PC World - USA (2021-01)

40 PCWorld JANUARY 2021

REVIEWS ACER SWIFT 5 (2020)

As for the display itself, it offers a peak

brightness of 350 nits, which is just a little

above average at a time when we’re seeing

premium laptops with 500-nit panels and

Dolby Vision HDR. To my eye, it also doesn’t

offer quite enough contrast out of the box,

necessitating a few tweaks in Intel’s Graphics

Command Center software. It’s not a bad

display overall, but

we expected better

from a laptop at this

price point.

KEYBOARD

AND

TRACKPAD

Although it only

weighs 2.31 pounds,

the Acer Swift 5 is

thick enough to have

room for a solid

keyboard. There’s a

teeny bit of wobble

around the edges of

each key, but they give

off a satisfying bump

and have a decent

amount of travel. The

laptop’s sturdy chassis

keeps the keys from

feeling mushy when

pressed all the

way down.

The sole nitpick here

is with the Swift 5’s number-lock key, which

turns the right side of the keyboard into a

number pad when pressed. It could be a

handy feature for the Excel wizards among us,

but because the number lock key has no

indicator light, some folks might get tripped

up if they press it by accident.

The trackpad, meanwhile, is typical of

The Swift 5’s hinge lifts up the keyboard when it’s resting on a flat surface.

Press the number-lock key, and you’ll get access to a numeric keypad.