Acer Swift Edge 16 Review

Estimated reading time: 23 minutes

Acer Swift Edge 16 – A tempting proposition

There’s just so much going on with the Acer Swift Edge 16, where do we even begin. It belongs to Acer’s Swift line, which is characterized by “Thin & Lightweight” on Acer’s website and features three variants, the Swift X16, Swift Go 16 and the Swift Edge 16. The Edge 16 is thinnest and lightest in the series, and this is the laptop we will be thoroughly looking at in this review.

The first thing that catches the eye is that this is a 16-inch laptop, but still how astonishingly light and thin it is. Have you ever seen a 16-inch ultraportable? Before the Acer Swift Edge 16, we didn’t see one either. We know for a fact that they’re a lot of buyers in the market who are looking for a big beautiful OLED display in a thin and light form factor, but there just aren’t many good options. The Swift Edge 16 is your answer to that. It takes portability to another level, at a price that is very accessible. Just see who the Swift Edge 16 is punching against: the likes of the Dell XPS 15, Samsung Galaxy Book Pro, or maybe even the MacBook Pro. We’re not saying that they’re equals, but the Swift Edge 16 is a proposition that stands out.

Portability and OLED screen stand their ground, but then there’s the specifications that make the Acer Swift Edge 16 a more juicier proposition. AMD’s latest Ryzen 7 7840U CPU matched with legit DDR5 RAM, top-of-the-line SSD, WiFi-6E connectivity, fingerprint scanner, a 1440p webcam, a versatile selection of ports and a keyboard with a dedicated numpad; could one even ask for more?

Acer Swift Edge 16 – Specifications and Features

Model	ACER SWIFT EDGE 16 (SFE16-43-R98R)
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 7840U
Base Frequency	3.3 Ghz
Boost Frequency	5.1 Ghz
Core/Threads	8/16
Processor TDP	15W – 30W
Battery	54 Watt Hours (65W power adapter included)
Memory	16GB (4 x 4GB) LPDDR5 @ 800Mhz (19-15-17-34)
GPU	AMD Radeon 780M (RDNA 3 Graphics Architecture)
Display	16-inch OLED WQXGA+ (3200×2000 resolution) 400nits 120Hz
Cooling	Twin stereo ring fans with three modes – silent, normal and performance
Dimensions	14.08 x 9.68 x 0.57-0.60 inches (WxDxH) 356.55 x 245.9 x 14.48-15.24 mm (WxDxH)
Weight	1.24kg or 2.73lbs

Acer Swift Edge 16 – Design and Build Quality

The Acer Swift Edge 16 with the lid closed has a clean, understated and plain design. We call this the “invisible design” because there are no design elements that are specific to this machine i.e. that stand out exclusively. The lid is flat matte black finish with no lines or grooves, just the Acer logo. The entire lid is made of thin plastic and probably the reason why the Swift Edge 16 is light. The lower chassis cover is made of an extremely thin slab of aluminium.

Opening the lid with one hand is doable but not necessarily clinical in the way it works. That unfortunately is a trade-off with ultraportable laptops, so we aren’t complaining here. Honourable mention to MacBook Air and Dell XPS 15 here which has nailed the one-handed lid opening mechanism. Dawned with the screen, we see that the bezels along the side are quite thin, but not so much the bezels on the top and bottom of the screen.

The thin chassis makes the Acer Swift 16 extremely grippy, flickable, almost like you’re carrying a folder with a handful of documents. There is a lot of flexing in the laptop, at almost every place. Apply some pressure to the palm rest and you will notice the entire keyboard housing drop its height. Even though the entire body is of matte finish the Swift Edge 16 attracts fingerprints and smudges a plenty, especially the palm rest and the lid. We quite like the AMD Ryzen and Radeon stickers, they have a nice 3D texture to them and always seem like they’re backlit.

Acer has given a good selection of ports with the Swift Edge 16, especially when you consider how thin this machine is. On the right side you get a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port, 3.5mm headphone jack and microSD card slot. On the left side you will find two USB 4 Type-C ports, another USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port and thankfully, a HDMI 2.1 port.

Acer Swift Edge 16 – Portability

With the Acer Swift Edge 16, we felt it was necessary to add a special section to talk about its portability. We feel that that is the main selling point of this laptop, especially when one looks at what all you’re getting with this portability. The specifications sheet shows a weight of 1.24 kgs but our scale gave us 1.20 kg. The maximum thickness of the laptop is roughly 15mm i.e. it can fit between the tip of your finger and the first finger crease. That is outright insane for a laptop of this capability! As mentioned above, carrying around this laptop literally feels like you’re carrying a thin notebook (pun intended?). The case is made stronger with the insane amount of flexing in the laptop.

Personally, since my main daily driver is a 16-inch M1 MacBook Pro, the weight of the Swift Edge 16 comes as a boon to me. The MacBook Pro weighs around 2.4 kgs and carrying it around all day does take its toll. True, the Apple machine is built fully on a aluminium chassis and is sturdy as hell, but the weight does bring one down. Even the slim profile of the Acer means that it can easily fit into tight spaces and tiny bags, something that is not possible with the MacBook Pro. The days I spent with the Acer Swift Edge 16 made my commutes less cumbersome, almost as if I wasn’t even carrying a laptop.

Sure, I have used ultrabooks in the past but no where was any machine as capable as the Acer Swift Edge 16. That is why the weight and its thickness are a standout feature because it is hard to believe that this has a 16-inch OLED display, a capable processor and graphics card and a full keyboard with a numpad. While the weight of the Swift Edge 16 classifies this as an ultrabook, the specs are of a proper mainstream/performance laptop.

Acer Swift Edge 16 – Keyboard and Trackpad

We have already mentioned the full-size keyboard, but there is a slight catch. The numpad keys have lesser width than the keys of the rest of the keyboard, which themself are pretty narrow. So yes, this is a tightly fitted little keyboard, but the trade-off is worth because of the numpad. The performance of the keyboard is great though, no complaints there. Whether you’re typing away to glory, slaughtering an Excel sheet, or gaming, the keyboard shall not be a let-down. It offers good feedback to make typing feel precise. It takes a while to get used to the narrow keys, especially of the numpad, but once you develop the muscle memory for it, you’ll forget about the narrowness. The keyboard is backlit in the most generic way possible. Don’t expect luxury Alienware level backlighting, but it will do its job in the dark.

The trackpad is large in size at 3.4 x 5.1-inches. One thing we liked about the touchpad is that it sits at the centre point of the main keyboard, excluding the touchpad. This configuration means that the brain’s need to for symmetry is fulfilled. On the contrary, when it is not, I find myself always being bothered by the uncentered layout, so kudos to Acer for thinking about this. The same cannot be said about the performance of the touchpad though. Coming from a MacBook, that is a given, but even when compared to the likes of Samsung, MSI And Dell, we felt the touchpad lacked the precision we desired. Not that it is completely unusable and using a mouse is a must, it just doesn’t really feel that intuitive and friendly to use. Tapping feels very rubbery and rough, and moving the pointer feels bogged down by friction.

Acer Swift Edge 16 – Display

The main selling point of the Acer Swift 16 is its display. Yes, this is a glorious 16-inch OLED panel that supports 3.2K resolution with 120 Hz refresh rate and HDR. Gone are the days when getting such a display would cost you INR 2 lakh and upwards. In this day and age, we would classify the Swift Edge 16 display as a luxury, at a price that is very, very reasonable. Supporting a resolution of 3200×2000 pixels having a ratio of 16:10 means this display can work through games, media consumption productivity and content creation.

Having a resolution this high on a 16-inch screen allows one to conveniently work through multi-window workflows without feeling cramped or losing out details. The pixel to size ratio is amazing, you can actually work through large Excel documents without breaking a sweat, or a big video editing timeline without having to constantly scroll sideways. To put things in perspective, take a 24-inch display having a 1440p resolution, the Swift Edge 16 allows more real estate (i.e. more cells in Excel) while being considerably smaller than a 24-inch display. That is the magic of a high resolution.

Coming to the quality of the display, since this is an OLED display, colours are vibrant, blacks are deep and viewing angles are wide. Contrast in OLED panels is on-point and accurate, owing to individual lighting of the pixels. Movies, YouTube, games, no matter what content you’re consuming, you will be floored by the beautiful display. The maximum brightness is rated officially at 400 nits, our tests managed a solid 375.3 nits which is not bad by any means. The MacBook Air has a brightness of 473 nits, for comparison sakes. The display doesn’t lose out details and vibrance in well lit environments, making this laptop outdoor friendly. The OLED display along with the portability of the Acer Swift Edge 16 makes for a really good combination because it enables a lot of use-cases, especially in on-the-go and outdoor scenarios.

Display accuracy is what you would expect from an OLED panel. You get 100% sRGB, 95% Adobe RGB and 100% DCI-P3 spectrum coverage – impressive numbers out-and-out that will appeal to creatives. We don’t have any complaints with the display, but if we really had to nitpick, we would have asked to thinner bezels especially on the top and bottom sides of the screen.

Acer Swift Edge 16 – Webcam, microphone and biometrics

Acer has been trying hard, at-least on paper, to appeal to a large number of buyers. Majority of laptops these days offer a 1080p camera but Acer has gone beyond with a 1440p camera. Thumbs up for added resolution, and in this case, it works. The details are crispier than the 1080p webcams that grace 90% of the laptops in the market today. While the webcam doesn’t support advanced features like HDR, the quality of images is accurate and noise is almost non-existent. Laptop webcams almost always have noise, and Acer has solved that problem. You won’t be looking muddy or washed out in your video conferences, that is for sure. The webcam supports Microsoft Studio Effects Pack, more on that later.

One weird thing we noticed about the webcam is that while it supports Windows Hello, we couldn’t get it to work. That is probably because of the inclusion of a fingerprint scanner, a new addition to the Swift Edge 16 series. The fingerprint scanner works as intended: it is accurate and speedy, and a boon for logging into Windows especially when one doesn’t have Windows Hello.

The best way to describe the microphone in the Acer Swift Edge 16 is: acceptable and enough to get the job done. If you’re a skilled sound editor, you can actually use the microphone to record podcasts but it is not worth the pain. Just get a dedicated microphone. Having said that, the microphone will suffice for calls and even streaming.

Acer Swift Edge 16 – AMD Ryzen AI

Everybody’s jumping on the AI wagon, so why should AMD leave itself behind? AMD’s Ryzen 7 series processors come with AMD Ryzen AI onboard, which is apparently dedicated AI processing hardware. It supports a number of applications, detailed in the image below, and, teaming up with the webcam, enables Windows Studio Effects Pack. This pack supports certain webcam features. Eye Contact uses AI to make it seem like you have your eyes pointed to the camera and not the screen. Automatic Framing is pretty self-explanatory, where the camera keeps you in the centre of the frame even if you shift your position. Background Effects enables the use of background blur or Portrait blur.

Video and Photo Editing apps derive the most benefit from AMD’s AI hardware. Widely used apps such as DaVinch, Topaz Labs, Adobe Premiere are some apps that have added features from AMD Ryzen AI. In OBS Studio, you can use AI green screening without the use of a physical green screen.

Acer Swift Edge 16 – Performance

CPU Performance

The performance section was the most interesting section for us, simply because of the size of the Acer Swift Edge 16. We were really curious to see what this thin little machine can do. Let us begin with performance of the processor, the AMD Ryzen 7 7840U. This CPU is the top-of-the-line chip from AMD Ryzen’s U series, having 8 cores and 16 threads, along with 24MB cache, and a power draw of 15W-30W. It is capable of reaching boost speeds of 5.1 Ghz and supports Ryzen AI. This is AMD’s most capable portable and efficient processor that uses the 4nm manufacturing process.

Running the Cinebench R23 Single Core and Multi Core benchmarks, we concluded that either the Ryzen 7840U, or Cinebench has a mind of its own. All of our three passes yielded different, contrasting results. All tests were run using the High Performance profile, so it doesn’t make sense why the scores are different. In different Cinebench runs, we see a maximum variation of 5% in the scores, but in this case we were seeing variations of 20% at its highest point.

There could be two reasons for such a high variation: throttling due to high temperatures, or something to do with how the CPU applies boost clocks. At its highest point, Cinebench scored a commendable 10436 and 1697 points in its Multi Core and Single Core tests. A score above 10000 puts the Acer Swift Edge in the mainstream performance category, and will able to handle most day-to-day workloads without breaking a sweat. More demanding and professional workloads will suck the juice out of the Ryzen 7840U, but let us not forget that this is an ultraportable low-power processor, so we are more than satisfied with the results.

Productivity Performance

Let’s run our productivity benchmarks on the Acer Swift Edge 16. PCMark 8 runs the system through general day-to-day scenarios like web browsing, video conferencing, photo editing, spreadsheets etc. and assigns a score based on the performance. The Swift Edge 16 achieved a score of 4287 in PCMark 8, which is a very healthy score, especially for an ultraportable notebook. Any score above PCMark above 4000 means the system can slaughter everyday productivity tasks.

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CrossMark is an interesting benchmark which attempts to universalise and standardise benchmarks across various form factors like mobile phone, tablets, laptops and desktops. The Swift Edge 16 scored a healthy 1396 in CrossMark. The give you a perspective on the meaning of this score, the Intel Core i7-14700K scored 2276 in CrossMark. That means that the Ryzen 7 7840U is about 40% slower than a full-fledged desktop CPU. Not bad for an ultraportable that used a fraction of the power of the 14700K. The Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro with an Intel Core i7 1360P scored 1680 in CrossMark and 5000 in PCMark. The Samsung is a performance laptop that can game and perform heavy duty tasks, and the Acer isn’t that far away.

Gaming Performance

The Acer Swift Edge comes with an AMD Radeon 780M integrated graphics card. Yes, this is not a dedicated GPU, so obviously we shouldn’t be expecting dedicated GPU performance.  The iGPU is based on the new RDNA3 architecture and has 12 CUs (= 768 shaders) clocked at up to 3 GHz. The Radeon 780M also supports hardware ray-tracing.

Before we talk about the benchmark numbers, there is a caveat to gaming on the Acer Swift Edge 16. The display supports 3.2K resolution, and to drive a game at the resolution requires a dedicated GPU. It is advisable to game at a resolution of 1080p or 1440p on this laptop, to achieve playable framerates of 60fps and above. Grand Theft Auto V ran at a stable 60fps at 1440p and Medium-High settings. The new Prince of Persia was able to hit 120 fps but with the slider at Low Settings and resolution at 1440p.

Games look stunning on the Acer Swift Edge 16, because of the vibrant display. Although this laptop suffers from what almost all laptops suffer while gaming: fan noise. And the built-in speakers are meek and nowhere close to cancelling out the fan noise, so headphones are a necessity when gaming. But you knew that already didn’t you?

The 3DMark Time Spy test gave us a score of 2492. This is similar to Intel Iris territory, another iGPU but based on Intel’s platform. This score means that the Swift Edge 16 can game, but only barely. Latest games will require significant lowering of setting and resolution.

They say the key to living a happy life is to manage our expectations. If you’re planning on buying the Acer Swift Edge 16, don’t be expecting to play games on it, and you should be happy. However, if you expect the laptop to run games fast and pretty, all we can say is that you need to manage your expectations, bro.

SSD Performance

The Acer Swift Edge 16 comes with a 512 GB NVME. We performed five runs of 1GB data each and got an average read/write speeds of 7094/4996 MB/s. This speed signifies that the SSD is using the latest platform with the best possible speeds. Moving files around, loading games, loading big files, feels snappy. Nothing to complain here.

Heat and Noise

The CPU idles at around 41 degrees Celsius in Performance mode and 36 degrees in Balanced mode. At idle state, none of the fans kick in, which is an impressive feat of the latest AMD Ryzen 7 CPU. Open up Chrome and the fan kicks in, but at a very low RPM that is barely audible. During our Cinebench runs, the CPU reached a maximum of 87 degrees Celsius, and that is when it begins to throttle its performance. The Ryzen 7 7840U’s performance under load is especially impressive, as it is able to sustain high loads for long time periods without dropping frequency.

The system manages well to stay within its power limits. At 100% load only do we see the CPU power draw reaching 14.9 Watts, just short of the rated 15 Watt maximum TDP. This is also the point where the CPU temperature reaches the late 80s, but never crosses onto the 90 degree mark. Since the laptop is so slim, we suspect Acer kept the CPU parameters such that the laptop stays below 90 degrees. To its benefits, the CPU is able to sustain its highest clock speeds and stay well under 100 degrees, even below 90 degrees. That leads us to conclude that the Acer Swift Edge 16’s dual fan system is working well, if only it could be a little quieter.

Acer Swift Edge 16 – Charging and Battery Life

The Acer Swift 16 Edge comes with a 65W USB C brick charger. It is interesting to note that the charger is one single unit, and does not have a detachable power cable from the brick, like most laptops do. The only caveat to this is that if your cable goes bust, you’ll have to buy a whole new charger. Still, USB C chargers are common so that shouldn’t be a problem.

The laptop can charge via its two USB C ports. Charging speed is fast, we reached 0 to 100% in around 90 minutes. The battery life is impressive too. Using the laptop for general tasks like a mixture of streaming YouTube, image editing, email and browsing gave us a battery life of around 8.5 hours. This was with the brightness set to 80% and using “Balanced” mode. “Performance” mode gave us a battery life of about 6.5 hours. We can surely squeeze 10+ hours from the Acer Swift Edge 16 but we will have to use “Battery Saving” mode and turn down the brightness to around 50% to achieve that.

Battery Drain With Lid Shut

Windows laptop, whether they are Intel based or AMD based have always struggled retaining battery life when you simply turn the lid down when using the laptop, without shutting down the laptop. This is something where MacBooks have been excelling since years. Why this happened in Windows laptops is that previous gen processors (Intel and AMD) did not support low-power state modes and consistently drained battery even when you’re weren’t using the laptop.

With the new optimizations by AMD on with Ryzen 7 generation of CPUs, and optimizations to the Windows operating system, this was meant to change. We tested it out. We charged the laptop to 100% and removed the charger. We noted the time, 10PM, and shut the lid without putting the laptop on Standby mode or shutting it down. In the morning at 10AM, we opened the lid up and saw that the battery life stood at 93%. That means a 7% loss of battery in 12 hours. This is a huge improvement over previous generations, where AMD CPUs used to lose anywhere between 25 – 35% of their charge in 12 hours.

Acer Swift Edge 16 – Upgradeability

The Swift Edge 16 can be opened up by simply removing the six T6 screws located on the bottom of the chassis. There is only one M.2 slot, and you can definitely remove and replace the SSD, but sadly you can add an extra one. On a more positive note, the Wi-Fi 6W/Bluetooth card is replaceable. So if you’re thinking of upgrading to the Wi-Fi 7 in the future, you can do so easily. The LPDDR5 RAM is soldered only the motherboard. This is the caveat of ultrabooks, there is nothing one can really do about it.

Acer Swift Edge 16 – Conclusion

The Acer Swift Edge 16 is a hand full of a machine, without making your hands full! It is extremely thin and lightweight for the performance and features it offers. Its gorgeous 16-inch OLED screen, legit productivity performance and decent battery life put it in a class that is above the Swift Edge 16 in terms of size and weight. As a bonus, you can do some light gaming on it too. It is hard to believe you’re carrying a 16-inch laptop with the Swift Edge 16, it feels like you’re carrying out tablet.

The laptop does have its shortcomings. The build quality is compromised due to its extremely light weight, the speakers are underwhelming, the chassis is a smudge and oil magnet, and the trackpad feels obligatory. Sure, headphones can solve the speaker problem, an external mouse can solve the trackpad problem, but there is really no replacement for a meek build quality. Well, just take extra care of the laptop!

The Acer Swift Edge 16 is meant for people looking for an office/school work and content consumption machine. It is almost perfect for it. It can pass of as a professional editing machine too, if you’re willing to give up flagship speeds. Also, for those who move around a lot, the Swift Edge 16 will be a blessing in disguise. The Acer Swift Edge 16 brings forward a rather uncommon package, and we’re fans of that!

Disclaimer: The laptop was provided to iLLGaming via AMD’s PR team on a loaner basis. No form of payment was accepted for this review.