Acer Swift 3, either with Core i7-1065G7 or Ryzen 7 4700U: The Laptop Market Just Blew Wide Open
by Dr. Ian Cutress on January 6, 2020 6:30 PM EST
Everyone wants a notebook that fulfills their needs, is super light, lasts forever, and only costs a dime. We’re not in fantasy land just quite yet, but Acer is trying with its new Swift 3 for 2020. There’s one kicker in these units though – there will be AMD and Intel variants, using the latest and greated from both – Intel’s 10nm Ice lake vs. AMD’s new 7nm APUs.
The new Acer Swift 3 ultraportable is a 14-inch unit weighing 1.2 kg (2.6 lbs) that has either up to an octo-core AMD Ryzen 7 4700U inside or up to an Intel Core i7-1065G7, 16 GB of LPDDR4X memory, and up to 512 GB of NVMe storage. Acer is going for a premium design feel here, with the lightweight chassis, narrow bezels (4.37mm), and support for features like Windows Hello and Wake on Voice supported. The full unit is 16.55mm / 0.65-inches thick.
AMD Variant
AMD Prices will start from $599 for the base configuration, and exact specifications will come closer to the launch in May. Intel will start from $699 and be available from March.
Intel Variant
If one thing is going to be clear at this year’s CES, it’s going to be that AMD and Intel are going to be hitting each other with design wins. Normally for design wins we talk about flagships, but I suspect we’ll see AMD in a lot of mid-price notebooks with good all-round specifications, which is going to be where Intel will feel the heat. Not to be outdone, Intel is expected to have a number of Ice Lake designs at CES as well – the Intel Acer Swift 3 has Athena certification for example, which might be where the extra base cost comes from, as it will likely have Thunderbolt 3, Wi-Fi 6, and an ultra-low power display. It would be interesting to square off Intel vs AMD here in a review later this year.
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timecop1818 - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link
4K screen? If not, fuggedit.brakdoo - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link
I learned to appreciate 1080p again after I've seen my old XPS13 and my new Yoga S940 have worse battery life with 4k displays compared to their cheaper FullHD counterparts...brakdoo - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link
Ok I've just seen on another site that the Intel version has a 3:2 display aspect ratio and the AMD 16:9 or 16:10 (they are not sure) . So the Intel version won't be 4k as I've never seen a 4k 3:2 laptop panel...SolarBear28 - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link
The Swift 5 has a 3:2 display according to an earlier Anandtech article. That one might be Intel only. But it looks like Swift 3 will be both Intel and AMD.SolarBear28 - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link
NVM, that was the Spin 3 and Spin 5 lol. So many new announcements today.rbanffy - Monday, January 13, 2020 - link
While not nominally 4K, there are many very high density 2:3 panels. Just look at any iPad - they're all 2:3.rahvin - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link
There is so much older software that doesn't support HiDPI that I've found 4k painful to use. Until you aren't constantly running into applications that don't support HiDPI 4k is a pixel doubled 1080P to me.Spunjji - Tuesday, January 7, 2020 - link
I tend to look at it as pixel doubling being the worst case, and vastly improved clarity being the best case. 90% of what I use is the latter these days!evilspoons - Tuesday, January 7, 2020 - link
I agree so much with the higher DPI thing. One of my computers is a Surface Pro 3 and 2160x1440 in a 12" screen is great. The extra font clarity at 216 ppi vs the 90-100 you get on "normal" screens is fantastic.Ethos Evoss - Sunday, February 23, 2020 - link
exactly ppl are so naive they want 4k on such small screen I have 4k on tv so when I hook up laptop on 4k tv I need 4k@60