Acer Adds More OLED Laptops With New Swift Go and Swift X
Battery life be damned!
- More than two decades experience writing about PCs and accessories, and 15 years writing about cameras of all kinds.
The new Swift Go comes in 14-inch (pictured) and 16-inch sizes.
There are going to be a lot of OLED laptops this year and Acer is doing its part to make that happen. At CES 2023, the PC manufacturer announced four new models in its ultraportable Swift line and all but one have an OLED display option.
Acer released two OLED laptops in 2022, the 14-inch Swift 3 OLED and the 16-inch Swift Edge. The new Swift Go 14 and 16 are thin-and-light laptops falling somewhat in between those models in size and weight. The Swift Go models are powered by 13th-gen Intel Core U- or H-series processors. The Go 14 will be available with AMD Ryzen 7000 series processors, too. The Swift Go 16 features a 16-inch 3.2K OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, while the Swift Go 14 has a 90Hz 14-inch 2.8K OLED display.
Also read: Best Gaming Laptops From CES 2023 So Far
Aside from the OLED displays, the design and features sound like a pretty standard premium laptop for work, school or home. That includes a 1440p webcam with enhanced video conferencing features like AI noise reduction, background blur and auto framing.
Acer Swift X 14.
If those sound good but you wish the 14-inch Go came with a discrete graphics option, Acer has the Swift X 14. It's slightly bigger and heavier than the Swift Go 14 but gives you the option of either Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 or 4050 GPUs. It is Intel-only with 13th-gen Intel Core H-series processors. It'll be offered with the same 14-inch 2.8K OLED display as the Swift Go 14.
OLED's appeal is understandable. Colors are vibrant, viewing angles are wider and contrast and brightness are great. Viewed side by side with an average laptop LCD and you can easily see the quality difference. They do generally add to the cost of a laptop, though. And, perhaps more importantly, they hurt battery life.
Also read: CES 2023's Top 10 Biggest Reveals: From a Shape-Shifting Screen to an Invisible Trackpad
If you're concerned with battery life, however, the Swift Go 14 and 16 and the Swift X 14 will be available with LCD options. Or you can choose the new Swift 14 with either a WQXGA (2,560x1,600-pixel) or WUXGA (1,920x1,200-pixel) touchscreen LCD covered with antimicrobial Gorilla Glass. It, too, will be running on Intel's 13th-gen Core H-series processors, it weighs 2.6 pounds (1.2 kilograms) and comes with other premium features from the Swift Go like Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports and a 1440p webcam.
The Swift 14 is expected to be available in March starting at $1,400, which converts to about £1,160 or AU$2,050. The Swift Go 14 is expected to be available in May starting at $850, while the Go 16 is expected to start at $800 in June. The Swift X 14 is expected in April starting at $1,100.