Acer Swift X SFX16-52G in review: a laptop that balances efficiency and performance

The Swift X appears sophisticated and, above all, robust in the hands. The keyboard frame and metal display cover ensure a good impression. However, the top can be pressed in a little too easily for our liking. The fact that the base is made of plastic is also immediately noticeable. The screen's bezel is a drawback, as its black plastic does not match the otherwise rather elegant look at all.

Overall, the housing is pleasantly firm. The display opens with slight resistance even one-handed and is difficult to deform. From an opening angle of 90°, the edge of the screen, which also has two feet, rests on the desk, which, in addition to a stable stand, also creates better conditions for the air supply.

Given the features and a screen diagonal of 16 inches, the weight is restrained at 1.8 kg, which is also due to a few too many plastic components. Thanks to pleasantly narrow screen edges, the laptop's housing is compact and should easily fit into many 15-inch notebook cases.

On paper, the Acer Swift X is one of the thinner devices in its class. That's exactly why we had to measure it several times. Instead of the 17.9 mm specified by Acer, we measure 21.3 mm at the rear and 20.1 mm at the front. The much better value that Acer claims is nowhere to be found. But maybe it's just a database error on their website.

Thunderbolt 4 x 2 may be highlighted in any case. The laptop can be charged using both ports. The maximum transfer rates of 40 Gbit/s also allow connection to high-performance peripherals. In addition, there is another special feature: the USB-A port on the left is always supplied with power. Even when the laptop is completely switched off, the port can be used, for example, for charging your smartphone.

Otherwise, thriftiness tends to prevail. Another USB-A connector on the right, as well as HDMI for the connection to the TV and an analog headset port, are all you get. There is no card slot or LAN port.

Comparatively high-quality video calls are possible thanks to the full HD resolution. What is striking, however, is the involuntary brightening effect, even with slight changes in the illumination. A cloud or turning on a lamp nearby is enough to trigger an unpleasant flickering. This is easy to see on our color comparison chart. The fields with a particularly significant color deviation are simply brightened by the camera, because it actually takes decent pictures.

At least the microphone is fully convincing. In the test, it picked up the voice with little distortion, almost regardless of which direction the voice came from and how far away the notebook was.

This way, the laptop will mainly handle everyday tasks at high speed with low power consumption. The graphics performance is primarily geared towards image and video editing. Games can also be played, but with severe restrictions in terms of details and resolution.

If you're looking for versatile customization options, you'll be searching in vain. The processor's power consumption is limited neither in energy-saving mode nor in battery mode. As usual, however, the maximum clock frequency drops in the absence of a power connection, which reduces the performance somewhat.

We performed all performance and benchmark tests with the "best performance" setting. The battery life, on the other hand, was tested with "best energy efficiency". As a rule, Windows selects these settings automatically.

From everyday tasks such as browsing, streaming or writing to ambitious editing of pictures and videos, the system does not present any weaknesses. Thanks to sufficient cores, the processor doesn't shy away from multitasking. At most, the Swift X takes a break now and then during complex tasks, including installation processes. In contrast, no delays are noticeable when dealing with the programs.

Graphically demanding tasks, on the other hand, push the rather small Intel Arc A370M graphics unit to its limits relatively quickly. The gaming scores are correspondingly weak, while the synthetic benchmarks for content creation, i.e., media editing, for example, are almost on par with other multimedia notebooks. As a rule, however, they use faster GPUs, which are always responsible for slightly higher ratings. In any case, an overall solid business notebook like the Lenovo ThinkPad T16 G1 with an identical processor can be clearly outpaced.