Review Summary
Expert Rating
An AI PC is a term referring to modern laptops that feature dedicated NPUs (Neural Processing Unit) in their chipsets. These chipsets allow the machines to perform AI functions a lot more efficiently, thanks to their AI processing capabilities, and in the process, also offer a boost to aspects like battery life, performance, and productivity in many cases. The Acer Swift Go 14 is one such AI PC, which comes with Intel’s new Meteor Lake series processors with a dedicated NPU and offers a tonne of AI features for enhanced productivity. Let’s see how the laptop performs in real life in this Acer Swift Go 14 review.
Here’s a video review of the laptop by Florence George:
Table of Contents
Design & display
The Acer Swift Go 14 sports a sleek design that does not particularly stand out from the crowd. The laptop we reviewed arrived in grey colour with a minimalistic design that blends right in and is quite light at just 1.3kg. The entire chassis is constructed out of metal, which makes the laptop quite sturdy.
The laptop features a 14-inch OLED display with WQXGA+ resolution (2,880 x 1,800p), 400nits of peak brightness, 16:10 aspect ratio, 90Hz refresh rate, 100 percent DCI-P3 colour coverage, and True Black HDR 500 certification. The display is capable enough for both content consumption and creation, including tasks like editing photos and videos.
Keyboard, trackpad & I/O
The laptop comes with a membrane keyboard, which offers good tactile feedback. The trackpad boasts Gorilla Glass protection and can also double up as a media controller. The latter can be toggled on with a swipe across the “swift” icon on the trackpad. There’s a QHD webcam with a privacy shutter and the power button doubles up as a fingerprint scanner for swift device unlocking.
The Swift Go 14 comes with a decent number of ports. On the left side, you can find two Thunderbolt 4 USB Type-C ports, an HDMI 2.1 port, and a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port. On the right, there’s a microSD card slot, a 3.5mm combo jack, one USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port and a Kingston lock port. For wireless connectivity, the device comes with Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi 7 support.
Performance
| Cinebench 2024 single-core/ multi-core score | |
| Acer Swift Go 14 | 97/705 |
| ASUS ZenBook Duo | 108/796 |
| ASUS ZenBook 14 OLED | 102/620 |
The laptop features the Intel Core Ultra 5 125H processor paired with 16GB of LPDDR5 SDRAM operating at 6400MHz frequency and 512GB PCIe Gen 4 SSD for storage. The chipset comes with a dedicated Intel NPU for faster AI processing and Intel Arc integrated graphics support.
| Cinebench R23 single-core/ multi-core score | |
| Acer Swift Go 14 | 1648/13425 |
| ASUS ZenBook Duo | 1844/15384 |
| ASUS ZenBook 14 OLED | 1721/ 11676 |
| Dell XPS 13 Plus (9320) | 1741/10773 |
Thanks to the 16GB of high-frequency RAM, the device can multi-task without difficulty. Comparing it to similarly priced devices, the laptop falls slightly short in synthetic benchmark numbers. In everyday use, however, you’re unlikely to face any performance hiccups. The laptop is a powerful device for day-to-day use and can even edit full HD videos with ease, as is the case for other photo editing work in regular usage scenarios.
Despite not being a gaming laptop, the device is still able to play casual games like GTA V at ‘High graphics preset with a solid 71FPS in 1080p resolution, Valorant at ‘Low’ graphic preset and native 1800p resolution, and it offered an average of 190FPS.
| Geekbench single-core score | Geekbench multi-core score | |
| Acer Swift Go 14 | 2249 | 11454 |
| ASUS ZenBook Duo | 2524 | 13235 |
| ASUS ZenBook 14 OLED | 2389 | 12785 |
If you’re a casual gamer or like to play competitive games, you’ll find the Acer Swift Go 14 to be up to the task. Coming to thermals, since it is a thin and light device, the temperature can get slightly high and peak around 86 degrees Celsius in an air-conditioned room and around 90 degrees Celsius in a non-air-conditioned room (30 degrees Celsius + ambient temperature).
| PCMark 10 score | PCMark 10 Extended score | |
| Acer Swift Go 14 | 6437 | 7129 |
| ASUS ZenBook Duo | 7763 | 6788 |
| ASUS ZenBook 14 OLED | 7002 | 7212 |
| Dell XPS 13 Plus (9320) | 6087 | 5814 |
AI features
Being an AI PC, the laptop offers you a variety of AI-powered software for enhanced productivity output. There’s a dedicated Microsoft CoPilot key, which can assist you in your everyday tasks. There’s Acer Quick Panel, which allows you to access webcam features like Background blur, automatic framing, eye contact, and more, helping enhance your video conferencing experience. Working in tandem with that is the Acer PurifiedVoice which handles noise cancellation to further boost the calling experience. Image editing software Acer LiveArt is also there, and offers nifty features like background remove, add text, etc.
With the AcerSense app, which can be accessed through the Acer logo button on the keypad, you can switch work profiles on the laptop with options to switch to performance mode, normal silent, etc. You can also personalise your laptop’s functions from the ‘Personal settings’ tab to further optimise your machine.
Battery
A 65Wh battery paired with a 100W PD adapter powers the laptop, and it registered a score of 9 hours and 18 minutes on the PCMark 10 video playback test at 80 percent brightness level. That is an impressive result, and the laptop should easily sustain your daily usage.
Verdict
At a starting price of Rs 89,999, the Acer Swift Go 14 (2024) is a versatile machine. On the flip side, the lack of upgradability and its subpar speakers are the key drawbacks. That said, it’s a well-built laptop featuring a metal chassis and a compact and lightweight design, enhancing its portability. The device is powered by the Core Ultra 5 125H with AI capabilities, and while it may not offer top-notch performance for its price segment, it efficiently handles daily tasks, including full HD video editing. The paired integrated Arc graphics are also sufficient for casual gaming, including some older AAA titles.
Editor’s Rating: 8 / 10
Pros:
- Stunning 90Hz OLED display
- Excellent build quality
- Solid performance
- Good battery life
Cons:
- Limited upgradability
- Speakers not loud enough
- Cramped arrow keys