48 PCWorld SEPTEMBER 2020REVIEWS ACER SPIN^3
on either side. Still, as I typically do, I wrote
this review on the Swift 3’s keyboard itself,
and it was reasonably comfortable.
Acer’s Precision trackpad fills most of the
available depth below the keyboard, with an
integrated fingerprint strip in the upper
lefthand corner. As a consequence, a good
chunk of the trackpad isn’t clickable. I’d prefer
the trackpad to be wholly devoted to
navigation, as there’s plenty of room
elsewhere for Acer to mount the reader. Also,
“strip” fingerprint readers typically aren’t as
accurate as a larger sensor or a user-facing
depth camera, which Acer presumably
skipped over for cost reasons. The Spin 3’s
reader worked fine, though (and Windows
asks you to set up a PIN and password asbackups, anyway).
Acer’s audio straddles the broad divide
between disappointing and excellent, and
that’s due to the default configuration. The
Spin 3’s dual speakers are “forward” (upward)
facing, and sounded a bit flat and tinny when I
started playing music. But Acer also bundles
the Spin 3 with the DTS audio enhancement
algorithm, which dramatically improves the
sound quality with a bit of fiddling. Acer also
claims the “TrueHarmony” paper-cone design
of its speakers improves the overall audio.
Never, ever turn DTS off, as the sound
then dissolves into an aural pile of garbage.
Even with DTS turned on, the speakers
sounded a bit faint. Using the custom audio
settings, however, I was quickly able to tune
the speakers
directionally
(“front” versus
“traditional” versus
“wide”) to come up
something that was
both appreciably
loud and pleasing
to my ears.
Acer’s Spin 3 also
includes “Purified
Voice,” the name
Acer gave its far-field
mic technology
when it added it to
the Spin 5 in 2018.
While that deviceThe Spin 3’s fingerprint reader, though not perfect, worked very well. Its
trackpad is quite spacious, too.