Ben Madilynn
The Acer Swift Edge 16 ($1,299.99 as tested) is one of the thinnest and lightest 16-inch laptops. On the plus side of its ledger are premium features such as a magnesium-aluminum chassis, a vibrant OLED display, and ample connectivity options, including Wi-Fi 7. However, its brief battery life is a significant drawback for those prioritizing portability. The MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo provides similar features and far longer unplugged run time for a slightly higher price, while the Editors’ Choice-award-holding Asus Zenbook 14 OLED Touch (UM3406) lasts longer off the plug for less money. While you’d be stuck with a divisive keyboard regardless, we suggest waiting for a sale before picking up this laptop.
Configuration and Design: An Ultraportable 16-Incher
We reviewed the Swift Edge 16 twice last year, finding the redesigned version noticeably better than the original. The model reviewed here is a mild technology refresh, with a more potent AI engine in its AMD Ryzen 8000 series processor, a Windows Copilot key, and Wi-Fi 7. This laptop shouldn’t be confused with the Acer Swift Go 16, a budget desktop replacement model.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Our review unit, model SFE16-44-R8HM, appears to be the only available configuration. It includes enough pep for everyday tasks and then some, with an AMD Ryzen 7 8840 CPU, Radeon 780M integrated graphics, 16GB of memory, 1TB of solid-state storage, Windows 11 Home, an OLED screen, and a one-year warranty.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The Swift Edge 16 looks unassuming at first glance, but you can only truly appreciate it after picking it up. It’s thinner and lighter than many 14-inch laptops, weighing only 2.71 pounds and measuring 0.51 by 14 by 9.7 inches. The 2023 Dell Inspiron 16 Plus (0.71 by 14.1 by 9.9 inches, 4.54 pounds), MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo (0.75 by 14.1 by 10 inches, 3.31 pounds), and Lenovo Yoga 7 2-in-1 Gen 9 (16-inch) (0.75 by 14.24 by 9.84 inches, 4.63 pounds) are bulkier, with the Dell and Lenovo being nearly two pounds heavier.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Acer’s magnesium-aluminum chassis provides exceptional lightness and strength. The lid and chassis are remarkably rigid, and the metal produces a pleasant scratchy sound when I run my finger across it. It’s a shame this Olivine Black laptop, despite having truly impressive quality, doesn’t stand out visually as much as it could.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Unlike some high-end 16-inch laptops (we’re pointing at you, Dell XPS 16 and Apple MacBook Pro), this Acer won’t require you to carry USB-C-to-A adapters since it has two traditional USB Type-A ports. (Both have 5Gbps transfer speeds.) It also has a pair of USB4 ports, an HDMI 2.1 monitor port, a microSD card reader, and a 3.5mm audio jack. The power adapter plugs into either USB4 port. The latter is a wall adapter and doesn’t have as long a cord as I expected.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The Swift Edge’s sole biometric feature is the fingerprint sensor on its power button. Its 2,560-by-1,440-pixel webcam delivers sharper images than the typical 720p or 1080p cameras, but it lacks infrared support and doesn’t include a privacy shutter or kill switch.
Using the Acer Swift Edge 16: Built to Entertain
One glance at the Swift Edge’s OLED screen will probably be enough to attract most buyers. Despite its 3,200-by-1,200-pixel resolution being short of 4K, the clarity is impeccable, with no discernible pixels. The display has impressive brightness and contrast, plus stare-worthy color reproduction. The glossy display surface enhances depth without causing reflections. A smooth 120Hz refresh rate is a bonus. However, it lacks touch support.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Watching Masters of the Air on Apple TV, I enjoy the brightness and intensity of the daylight battle scenes and the remarkable depth in low-light scenes. The colors, especially during sunrises and sunsets, are stunning on this panel.
However, the Swift Edge’s audio performance doesn’t match its impressive picture quality. The built-in speakers lack bass and sound strained even at half volume, as I notice while listening to “Smooth” by Santana featuring Rob Thomas. The audio is poor without the sound-enhancing effects in the provided DTS app.
Acer’s keyboard provides a light tactile feel and features two-level white backlighting. I can reach 107 words per minute in the MonkeyType online typing test, but as a text-editing enthusiast, I sorely miss the dedicated Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys, which are only available in the number pad. The number pad has an unintuitive three-column layout and skinny keys, making it seem an afterthought. Other layout compromises include a mix of full-size and half-height arrow keys, and the new Copilot key has replaced the right Ctrl key.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The touchpad, on the other hand, is high-quality. It produces tactile (if slightly loud) feedback and provides ample surface area for swiping gestures.
Acer preloads several unwanted trial apps and ads onto the Swift Edge. The most important app is Acer Sense, which provides optimized battery charging tools, hardware checkups, and blue-light suppression for the screen. It also includes a silent mode that limits performance to minimize fan noise. While I don’t find the noise bothersome, it is audible during demanding tasks. The upper half of the chassis becomes warm to the touch at these times, but not alarmingly so.
Testing the Acer Swift Edge 16: Plenty of Pep, But Short on Stamina
To recap, our $1,299.99 Swift Edge 16 features an AMD Ryzen 7 8840U processor (eight cores, 5.1GHz boost), Radeon 780M integrated graphics, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD.
The MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo ($1,449 as tested) and the 2023 Dell Inspiron 16 Plus ($1,099 as of this review) contain more powerful Core Ultra H-class CPUs, but neither is as portable, and the Dell doesn’t include an OLED screen. In short, Acer has priced the Swift Edge 16 rather competitively.
In our performance charts, we featured laptops previously mentioned in this review and included the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 ($2,703.20 as tested) to show how the Acer compares with a high-end ultraportable laptop. These laptops are equipped with Intel Core Ultra H-class processors or, in the case of the Yoga, an AMD Ryzen HS chip, likely to outperform the Swift Edge’s Ryzen U-series CPU.
Productivity and Content Creation Tests
We run the same general productivity benchmarks across both mobile and desktop systems. Our first test is UL’s PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and office workflows to measure overall system performance and includes a storage subtest for the primary drive.
Our other three benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 uses that company’s Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Geekbench 5.4 Pro from Primate Labs simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).
At last, we run PugetBench for Photoshop by workstation maker Puget Systems, which uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe’s famous image editor to rate a PC’s performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It’s an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.
The Swift Edge held its own and met our expectations. While the MSI and the Swift Go demonstrated superior CPU performance, the Swift Edge’s results were respectable, given it uses a CPU with a lower power rating. Additionally, it achieved the highest PCMark 10 storage test score by a country mile.
Graphics Tests
We test the graphics inside all laptops and desktops with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark, Night Raid (more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs).
To further measure GPUs, we also run two tests from the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which stresses both low-level routines like texturing and high-level, game-like image rendering. The 1440p Aztec Ruins and 1080p Car Chase tests, rendered offscreen to accommodate different display resolutions, exercise graphics and compute shaders using the OpenGL programming interface and hardware tessellation respectively. The more frames per second (fps), the better.
The integrated graphics in these machines won’t handle intensive 3D work or gaming, but they will endure everyday graphics tasks with ease and more. While the Swift Edge’s Radeon 780M silicon didn’t match the performance of the Intel laptops, it did slightly outperform the Yoga’s Radeon 760M, which tracks well.
Battery and Display Tests
We test each laptop and tablet’s battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.
To gauge display performance, we also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Windows software to measure a laptop screen’s color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).
With a battery life of just 7 hours and 21 minutes, the Swift Edge’s longevity fell well below average and was nowhere near competitive with the 18-plus hours achieved by the MSI and Swift Go. Additionally, its screen brightness at the 50% setting used for testing was a bit dim. (At the peak setting, it was on par with the pack here in terms of numbers and very good for an OLED.)
On the positive side, the Swift Edge screen’s color measures are exceptional, with the panel providing nearly complete coverage of all color gamuts. And as mentioned, its 400-nit brightness is impressive for an OLED display, comparable with 500 nits on an IPS screen.
Verdict: Bright-Screened and Light, But a Real Battery Burner
The Swift Edge 16 stands out for its premium build quality and stunning OLED screen. Its lightweight design and extensive connectivity options are also particularly impressive, given its ultra-thin profile. However, its battery life is quite short, and the speakers and keyboard leave room for improvement. It was also outclassed in performance by similarly priced machines. At the same screen size, the MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo provides an overall better experience for not much more cash as our Editors’ Choice-winning midrange desktop replacement, while the smaller Asus ZenBook 14 OLED (UM3406) remains our top 14-inch pick. The Edge retains an edge, though, if what you need most from a laptop is a big screen in an ultraportable-light package.
Acer Swift Edge 16 (2024)
Pros
Cons
The Bottom Line
Acer’s Swift Edge 16 dazzles with its ultra-low weight and big, sharp OLED screen, but it needs a better keyboard and longer battery life.
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About Charles Jefferies
