Acer Swift Edge Laptop Has a Beautiful 16-Inch OLED, Weighs Next to Nothing

The Acer Swift Edge is light enough that you’ll question whether you packed it in your bag when you leave for work or class. It weighs just 2.6 pounds (1.2 kilograms) and is only 14 millimeters (0.6 inch) thick. It’s a weight you might expect for a small 13-inch laptop and not one with a big 16-inch screen like the Swift Edge. 

Like those of other PC-makers, many of Acer’s laptops for 2022 are designed for people who might be working from home, the office or a little of both.

And maybe a coffee shop or on a plane, bus or train some of the time, too. Although the Swift Edge’s 16-inch display requires extra table space compared to something like a Dell XPS 13, it’s remarkably compact. I had no problem using it on a cramped commuter train and being able to quickly slip it into my backpack at my stop was great. 

Acer Swift Edge SFA16-41 laptop open on a wood table.

Two USB-C ports, two USB-A ports, a full-size HDMI 2.1 output and a combo headset jack give you plenty of connection options.

Josh Goldman/CNET

Made from a magnesium-aluminum alloy, the Swift Edge is strikingly similar to LG’s Gram 16.

The Acer is slightly slimmer and weighs a touch less, though. For however much I love how light it is, the Swift Edge’s weight is a double-edged sword.  Despite wanting lighter-weight devices, there’s a point where a laptop gets too light and it’s perceived as cheap or flimsy.

The alloy used for the chassis is twice as strong as normal aluminum, Acer says. There’s a little flex in the lid, but overall the Swift Edge feels rigid. Regardless, it’s difficult not to equate weight with sturdiness and some will feel like the Swift Edge is flimsy or plasticky. 

The first configuration available in the US, model SFA16-41-R7SU, is £1,500 and well-equipped for office or school use. 

  • 2.7GHz AMD Ryzen 7 6800U processor
  • Integrated AMD Radeon graphics
  • 16GB LPDDR5 onboard memory  
  • 1TB PCIe Gen 4 NVMe solid-state drive  
  • Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2

This model is available in the US from Costco only at the moment. The same configuration will be available in the UK for GBP1,499. Pricing and availability weren’t immediately available for Australia, but the UK price converts to roughly AU£2,610.

The price includes a 16-inch (16:10) 4K (3,480×2,400 pixel) OLED display with 400-nit brightness and 100% DCI-P3 color gamut. The display is also VESA True Black HDR500 certified with a peak brightness of 616 nits with HDR on. 

Acer Swift Edge SFA16-41 laptop open on a wood table.

The keyboard falls short compared to the rest of the Swift Edge.

Josh Goldman/CNET

The Swift Edge will eventually be available with an AMD Ryzen Pro 6000 U-series processor. The AMD Pro processors have a Microsoft Pluton security chip embedded in them for chip-to-cloud protection for your data and identity.

Based on the security architecture used in the Xbox One game console, Pluton adds better protection against physical attacks as well as firmware attacks, as it gets regular firmware updates as part of Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday. We’ve just started testing the Acer Swift Edge, so we’ll be back with a full review with benchmark and battery test results. Based on the test results Acer supplied, it competes with similar laptops we’ve tested running on an Intel Core i7-1280P with 16GB of DDR5 memory.

Battery life with the display brightness at 50% is expected to be up to around 10 hours; OLED displays in general are not good for battery life and this one doesn’t look like an exception. 

Acer Swift Edge SFA16-41 laptop open on a wood table.

The hinge design uses the bottom edge of the lid to lift the rear for better cooling and typing. 

Josh Goldman/CNET

The rest of the Acer Swift Edge is pretty good, too. There’s a fingerprint reader on the power button. The speakers across the top above the keyboard pump out audio loud and clear.

Acer put in a 1080p webcam capable of sharp, detailed video even in less-than-ideal lighting. There’s no webcam shutter, physical or electronic, but there is a mic mute on the keyboard.  The keyboard is the weakest part of the laptop so far.

A few of the keys are smaller than I’m used to seeing on a laptop this size. They also felt slightly off, as if a few of them were higher than the rest. It could just be that I have an early production sample or a symptom of having such a thin base beneath it.

The touchpad, on the other hand, generally felt good, with a pleasingly smooth finish. It has an antimicrobial coating, too.  If you’re tired of working on a small laptop screen but don’t want to lug around a bulkier, heavier laptop to have a bigger display, the Acer Swift Edge solves that problem.

And it has a beautiful OLED screen to boot.

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