Gone are the days when affordable laptops mean average hardware configurations, normal display, terrible battery life, and plastic finish thick design. Modern-day budget laptops are transformed into slim, sleek, HD display, massive battery life, and aluminum finish design. The new Acer Swift 3 SF314-52-517Z is a new name in affordable series with durable build quality, stylish aluminum finish, and latest hardware configurations. The 14-inch compact master comes with 8th Gen Intel Core i5-8250U Quad Core processor and Intel UHD Graphics 620.
A lot of advanced features and technology boost this laptop’s overall value. Swift 3 series is known for genuinely priced laptops and this laptop doesn’t get you discouraged in this regards.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Acer is a household name in budget desktops or laptop arena. Time to time upgradation for the hardware and design front forces all companies to introduce their new models or revamp some models and Acer doesn’t want to leave behind in this race. Acer has launched Swift series, which is responsible for delivering ultra-portable notebooks with slim, sleek design, advanced features, and latest hardware at a budget-friendly price.
Swift series is introduced in various models Swift1, Swift3, Swift 5, and Swift 7. Every model is different in class and hardware configurations from Intel Core i5 to Intel Core i7 to cater different needs or requirement of the users. Swift 3 is basically a mid-tier laptop series with a top-notch processor, elegant design, backlit keyboard, fingerprint reader, and a reasonable price.
Acer Swift 3 SF314-52-517Z is another model in Swift 3 series, which has elegantly packed flagship 8th Gen Intel Core processor in a budget laptop. The 8th Gen processors claimed to be 40 percent swift and power-efficient from its predecessors. Solid aluminum chassis, long battery life, comfortable backlit keyboard, responsive touchpad, and fingerprint reader add good value to this laptop.
Acer Swift 3 SF314-52-517Z Design
Aluminum chassis gives this laptop a premium and solid look and feel. The design seems to be a proper notebook design. You can notice the brushed all-metal body with smooth edges and corners on the top and the Acer logo in the center of this laptop. Design always vary from person to person and as per our view, the Acer Swift 3 SF314-52-517Z design is more or less same as on other Swift series Acer laptops.
Open the lid, you can notice 14-inch full HD screen attached to this laptop. The keyboard and trackpad are quite responsive and comfortable. This model consists of a hazel light backlit keyboard which shines bright even in dim or low lighting conditions. So you need not worry about lighting conditions and long working hours if you are working on this model of Acer Swift 3.
This laptop holds 13.31 x 9.21 x 0.7 inch of dimensions and 4 lbs of weight, so it’s a little bit tough to carry it along with you every time. Communication ports are provided on both sides of the laptop. On the right-hand side, you will find SD card reader and USB Type C port, whereas on the left you will get USB 3.0 ports, USB 2.0 port, HDMI and audio jack options.
Hardware and Performance
Under the hood, this machine is armed with 8th Gen Intel i5-8250U 1.6GHz Quad-Core processor. The 8th Gen looks great, but Quad Core looks a bit odd in the era of Hexa-Core processors, but on the budget laptop even 8th Gen processor is an excellent addition to this laptop. This processor is combined with 8GB DDR4 RAM enables you to perform your day-to-day tasks with superb ease and comfortability.
The keyboard with backlit option is quite comfortable to work upon. The backlit option gives you an added advantage of working in low or dim light situations. The trackpad is enough wide and responsive as well. The fingerprint reader is a nice innovation in this laptop. Remembering passwords is a cumbersome job so Fingerprint Reader enables you pretty quick and secure login.
Data, movies, files, or games can be stored at 256GB Solid State Drive option. SSD option allows massive data transfer and storage at blistering speed. Internet connectivity can be managed through 802.11ac wireless LAN or Bluetooth 4.0. Numerous ports are also there to give adequate support to the hardware and making connections to this laptop.
Display
The 14-inch full HD screen with 1920 x 1080 resolution and IPS technology is an average one. With Intel UHD graphics 620 is good for every day’s task, but don’t expect amazing graphics from this display. There is balanced contrast and picture quality, but image quality gets fainted on high-end images or bright pictures.
Battery Life
Battery life is superb on this laptop. Whole Swift series gives you one of the best battery life among its competitors. The 4-cell 3220 mAh li-Polymer battery gives you an approx. a whole day or 10 hours of battery backup. In various battery tests as well, if not 10 hours average 8-9 hours of battery life with standard conditions can be achieved very easily.
We Liked
We liked a lot of things in Acer Swift 3 SF314-52-517Z. Starting from the all-metal body, smooth finish, latest hardware, comfortable keyboard, long battery life and a fingerprint reader to name just a few. In addition to this, the pricing makes this laptop a superb proposition in the budget laptop arena.
We Disliked
Not many things to dislike on this affordable ultra-portable laptop. The overall design is a little bit boring, not so good speakers and the average display is what you can add to the disliking list.
Specs of Acer Swift 3 SF314-52-517Z |
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Processor | 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-8250U quad-core |
Graphics | Intel UHD Graphics 620 |
RAM | 8GB DDR4 |
Storage | 256GB |
Display | FHD IPS 14-inch |