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Acer sketched out its revamped Swift X laptops back at CES 2022 in January. Now we have some compelling new details about the new hardware that will be packed into these slim consumer portables. TechTuber Matthew Moniz got his hands on the new Acer Swift X 16 and X 14 laptops and shared a sneak peek video today.
Note that while we did get some tasty new details, not all was revealed, especially regarding the new Intel Arc discrete GPU. Moniz was told there was to be “strictly no benchmarking”.
Acer Swift X laptops have been described on camera as pre-production units but management at Acer (and Intel?) must be happy enough with the products to ship them to be mass-YouTubed.
Before diving into the fuller specifications of the new Swift X laptops, it’s worth outlining the key improvements, as related by Moniz. Firstly, the screens have gone from 16:9 to 16:10 and have also boosted pixel density. As these are not high-end designs, there are still some features that these IPS screens have, such as a stated 60Hz refresh rate, and the maximum brightness of 400 nits is reasonable but not outstanding.
Other notable upgrades included the improved port selection where yesterday’s barrel charger and USB-C port will be replaced this year with twin Thunderbolt ports. These are included alongside an HDMI port and a USB A port. On the other side of the laptops there is a Kensington lock, USB A and Audio combo port.
The 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, at the top right of the keyboard deck.
Inside there are some big changes, as well as some smaller pleasant ones. First up, our headline features the new Acer Swift X 16 with Intel Arc discrete GPU. Few details are shared regarding this GPU. Moniz may be dropping some hints. In part of the video where he touches on Intel Arc GPU performance he says, in throwaway comment style, that rumors suggest that we should expect Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 and RTX 3070 Ti performance levels (mobile GPU performance). One would expect that any such comment would not be casual at all but would be thoroughly vetted by the powers that be at Acer / Intel.
Other changes inside are the move to Intel’s latest 12th generation Alder Lake-P mobile processors. In January we did not know what models would be present, but now we know that both machines will have at least an option for the Intel Core i7-1260P 12C / 16T. This 28W CPU combines four Intel performance cores with eight efficiency cores. This is 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, these 2022 designs include a few PCIe slots. It must be noted throughout, that one of them is a gen 4 and another a gen 3 connector – due to the PCIe lane limitations of the system.
Finally, regarding the laptop hinnards explored in the video, Moniz gave a glimpse of the cooling. While the larger laptop had a few fans with tighter heat pipes, the YouTuber said he was concerned that the X 14 had the same or similar cooling to last year’s AMD version, which had a much higher wattage CPU lower him.
Specifications
|
Miniature |
Acer Swift X 16 |
Acer Swift X 14 |
|---|---|---|
|
CPU |
Intel Core i7-1260P 12C/16T |
Intel Core i7-1260P 12C/16T |
|
GPU |
Unspecified Intel Arc model |
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti |
|
Display |
16 inches 16:10, 2560 x 1600 pixels, IPS |
14 inches 16:10, 2240 x 1400 pixels, IPS |
|
Ram |
16GB LPDDR5 soldered |
16GB LPDDR5 soldered |
|
Storage |
1TB NVMe, + spare slot |
1TB NVMe + spare slot |
|
Weight |
3.86 pounds, 1.75kg |
3.09 pounds, 1.40kg |
|
Battery |
56 hours |
58 hours |
|
Price |
$1,249 |
$1,299 |
Moniz took some time to think about the pricing of these 2022 Acer Swift X machines. If you check the table above you will see that the price is uncharacteristically lower for the larger model. Whether the Intel Arc is cheaper as part of Intel’s chipset type promotion, or the Nvidia GPU is more expensive because it’s more capable, we’ll have to wait and see.
Also on price, the TechTuber was a bit worried about the price increase 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 didn’t know if the new CPU would be a worthwhile change for performance and/or battery life. In addition, this price increase begins to move these laptops among the more serious competition, which eliminates some of their appeal.
The new Acer Swift X 16 and X 14 are expected to be released in June.
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