Acer sketched its revamped Swift X laptops at CES 2022 in January. We now have some compelling new details about the new hardware that will be packed into these sleek mainstream laptops. TechTuber Matthew Moniz got his hands on the new Acer Swift X 16 and X 14 laptops and shared a preview video today.
Note that while we got some tasty new details, not everything has been revealed, especially when it comes to the new discrete Intel Arc GPU. Moniz was told there was to be “strictly no benchmarking”.
The Acer Swift X camera laptops have been described as pre-production units, but Acer (and Intel?) management must be happy enough with the products to send them to YouTube en masse.
Before we get into the more comprehensive specs of the new Swift X laptops, it’s worth highlighting the key improvements, as chronicled by Moniz. First of all, the screens went from 16:9 to 16:10 and also increased the pixel densities. Since these aren’t high-end designs, these IPS screens still have some mediocre aspects, such as a quoted 60Hz refresh rate, and the 400-nit peak brightness is decent but not exceptional.
Other notable upgrades include improved port selection where the barrel charger port and USB-C of yesteryear will be replaced with twin Thunderbolt ports this year. These are included alongside an HDMI port and a USB A port. On the other side of the laptops is a Kensington lock, USB A and audio combo port.
Webcams were upgraded to FHD (from 720p) in 2022, but do not provide Windows Hello biometrics. However, these laptops have fingerprint scanners in the power buttons, top right of the keyboard.
Inside, there are some big changes, as well as some nice little changes. First, our headline singles out the new Acer Swift X 16 with discrete Intel Arc GPU. Very few details are shared regarding this GPU. Moniz may be telegraphing clues. In a section of the video where he discusses Intel Arc GPU performance, he says, in a throwaway commentary style, that rumors suggest we should expect between the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 and RTX 3070 Ti performance levels (performance mobile GPU). One would expect that such a comment would not be flippant at all, but rather carefully vetted by the powers that be at Acer/Intel.
Other changes inside are the switch to the latest 12th Gen Intel Alder Lake-P mobile processors. Back in January, we didn’t know which models would be there, but now we know both machines will have at least one option for the Intel Core i7-1260P 12C/16T. This 28W processor blends four of Intel’s performance cores with eight efficiency cores. That’s quite a change from last year’s Swift X models with 15W AMD Ryzen processors.
One of the small but nice upgrades we mentioned earlier is the inclusion of two PCIe slots in these 2022 designs. It’s worth noting that one is a Gen 4 slot and another is a Gen 3 – in due to system PCIe lane limitations.
Finally, regarding the innards of the laptop explored in the video, Moniz took a look at the cooling. While the larger laptop had a dual-fan cooler with larger heat pipes, the YouTuber said he was concerned that the X 14 would have the same or similar cooling as last year’s AMD version, which had a much lower power processor.
Features
|
Model |
Acer Swift X16 |
Acer Swift X14 |
|---|---|---|
|
CPU |
Intel Core i7-1260P 12C/16T |
Intel Core i7-1260P 12C/16T |
|
GPUs |
Model not specified Intel Arc |
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050Ti |
|
Display |
16 inch 16:10, 2560 x 1600 pixels, IPS |
14 inch 16:10, 2240 x 1400 pixels, IPS |
|
RAM |
16 GB LPDDR5 soldered |
16 GB LPDDR5 soldered |
|
Storage |
1 TB NVMe, + spare slot |
1 TB NVMe + spare slot |
|
Mass |
3.86 lbs, 1.75 kg |
3.09 lbs, 1.40 kg |
|
Battery |
56Wh |
58Wh |
|
Price |
$1,249 |
$1,299 |
Moniz took some time to think about the price of these 2022 Acer Swift X machines. If you look at the table above, you’ll see that the larger model has, quite unusually, the lowest price. Whether it’s the Intel Arc being cheaper as part of an Intel chipset-like promotion, or the Nvidia GPU being more expensive because it performs better, we’ll have to wait and see.
Still on the price, the TechTuber was slightly annoyed by the increase in price over last year. Moniz noted that the Swift X 14 started at $999 in 2021, and even with the machine on his desk, he said he wasn’t sure if the new processor would be a worthwhile change for performance and/or duration. battery life. What’s more, this price increase is starting to displace these laptops among more serious competition, removing some of their appeal.
The new Acer Swift X 16 and X 14 are due out in June.
