Acer Swift X 14 2023 OLED review - The multimedia laptop with an RTX 4050 is only impressive on paper

Compared to last year's Swift X 14, Acer have completely revamped its case. The shape of the aluminum case is straighter and in total, the gray laptop looks a little more stripped-back. Of course, there are always some accents - the black keyboard and screen frame differ a little in color from the rest. The only annoying thing is all the sponsored stickers on the base unit. The case tapers at the sides, leading to an overall slimmer appearance. The bezels are also very slim, so all-in-all, the device looks quite modern. Fingerprint marks don't seem to be a big issue on the laptop's smooth surfaces.

The base unit is nice and stable - only a considerable amount of pressure applied to the keyboard makes it bend slightly. The lid is a little more flexible, but thanks to its OLED panel, the screen shows no image errors. Both of the hinges do their job well - you can easily open the laptop with one hand and they prevent the lid from wobbling effectively. Its maximum opening angle is about 135 degrees.

At 4 mm tall, its back foot is a little higher than average, meaning that the laptop sits at a bit of an angle. The Swift X 14 is the thickest of all the comparison devices and the same can be said for its footprint. Its weight of around 1.53 kg is average. Its compact 100-watt power supply weighs an additional 365 grams, which you should factor in when carrying the laptop with you.

The laptop's connectivity options include everything important: the usual USB-A ports as well as modern USB-C connections including Thunderbolt 4 support. Although, we weren't able to connect an external monitor to the Swift X 14 via the USB-C port - instead, we had to use its HDMI port. As a result, its Nvidia GPU is constantly active, leading to an unnecessary increase in power consumption in everyday use.

Compared to its predecessor, the new Acer model has been equipped with a microSD card reader which achieved transfer rates of 80-85 MB/s using our reference card (Angelbird AV Pro V60).

The 1080p webcam can still achieve decent pictures in good lighting conditions. In addition, an IR module is installed that enables facial recognition via Windows Hello.

Acer offer various performance profiles (Silent, Normal, Performance, Turbo) which you can select via the key combination Fn+F or through the quick-start software. However, it has to be noted that you have to first know that this software even exists - presumably, most people won't utilize it at all. We used the Performance mode for our benchmarks and measurements, as it constitutes the best compromise between performance and noise emissions. 

Aside from updating to a current Raptor Lake processor from Intel, Acer have taken a step further: instead of using the P chip which could be found in the old model, this new version of the Swift X 14 uses the 45-watt processor Core i7-13700H. This processor features two additional performance cores, however, its cooling was a little overwhelmed at times and the laptop only managed to keep to its maximum TDP of 80 watts for a short period of time. After a short while, its consumption dropped to 40 watts and in the later course, it only consumed 20 watts at times. All-in-all, the new Swift X 14 is only a little bit faster than its predecessor under continuous load, and its competitors did much better in this aspect, too. Its Core i7-13700H is, of course, fast during short periods of load, but this takes its toll on its cooling unit.

In battery use, the processor is allowed to consume a maximum of 29 watts, which is why its multi-core performance was around 30 % worse off. Further CPU benchmarks can be found here.

Subjectively, the Swift X 14 performs very well, which isn't that big a surprise due to its quick components. To be fair, you do have to note that the same can be said for virtually any modern multimedia laptop and in everyday use, you likely won't be able to notice that big a difference between each model.