Acer Swift 3 OLED (SF314-71) review

Acer tries to stay the cream of the crop in the mobile market by innovating. Their latest efforts with the eco-friendly Aspire Vero laptop are a statement of intent. However, you are not here to learn about the Vero, you want to hear everything we have to say about the Acer Swift 3 OLED (SF314-71).

You see, this laptop is more than just your ordinary Swift machine. In the past couple of years, the market has established itself as a very happy place for small powerhouses. As Acer itself, has found out with its Swift X series, people do like these devices, and there is definitely room for them.

Hence, you get the Swift 3 OLED (SF314-71). Ultimately, it sports a beast of a processor, with the most powerful offering being the Core i7-12700H. An Alder Lake CPU, which completely annihilates everything previously released from both Intel and AMD (and to some extent Apple too).

What is a bit disappointing is that you don’t get a dedicated GPU. On the other hand, there are two Thunderbolt 4 connectors, which allow you to attach an external GPU if you need one so badly.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/acer-swift-3-oled-sf314-71/

Contents


Specs Sheet

Acer Swift 3 OLED (SF314-71) - Specs

  • Samsung ATNA40YK07-0 (SDC4171)
  • Color accuracy  2.4  2.2
  • HDD/SSD
  • up to 4000GB SSD
  • M.2 Slot
  • 1x 2280 M.2 PCIe 4.0 x4 + 1x 2242 M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4  See photo
  • RAM
  • up to 16GB
  • OS
  • Windows 11 Home
  • Battery
  • 57Wh, 3-cell
  • Body material
  • Aluminum
  • Dimensions
  • 312.92 x 214.12 x 17.9 mm (12.32" x 8.43" x 0.70")
  • Weight
  • 1.40 kg (3.1 lbs)
  • Ports and connectivity
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps), Sleep and Charge
  • 2x USB Type-C
  • 4.0, Thunderbolt 4, Power Delivery (PD)
  • HDMI
  • 2.1
  • Card reader
  • Ethernet LAN
  • Wi-Fi
  • 802.11ax
  • Bluetooth
  • 5.2
  • Audio jack
  • 3.5mm Combo Jack
  • Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Web camera
  • FHD with Temporal Noise Reduction
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Microphone
  • Acer PurifiedVoice with AI Noise Reduction
  • Speakers
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot
  • Kensington Lock

All Acer Swift 3 OLED (SF314-71) configurations

#CommissionsEarned

What’s in the box?

Inside the package, there is only some paperwork, as well as a 100W USB Type-C charger.


Design and construction

First and foremost, the laptop is entirely made out of aluminum. It has a really strong lid. The same can be said about the body, apart from some squeaks when you twist it.

In addition, the Swift 3 OLED weighs only 1.40 kg, which is unprecedented for such a powerful option. It also features a profile of 17.9mm, making it on par with the rest of the Swift 3 family.

Of course, since it is equipped with an OLED panel, the surface is glossy. What is good, though is that all of the bezels are really thin. Above the display, you get a Full HD Web camera, using Acer’s Temporal Noise Reduction technology for better image processing. Furthermore, the microphones are treated with AI Noise Reduction.

By the way, the lid cannot be opened with a single hand, which is a bummer. On the other hand, once you pop it open and pass 90°, the backside of the base lifts up, which provides a higher airflow towards the fan.

Moving to the base itself, we can see a large opening at the top. This is part of the ventilation grill, which allows the warm air to exit the chassis. As you can see from the sticker right next to the power button, it doubles as a fingerprint reader. The keyboard is pretty good, with a bit of short key travel, but clicky and consistent key travel, and a backlight.

You can toggle between several performance modes by pressing the Function and “F” buttons simultaneously. By the way, the touchpad features a material called OceanGlass. It is not actual glass, but instead, it uses ocean-bound plastic waste and mimics glass in a brilliant manner. In fact, the surface is so smooth that we couldn’t differentiate it from glass. Also, the touchpad is pretty responsive, although the tracking needs some time of getting used to it.

So, the bottom panel houses the speaker cutouts, as well as the ventilation grill. It is where the cool air gets into the device.

Ports

On the left side of the notebook, you get two Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI 2.1 connector, and a USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port. Then, on the right, there is a Kensington security lock slot, another USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port, and an аudio jack.


Disassembly, upgrade options, and maintenance

To take this notebook apart, you need to undo all 10 Torx-head screws. Then, carefully pry the bottom panel with a plastic tool, starting from the front part of the device.

Inside, we see a 58.75Wh battery pack. It lasts for 14 hours of Web browsing, or about 9 hours of video playback. To take it out, unplug the connector and undo the two Phillips-head screws holding the battery in place.

Here, the memory is soldered to the motherboard. The maximum you can get is 16GB of quad-channel RAM, working at 4800MHz. Storage-wise, there are two M.2 PCIe x4 slots, one of which supports Gen 4 SSDs.

Last but not least, the cooling comprises two heat pipes, a long heat sink, and a fan. Thankfully, the VRMs are cooled by a heat spreader.


Display quality

Acer Swift 3 OLED (SF314-71) is equipped with a 90Hz OLED panel, Samsung ATNA40YK07-0 (SDC4171). Its diagonal is 14.0-inch (35.5 cm), and the resolution – 2880 x 1800p. Additionally, the screen ratio is 16:10, the pixel density – 243 ppi, and their pitch – 0.1 x 0.1 mm. The screen can be considered Retina when viewed from at least 36 cm (from this distance, the average human eye can’t see the individual pixels).

Viewing angles are comfortable. We offer images at different angles to evaluate the quality.

Also, a video with locked focus and exposure.

The maximum measured brightness is 422 nits (cd/m2) (HDR off) in the middle of the screen and 421 nits (cd/m2) as an average with a maximum deviation of only 1%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 6570K – virtually matching the 6500K temperature for sRGB.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective.
Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color-sensitive work (a maximum tolerance of 2.0 ). The contrast ratio here is incomparably better than that of the IPS and TN panels and is mathematically infinite.

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people on HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows Acer Swift 3 OLED (SF314-71)’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers 100% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976 and 100% of DCI-P3 providing a punchy and vibrant image.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc.

Below you can compare the scores of the Acer Swift 3 OLED (SF314-71) against the P3-D65 standards.

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale, and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 2 ms.

After that, we test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “Gray-to-Gray” method from 50% White to 80% White and vice versa between 10% and 90% of the amplitude.


Health impact – PWM / Blue Light

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

Unfortunately, Acer Swift 3 OLED (SF314-71)’s panel uses low-frequency PWM for brightness adjustment up until 95 nits. Afterwards, we detected small pulsations, which makes the display generally safe in this aspect (after 95 nits).

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin, and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Gloss level measurement

Glossy-coated displays are sometimes inconvenient in high ambient light conditions. We show the level of reflection on the screen for the respective laptop when the display is turned off and the measurement angle is 60° (in this case, the result is 164 GU).


Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for Acer Swift 3 OLED (SF314-71) configurations with a 14.0″ Samsung ATNA40YK07-0 (SDC4171) (2880 x 1800p) OLED panel.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount

Sound

Acer Swift 3 OLED (SF314-71)’s speakers produce a sound of good quality. Its low, mid, and high tones all have some deviations from clarity.


Drivers

All drivers and utilities for this notebook can be found here: https://www.acer.com/ac/en/ID/content/support-product/9378?b=1

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with the Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits, and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. Here, the 58.75Wh battery pack lasts for 14 hours and 17 minutes of Web browsing, or 9 hours and 10 minutes of video playback.


CPU options

This laptop is offered with the Core i5-12450H, Core i5-12500H, Core i7-12650H, or Core i7-12700H.


GPU options

This laptop can “only” be found with an integrated graphics card.


Gaming tests

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GOHD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Medium (Check settings)HD 1080p, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS152 fps112 fps73 fps

DOTA 2HD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings)HD 1080p, High (Check settings)
Average FPS153 fps96 fps53 fps

Temperatures and comfort

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average P-core frequency; Average E-core frequency; CPU temp.; Package Power

Intel Core i7-12650H (45W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
Acer Swift 3 OLED (SF314-71)3.17 GHz @ 2.69 GHz @ 89°C @ 79W2.66 GHz @ 2.45 GHz @ 94°C @ 56W2.09 GHz @ 1.98 GHz @ 85°C @ 35W
ASUS TUF Dash F15 FX5173.03 GHz @ 2.67 GHz @ 67°C @ 72W3.06 GHz @ 2.68 GHz @ 75°C @ 72W2.30 GHz @ 2.25 GHz @ 69°C @ 45W

After it’s off to a good start, the Swift 3 OLED (SF314-71) is quickly forced to drop the frequencies of its Core i7-12650H down. The main reason for that is temperature, and as you can see, at the end of the test, the TUF Dash F15 FX517 has built a quite sizeable lead.

Comfort during full load

While the single fan is a bit loud under extreme loads and gaming, the noise is still bearable. At the same time, the warmest spot on the keyboard is a bit higher than 40°C, which is pretty fine.


Verdict

Lads and lasses, we got ourselves a pretty solid little Acer here. The Swift 3 OLED (SF314-71) is a tiny powerhouse, which does a very good job for tasks such as photo-editing, and why not video editing too, with Intel’s latest efforts with Adobe.

Unfortunately, the high thermal demands of the processor mean that you won’t be able to extract the most out of it in long workloads. Another unfortunate fact about this machine is the lack of memory expansion. You only get a maximum of 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM. But on the bright side, there are two M.2 PCIe x4 slots, one of which can fit Gen 4 drives.

Acer Swift 3 OLED (SF314-71)’s OLED panel has a high resolution, comfortable viewing angles, and blazingly quick pixel response times. It covers 100% of the sRGB and DCI-P3 color gamuts, which results in a very vibrant image. Furthermore, the mathematically infinite contrast ratio means that all black levels that need to be displayed will be truly black.

Of course, the display is one of the main events here, but we also shouldn’t overlook the I/O. It packs two Thunderbolt 4 connectors, two USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) ports, an HDMI 2.1 connector, and an Audio jack.

In terms of usability, the touchpad is pretty good. Also, it is friendly towards the environment, as it uses the so-called OceanGlass material. It combines ocean-bound plastics to make a glass-like material with astonishing gliding qualities.

We also can’t forget to mention the 1080p Web camera with the Noise reduction capabilities of the included software. Furthermore, there is a fingerprint reader embedded right onto the power button.

So, what is the main use scenario for this laptop? Well, creators like photo editors will be pretty happy, as we said. Plus, the 14-hour Web-browsing battery life is pretty impressive if you ask us. Considering the powerful processor inside. For the next model, we would love to see better cooling, and if it’s not too much to ask – a dedicated GPU.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/acer-swift-3-oled-sf314-71/

Pros

  • Very fast in short loads
  • OceanGlass touchpad
  • Strong aluminum chassis
  • 100% sRGB and DCI-P3 coverage + HDR support
  • High resolution and 16:10 aspect ratio
  • Deep blacks and virtually infinite contrast ratio
  • 2x Thunderbolt 4 + HDMI 2.1
  • 90Hz refresh rate with fast pixel response times
  • 2x M.2 PCIe x4 (one with Gen 4 SSD support)


Cons

  • Uses PWM below 90 nits
  • Soldered memory
  • The powerful CPUs overwhelm the cooling

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