Acer Swift Go 14 AI Review: Long-Running Copilot Plus PC That’s Short on Style

7.5/ 10
SCORE

Acer Swift Go 14 AI

Pros

• Incredible battery life
• Crisp and bright 14.5-inch, 2.5K display
• Sharp 1440p webcam

Cons

• Drab design
• AI logo on touchpad is a bit much
• Awful audio output

The Acer Swift Go 14 AI is the lower-cost version of Acer’s mainstream Swift 14 AI thin-and-light laptop, but the two laptops are strikingly similar. Both lines feature basic but all-aluminum designs and a variety of fixed configurations with either Intel Core Ultra or Qualcomm Snapdragon X processors. Our Swift Go 14 AI test model (SFG14-01-X006) costs $1,000 and features a 14.5-inch, 2.5K IPS LCD powered by a Snapdragon X Plus processor. The Swift Go 14 AI is ever so slightly larger than the 14-inch Swift 14 AI I just reviewed, and yet the two laptops are nearly identical in weight and appearance. Each is a plain-looking, long-lasting, 3-pound laptop.

Given the similarities between the two, the cheaper Swift Go 14 AI is the better deal. Despite its lower price, it actually has the better display of the two. With an efficient Snapdragon X CPU, the Swift Go 14 also has better battery life than the Intel-based Swift 14 AI, but each can run all day and well into the night. While I prefer the Swift 14 Go AI to Acer’s pricier Swift 14 AI, it’s still not my favorite Copilot Plus PC. The Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 boasts a better build for the same price, and if you can stretch your budget further, the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 offers a superior overall design, including an awesome haptic touchpad.

The Swift Go 14 AI SFG14-01-X006 can be found at Acer and Best Buy for $1,000. I’ve yet to see it go on sale at Best Buy, but it’s been consistently discounted to $800 direct from Acer for the past two weeks while I’ve been working on this review. It features a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus X1P-42-100 CPU, 16GB of RAM, integrated Qualcomm Adreno graphics and a roomy 1TB solid-state drive for storage. The 14.5-inch IPS display features a crisp 2,560×1,600-pixel resolution and a smooth 120Hz refresh rate.

Acer also sells two previous-generation Swift Go 14 models with Intel Core Ultra processors for around the same price as our Qualcomm-based test system. They are based on slightly smaller 14-inch displays, but strangely, the lower-tier Core Ultra 5 model has a 2.8K OLED display, and the higher-end Core Ultra 7 model has a basic IPS display.

Our test model is the only Swift Go 14 AI currently available in the US. In addition to shifting from Intel to the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus CPU and expanding the display by half an inch, Acer is also making a concerted effort with this update to make sure you know it’s an AI laptop like pretty much every other laptop that’s been released this year. To drive that point home, Acer added “AI” to the end of the product name and an illuminated AI indicator to the touchpad. I’ll go into greater detail about the touchpad’s AI artwork later in the review, but I wanted to include a brief mention of it here because it’s useful to know if you are trying to navigate Acer’s confusing laptop lines. If you see a squiggly design on the touchpad, then you know it’s a model from Acer’s most recent update.

The Swift Go 14 AI starts at £849 in the UK and is not yet available for purchase in Australia.

Acer Swift Go 14 AI performance 

I have tested a handful of the new Snapdragon X-based Copilot Plus PCs featuring both the higher-end Snapdragon X Elite and lower-end Snapdragon X Plus chips. The Swift Go 14 AI features the eight-core Snapdragon X Plus X1P-42-100 CPU — two fewer cores than the 10-core Snapdragon X Plus X1P-64-100 in the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 and four fewer cores than either of the Snapdragon X Elite processors in the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 or HP OmniBook X 14.

With its lower-end Snapdragon X Plus CPU, the Swift Go 14 AI was fourth among this Qualcomm quartet on the Geekbench 6 multicore test. It also trailed a pair of Intel Core Ultra laptops in the HP Spectre x360 14 and Lenovo Slim 7i as well as the M3 MacBook Air on the test. The Swift Go 14 AI did a bit better on Cinebench 2024, but still finished behind the other three Qualcomm-based laptops. 

The Snapdragon X Plus X1P-42-100 also features an inferior integrated GPU compared with that of the Snapdragon X Elite and even the Snapdragon X Plus X1P-64-100. Its score on 3DMark Time Spy was well behind that of the other Qualcomm laptops. All of the Qualcomm systems are already at a disadvantage on this test because they must use emulation to run it, since an ARM-based version of the test has yet to be released. 

Unlike its deficiencies in CPU and GPU performance, the Swift Go 14 AI’s neural processing unit (NPU) is the same as you’ll find in the other Snapdragon X laptops. It’s a Qualcomm Hexagon NPU capable of 45 TOPS that’s designed to handle AI tasks without depleting CPU and GPU resources. (See our TOPS explainer for more on this AI metric.) 

On Procyon’s AI Computer Vision benchmark, it narrowly edged the other Snapdragon X laptop as well as two laptops with Intel’s latest Core Ultra Series 2 chips, the Acer Swift 14 AI and Asus Zenbook S 14. Acer may be overdoing the AI branding for the Swift Go 14 AI, but it did prove itself to be a capable and modern AI laptop. Just look at how much better its Procyon AI Computer Vision score is than the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Ultra, which has a previous-gen Core Ultra 9 processor. That’s a big leap from a first-gen Core Ultra processor from last year to this year’s Snapdragon X chips.

Battery life continues to be a strong suit for Qualcomm-based Copilot Plus PCs. The HP OmniBook X 14 still holds the title for the longest-running laptop we’ve tested in recent memory, with a runtime of more than 25 hours, but the Swift Go 14 AI is now second on the list. It ran for 23 hours, 13 minutes on our YouTube streaming battery drain test, which was two minutes longer than the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 lasted. It lasted exactly an hour longer than the Swift 14 AI, which features a Core Ultra 7 258V processor from Intel’s second-gen Lunar Lake family of chips.

The lights mean the AI is working!

The Acer Swift Go 14 AI won’t wow you with its looks or build quality. It’s a standard-issue aluminum shell in an ordinary dark gray color. There is some flex in the aluminum lid and aluminum keyboard deck, but not to a worrying degree. It just doesn’t feel as solid as the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7, Asus Zenbook S 14, Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 or Apple MacBook Air. 

Like the Swift 14 AI, the Swift Go 14 AI features plastic display bezels that give off budget vibes. I’m a little more forgiving of this design choice at the Swift Go 14 AI’s price of $1,000 (and even more so when it’s on sale for $800) than I am with the Swift 14 AI at $1,300. You get the same bezel treatment with the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441, which is also priced at $1,000, but it’s not nearly as sleek looking as the seamless displays with edge-to-edge glass that you get with the pricier Microsoft Surface Laptop 7, Asus Zenbook S 14 and MacBook Air. 

With its slightly larger 14.5-inch display, the Swift Go 14 AI is only slightly heavier than the 14-inch Swift 14 AI. Both weigh approximately 3 pounds, with the Swift Go 14 AI weighing a hair over that figure and the Swift 14 AI limboing just under. The 13.6-inch MacBook Air is lighter at 2.7 pounds, and the 14-inch Asus Zenbook S 14 with its Ceraluminum shell (a blend of ceramic and aluminum) weighs just 2.6 pounds. On the flip side, the 14-inch Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 is a bit heavier at 3.2 pounds, but that’s a tradeoff I’d make — toting around a few extra ounces for a more solid build.

The keyboard is merely average and has the same soft, shallow feel as the keys on the Swift 14 AI. The mechanical touchpad isn’t bad, with a quiet and firm click response, but it pales in comparison to the lively and customizable click response you get with Microsoft Surface Laptop 7’s haptic touchpad.

The headliner with the touchpad is the goofy design in the upper-right corner. Acer calls it an “AI Activity Indicator” and it’s a bit of marketing schlock to help the Swift Go 14 AI laptop stand out among the sea of today’s AI laptops. The logo illuminates in a little pattern for four seconds when you press the Copilot Plus key to call up Microsoft’s digital AI assistant. You can’t ignore it altogether because the logo is painted on the touchpad, but you can disable the lighting effect in the AcerSense app if you grow tired of the lighting effect.

The 14.5-inch IPS display is one of the Swift Go 14 AI’s strong points. Not only is it slightly roomier than the 14-inch Swift 14 AI’s, but it also has a higher resolution for a sharper picture and a higher 120Hz refresh rate for smoother movement in videos. Text and images looked crisp on the 2,560×1,600-pixel panel, and it proved to be plenty bright. It’s rated for 350 nits, but it tested higher than its brightness rating. Using a Spyder X Elite colorimeter, my display testing shows a peak brightness of 390 nits. The display also has wide viewing angles and a matte finish, which helps the display look great even when you aren’t seated directly in front of it. 

I also tested its color performance with the Spyder X Elite, and the Swift Go 14 AI did well for a $1,000 laptop. It covered 100% of the sRGB space but dropped on the larger color gamuts, hitting 79% of AdobeRGB and 80% of P3. 

While the display is a step above the average IPS panel, the speakers are average at best. The two downward-firing stereo speakers sound tinny and weak. 

One area where the Swift Go 14 AI has the advantage over the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 is with the webcam. It features a 1440p camera that will have you looking clearer on Zoom calls than the Dell’s 1080p cam. It also supports facial recognition for easy and secure Windows Hello logins, and a fingerprint reader integrated into the power button provides a second biometric login option.

The Swift Go 14 AI offers two USB-C 4 ports and two USB-A 3.2 ports but lacks the HDMI port you get with the Swift 14 AI. With one of the USB-C ports needed for charging the laptop (although with its incredible battery life, you won’t need to charge it with any great frequency), that leaves only one free USB-C port, which might not be enough if you want to connect to an external drive while also hooked up to an external display. 

Should I buy the Acer Swift Go 14 AI?

Well, I like its display and the runtime that exceeds 23 hours. And while Acer is heavy-handed with the AI marketing behind the Swift Go 14 AI, it is a capable AI laptop with a modern NPU that’s far more capable than that of the first generation of AI mobile processors. (I just don’t need a flashing logo on the touchpad to remind me of this fact.) With or without the touchpad’s AI logo, the Swift Go 14 AI doesn’t measure up to the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441, which offers an even brighter 2.5K display powered by a better Snapdragon X Plus processor inside a more solid enclosure for the same price.