The Acer Swift 3 SF315-41 Review: Ryzen Meets Laptop
by Brett Howse on May 3, 2018 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Acer
- AMD
- Ryzen
- Ryzen Mobile
- Raven Ridge
Final Words
This review is really looking at two things. First, the Acer Swift 3, and second, the AMD Raven Ridge platform based on Ryzen mobile. Let’s start with the laptop.
Acer’s Swift lineup features models from the Swift 1 at the value end, to the Swift 7 at the top end. So, the Swift 3 is closer to the value end than Acer’s flagship models. But that’s somewhat deceptive because Acer’s Swift 3 is a nicely built device, with a great aluminum exterior, an IPS display, SSD storage, and even a fingerprint reader alongside the excellent trackpad.
It’s not all sunshine and roses for the Swift 3 though. The keyboard is not only cramped with the number pad squeezed in on the right, but the keys themselves are also very poor, with a slippery texture that makes it very easy to miss the key you’re looking for. It does feature backlighting, but the backlighting turns off quickly, and using the trackpad doesn’t light up the keys like it does on most laptops.
The small battery also cuts into the maximum life when not plugged in, and that’s purely a cost decision because there’s plenty of room inside a notebook this big for more battery. Plus, the high baseline power draw pulls down the battery life as well. Compared to a couple of years ago, the battery life is still quite good, but it’s definitely not all day by any means.
The display has great grayscale and white levels, but doesn’t even come close to covering the entire sRGB spectrum, which is something that most laptops do now. At 1920x1080, it does offer enough resolution at least, and of course it’s IPS which is a requirement at this point.
AMD’s Raven Ridge platform has done very well though. The CPU performance is much stronger than the outgoing Carrizo notebook platform, although it’s not quite up to the latest Kaby Lake in terms of absolute performance. But the addition of a real GPU onto the SoC is a welcome change, and allows actual 3D gaming even on a 15-Watt processor. The performance of the Vega GPU is so much better than the Intel integrated solution that really adds a lot of capability.
The combination of AMD’s Ryzen mobile, along with a good design, and excellent specifications for the price, really do make the Acer Swift 3 an appealing proposition. We’ve never tested a laptop at this price point with a 512 GB SSD before, and the 8 GB of DDR4 is very welcome as well at this price. If you can get over the poor quality keyboard, there’s a lot of laptop for the dollar here, and the ability to actually run real games is a welcome change.
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milkod2001 - Thursday, May 3, 2018 - link
It is a good value laptop for everyday use but who expects to play games on it should look into benchmarks carefully: Tomb Raider 1080p at 15.4 fps is just not cutting it.A5 - Thursday, May 3, 2018 - link
It will at least finish the benchmarks, which is something. It won't be acceptable for someone looking at a "gaming" laptop, but if you want to be able to launch like Civ 6 or Motorsport Manager and get an acceptable experience, it'll do.The results in the web browser tests aren't good, though. Hopefully that can be improved in the future.
psychobriggsy - Thursday, May 3, 2018 - link
Sure, but having the option to play it upscaled from 720p and lower settings is better than not having that option.I'd like to see this laptop, but with a bigger battery and the APU configured to 25W or even 35W TDP.
And USB-C charging, and a keyboard without number pad.
erwos - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link
The USB-C thing is a deal-breaker for me. A $950 laptop should at least have USB-C charging and alt-mode DP. Thunderbolt would also have been nice, but I can at least see why that didn't happen.Santoval - Tuesday, May 15, 2018 - link
Acer appears to be still hanging on to the days of taking into account the money they can make by scamming customers for $50 to $80 chargers only they can sell. Their charging barrel cable is so thin and flimsy by design.eva02langley - Thursday, May 3, 2018 - link
At ultimate...mr_tawan - Thursday, May 3, 2018 - link
in Nvidia's title.....coolhardware - Thursday, May 3, 2018 - link
How would the Swift 3 w/Ryzen compare to the Swift 5 w/Intel?https://amzn.to/2KvPCMS ($997 = roughly comparable price)
Personally I prefer the 14" form factor of the Swift 5, but I assume it lacks any gaming chops at all?
Also, on the Swift 3 is there a way (BIOS/UEFI etc.) to force the keyboard backlight to stay on? I know the last Acer I tried you absolutely could not force the backlight to stay on and coming from Thinkpads that really sucks :-(
Thanks in advance for advice!
Jimster480 - Monday, May 28, 2018 - link
The ryzen have more GPU power... and otherwise trade blows in everything else.IntelUser2000 - Thursday, May 3, 2018 - link
So the Surface Pro with the Iris maintains ~50% performance advantage over the HD graphics in the 8550U, but the gains completely disappear at the enthusiast setting. It sounds like a configuration, or even a driver bug.Notebookcheck's review of the DOTA 2 Reborn shows different results.