Laptops are funny things. There is so many to choose from these days, and in terms of what they do, they are intrinsically linked to our everyday life. Whilst they all perform relatively the same function, it’s important to really choose the one that does what you need.

As a recent returnee to University, I looked at the Acer Swift 5 in the aspect of a student, and let me tell you, it’s a godsend in that aspect. Straight out of the box, the first thing I noticed is how incredibly light it is, the box itself is heavier than the laptop. It only weighs around 1kg, but it packs a lot into that small space.

The weight was a relief, because it meant that carrying it around all day, it wasn’t straining on my back, making it perfect for everyday use on the go, be that as a student, or in a workspace. The 14-inch screen is sufficient, and actually appears slightly larger due to the 90% screen-to-body ratio. The Antimicrobial Corning Gorilla Glass used for the screen is almost a necessity in this day and age. It allows for you to be free of stress about potential bacteria on the screen, and remains stain free, a huge positive with a touchscreen.

Whilst it comes standard with a traditional power charger for the battery, which I personally prefer, it also has a USB-C slot available. I personally am not a fan of giving up a USB slot for charging, so allowing for the AC style, alongside the USB-C was a bonus to me, but this will differ depending on personal preference. More and more people are preferring USB-C as their method of charging their laptop, and we may see this become standard progressing forward.

Problematically, the lightness and size of the laptop is also restrictive in this sense. There is only 2 USB slots available, one more if you don’t intend to use the USB-C for power, for students, this may pose a problem. Whilst the trackpad is sufficient, I prefer to have a mouse plugged in, as well as external hard-drive for files. Only having 2 available, meant that if I needed to use another USB slot, I would have to invest in a USB bank of some kind, or forsake one of my current plugged in devices. This may not be a problem for everyone, but it’s something worth noting.

Let’s get into some of the nitty-gritty here. Namely the trackpad and the keyboard. I am a person who tends to press quite hard on the keys, and despite my best efforts to be light on the trackpad, I found myself regularly having pressure issues. Whilst these can solved with some internal configuring, for a heavy fingered individual, you may find yourself regularly dragging windows around, or clicking on something you didn’t mean to. It’s not a huge problem, but one that may result in you feeling the need to always use an external mouse. In terms of the keyboard, it’s about what you would expect. The use of a keyboard button for a power button is somewhat strange, and I found at times I couldn’t work out if the laptop was out of juice or if I needed to hold it longer. The lack of an LED display on the button itself is frustrating at times.

They keys themselves are quite responsive, and the layout shouldn’t result in you needing to shift your hands too much from a standard keyboard layout. The keys are loud, really loud. Lighter typing will reduce the sound, but when you find yourself tapping away furiously, you’ll notice how much clacking comes out of the keys. Whilst this may not bother you personally, it may be an important thing to note if you intend to use it in a shared environment. The backlight on the keys is somewhat helpful in darker spaces, but I never really found it that useful. But for those who aren’t touch typists and may need to occasionally use the laptop in a dark space, the backlighting on the keys should come in handy there.

Impressively, the time from boot to login was approximately 2 seconds, I was amazed at how quickly I was able to get into things. Things are starting quicker and quicker these days, but from power press to login, the Acer Swift 5 really shines. Once in, you are met with a rather vivid colour display and will be pleasantly surprised with how good the screen really is. As a person who likes to game, I tried to see what I could get out of the Swift 5. Unfortunately, if you’re looking for anything more than a Runescape machine, you may be better off looking elsewhere. Whilst the GeForce MX350 is a serviceable enough card, it is only an entry-level one. You’ll be fine to run most games on a mid to low setting, and games like Runescape and League of Legends should perform adequately. But you won’t be running Cyberpunk or Warzone on the Swift 5.

However, that just lends itself to a very smartly designed machine as well. The Swift 5 was clearly designed for the everyday general user, be it a student, an office work, general admin and so forth. In this it does its job perfectly. The battery life was surprisingly adequate. Full use gave me a solid 12 hours of use before I needed to charge, with reduced usage hitting around 17, and I found I could leave it in sleep mode for three to four days and lose less than 10% battery over that time.

The internal speakers are located under the laptop, and for the most part, I didn’t find that they were muffled too badly. There was an evident difference in audibility when I lifted the laptop up off a surface, but generally they were pretty decent for an internal speaker built into the underside. Even more thankfully, the cooling system runs pretty silently, so the speakers aren’t competing over the sound of fans. There is multiple cooling modes available, and you can toggle them rather easily with a keyboard shortcut, but I never found that it got too hot, so the default setting was plenty. It ran quiet and stayed pretty cool.

Finally, the in-built webcam is not the best, but it’s serviceable. For Zoom calls, or long-distance family calls with friends, it will do the job. Slightly pixelated, but nothing too problematic.

The Acer Swift 5 is an all-round solid product. Whilst it doesn’t excel in a particular area, it has been well designed with the idea of an all day, every user type design. It’s a laptop that should really be considered by anyone looking at a general workspace tool, or a student needing something light and easy to use for their day-to-day study. The lightness and slim size is a huge positive, even if to does result in some usability issues. The Acer Swift 5 definitely is worth a look.