 is also a nice laptop with a good battery life. The biggest drawback is the not always smoothly working touchpad and the key illumination.
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