Review Summary
Expert Rating
Budget laptops have become so much better in the past couple of years. Not only can you get decent internal hardware to drive your system smoothly, but manufacturers have also started offering features that were deemed ‘premium’ a few years ago. For instance, we have the Acer Swift Go 14 OLED, a 14-inch compact notebook that obviously comes with an OLED display, hence the name. But the laptop also comes with a healthy spec-sheet, fairly clean design aesthetics and a really good price.
Now we are testing the older model that comes with Intel’s 13th-gen H-series processor fine-tuned to run efficiently in a small chassis. The notebook is also available in a variety of configurations with Intel or AMD CPU options, so it’s important that you go for the right version. So, what exatly can this Rs 60,000 laptop do, let’s find out.
Table of Contents
Design and build
Acer’s Swift Go 14 OLED has a generic silver design that doesn’t stand out, with a mix of metal and plastic materials. The display lid and keyboard deck make use of aluminium with a matte finish, paired with a plastic bezel and bottom lid. Although the display hinge is quite rigid and doesn’t wobble, the overall build quality lags behind more premium competitors. But considering it is a budget laptop, there isn’t much to complain about.
The laptop features a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port on each side while the left side also includes two Thunderbolt 4 ports that support charging, alongside a HDMI 2.1 port. On the right side, there is a Kensington lock slot, a 3.5mm audio jack and a microSD slot. The speakers are positioned on the bottom outer edges of the laptop frame, while wireless connectivity options include Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2.
The bottom lid is made out of plastic and has rubber feet so the laptop doesn’t move around when using it on a flat and smooth surface. There are a total of nine hex-type screws that can be removed to open the lid. I really don’t appreciate warranty stickers placed on top of screws, and I think Acer needs to change that, considering the SSD is user-replaceable on almost every laptop today. Sadly, the RAM is soldered, so you can only swap/upgrade the storage, Wi-Fi card and the battery. On the bright side, Acer is using a fairly good amount of thermal solution including two fans installed next to each other along with a heatsink and dual heat pipes.
Display
The 14-inch OLED display on the Swift Go 14 OLED comes with a 2,880 × 1,800 resolution, 16:10 aspect ratio and 90Hz refresh rate. The display quality is surprisingly good, offering sharp and vivid visuals with an impressive contrast ratio. While it supports DisplayHDR True Black 500, the peak brightness levels go just beyond 400 nits, which is suitable for outdoor usage. HDR is available via the Windows display settings, but Acer has configured that to work only when the laptop is plugged in. The screen automatically switches to SDR if you disconnect the charger. It also covers 100 percent of the DCI-P3 colour gamut, making it useful for creative work.
Keyboard and trackpad
The keyboard on the Swift Go 14 OLED is spacious and offers large keys with smaller ones for the Function row. There’s a decent amount of travel distance, but the feedback is mushy with very little tactile feel. Still, typing for long hours didn’t give me any problems, although I wish Acer would use better keycaps that don’t wiggle as much. There’s a simple white backlight with two levels of brightness, which is acceptable when typing in the night or in dimly lit environments. Additionally, the power button comes with a built-in fingerprint scanner which works fast and accurately when logging into Windows.
The trackpad is smaller than what we see on most laptops these days, but overall it works well and feels responsive. I just wish it was a bit larger to make gestures and swipes more intuitive. I also noticed that the lower half of the trackpad is more shallow and depresses even with the slightest touch. While that may be an issue with the unit I had, it could also be the fact that Acer is repurposing older trackpads.
Performance
Powering the Swift Go 14 OLED is Intel’s Raptor lake 13th-gen Core i5-13500H processor having twelve cores and sixteen threads at its disposal. It offers boost clock speeds of up to 4.7GHz and, depending on the manufacturer, it can be configured to draw anything from 35W to 95W. As mentioned in the intro, Acer is also offering a newer version of the Swift Go 14 with the latest Core Ultra lineup of CPUs. While that’s going to cost you more, it should offer better efficiency and substantially better AI chops thanks to the dedicated NPU (Neural Processing Unit).
Coming back to the review unit, there’s 16GB of LPDDR5 memory running at 4800MT/s and a 512GB PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD. Testing the M.2 SSD we found that it can deliver read and write speeds of up to 3,700MBps and 2,200MBps respectively. Essentially you could swap it for something faster as the laptop offers support for PCIe Gen 4 drives.
In terms of raw CPU performance, the CPU on the laptop has quite the potential but Acer has tamed the TDP (Thermal Design Power). Curiously, the CPU could only go up to 38W for a short amount of time, even though Acer markets the laptop’s CPU at 65W. Despite that, the laptop managed to swiftly open multiple browser tabs on Chrome and Firefox at the same time while running a 4K video without any major hiccups. Even rendering high-resolution images on Adobe Photoshop took way less than what other laptops offer at this price range.
Speaking of which, we couldn’t find another compact laptop with an Intel Core i5-13500H at this price range, hence we went ahead with the ASUS VivoBook S14 OLED and the ASUS ZenBook 14 OLED, since they are also 14-inch notebooks with OLED displays. In GeekBench 6, the Swift Go 14 OLED manages to beat the AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS and comes quite close to the newer Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, which is commendable.
The integrated Intel Iris Xe GPU clocks at 1.45GHz with 80EU (Execution units) which isn’t enough for modern day gaming, but can offer enough juice for retro game emulation and some older-generation titles. If you care about e-sports titles like Valorant and CS:GO, these can run over 100FPS at low settings at 1080p resolution.
As for thermals, the CPU peaks at 92 degrees when stressing it during gaming or raw rendering tasks. The area around the exhaust does get pretty hot, but when you are not stressing the CPU, it is comfortable to use even in your lap while the temperatures hover around mid 40-degrees.
In terms of audio, the dual speakers at the bottom are passable. They are loud enough for watching movies or TV shows, but the lows are not really up to the mark. The 1440p webcam offers sharp imagery and comes with all Windows camera effects, but low-light performance isn’t the best.
Lastly, I also want to mention the amount of bloatware that comes pre-installed with the laptop. Now I understand the reason for pre-loading an anti-virus for your customers, but the Swift Go 14 OLED is just packed with unnecessary stuff like ExpressVPN, Amazon, Agoda, Dropbox, CCleaner, and so on. In fact, Acer itself has eight of its apps installed on the device, and once a week I would see a pop-up to install Opera browser.
Battery life
Packing a 65Whr battery unit, the Swift GO 14 OLED offers decent battery life. I was able to use to laptop for about 7 hours before I had to plug in the charger. In PCMark 10’s Video battery benchmark, the laptop scored seven hours and six minutes. The test was done with the screen brightness set to 80%. You could squeeze a bit more by reducing the brightness and the refresh rate to 60Hz.
Verdict
The Acer Swift Go 14 OLED is a nifty value-for-money 14-inch notebook that offers an appealing OLED display, and enough grunt to take on everyday productivity. The design and chassis aren’t the most premium, but mostly look and feel pleasant, especially for something that’s priced at Rs 60,000. Battery life could be better, but in return you get a fairly powerful 12-core H-series Core i5 CPU. Besides, it doesn’t weigh a lot, which means carrying the charging brick with you shouldn’t be a hassle.
Pricing for the configuration that we tested is listed as Rs 59,990 making it a great option for students, or even professionals who need an everyday machine for day-to-day office productivity. The ASUS VivoBook 14X from last year is an excellent alternative offering similar specifications, including a 90Hz 2.5K OLED display and an RTX 3050 GPU for Rs 69,990.
Editor’s rating: 7.5 / 10
Pros
- Good-looking OLED display
- Lightweight and portable
- Value for money
Cons
- Battery life is a tad bit short
- Trackpad needs improvement
- Limited upgrade options
