Review: Acer Swift Edge SFA16-41

Acer’s new Swift Edge 16 is an impressive 16-inch laptop that is lighter than most ultrabooks out there in the market. The laptop weighs just 1.23 kg and is built using magnesium-aluminum alloys, the same premium materials found in the company’s previous lightweight devices. The entire chassis showcases a smooth matte texture that not only feels great to the touch but also provides excellent grip.

In addition, this material is highly resistant to smudges and fingerprints, especially in the captivating graphite blue colour variant we received for this review. The laptop also measures just 0.6 inches in thickness and comes packed with an outstanding 16-inch OLED display. This display offers a 4K resolution, 16:10 aspect ratio, and can display over a billion colours. In addition, you get deeper blacks, brighter whites, support for 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut, and a 120Hz refresh rate.

Under the hood, the Swift Edge 16 runs on an AMD Ryzen 7 6800U processor running at a clock speed of 2.70 GHz. You also get an integrated AMD Radeon 680M graphics chipset, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD storage, and a 1080p web camera on top of the display. In terms of I/O ports, you get two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, one HDMI 2.1, and a combo audio jack.

In terms of wireless connectivity, the laptop supports both Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 technologies. For added security, you get a fingerprint reader and the battery is rated at 55 Watt-hours. The laptop is also equipped with Twin Stereo Ring fans that do a great job of efficiently dispersing heat, ensuring precise and controlled heat dissipation. The laptop offers a range of cooling modes to cater to different needs: Silent mode for noise-sensitive environments, Normal mode for balanced cooling, and Performance mode for enhanced cooling during demanding tasks.

The Swift Edge 16 features a standard Acer keyboard layout, positioned centrally on the chassis and lacking a dedicated NumPad section. It uses a short-stroke design that offers relatively shallow feedback, typical for an ultraportable laptop. If you are accustomed to this type of keyboard, typing on it is a pleasant experience, thanks to well-spaced keys that are correctly positioned.

The keyboard is backlit, offering two levels of white brightness for customisation. The click pad of the Swift Edge is a generously sized glass surface, which is right below the keyboard in the center. It offers smooth and accurate tracking, delivering the expected responsiveness for both taps and gestures. While the physical clicks in the corners can feel a bit clunky, they remain functional and can be used effectively.

The Swift Edge 16’s remarkable 16-inch OLED display offers exceptional clarity. It delivers an immersive visual experience with a peak brightness of 616 nits when HDR is enabled. Even without HDR, it still impresses with a maximum brightness of 400 nits, more than sufficient for most indoor environments. The colours on this display are vibrant and vivid, thanks to its ability to cover 100% of the DCI-P3 color range. This wide color gamut ensures that your content creation, whether online or offline, is accurate and true to life.

In order to gauge the real-world performance of the Acer Swift Edge 16, we ran a few benchmarks such as 3DMark 13, CineBench R23, and Geekbench 5. In the 3DMark 13 – Fire Strike the laptop scored 3901 points (Graphics – 3819, Physics – 14302, Combined – 1311). In Geekbench 5 (multicore) we got 7502 points, while on Cinebench R23 (multicore), we got 9127 points.

As anticipated, the Acer Swift Edge delivered an excellent performance, perfectly suited for everyday tasks in office, home, and school environments, including light content creation duties. Equipped with AMD’s Ryzen U-series processors, specifically designed for slim and lightweight laptops like the Swift line, it proves to be a reliable choice. For gaming and more demanding content creation endeavors, consider opting for high-performance H-series processors.

The Ryzen 6800U in this model presents formidable competition for Intel’s premium Core i7 P-series processors commonly found in laptops such as the Swift Edge. Surpassing expectations, the integrated graphics from AMD demonstrate impressive performance. Additionally, while the memory is soldered on and cannot be upgraded, the Swift Edge configuration provides a sufficient 16GB of RAM, catering to the needs of this model.

When it comes to battery life, the Swift Edge 16 achieved an impressive duration of 9 hours and 22 minutes during our streaming video test, with the display brightness set at 50%. It’s worth noting that while some laptops in its class may offer longer battery life. However, it’s also important to consider that OLED displays, as well as 4K screens in general, tend to consume more power. With these factors in mind, a battery life of over 9 hours of usage can be considered to be quite good.

The Acer Swift Edge 16 offers an interesting choice for those looking for a lightweight ultrabook without compromising on the screen size. While it may not possess the same level of power and performance as bulkier full-size laptops, it compensates by offering a remarkably thin and significantly lighter form factor.

This design caters to everyday tasks and multitasking scenarios, where the AMD Ryzen 6000 hardware specifications provide ample capability for a well-rounded user experience. Taking into account the brilliant OLED display, nice I/O options, and overall good performance, the Acer Swift Edge 16 delivers a versatile package that meets a variety of needs.

Price: AED 5700 approx.