Acer Swift Edge 16 (2024) Review

I loved the Acer Swift Edge 16 when it appeared in late 2023. It was a smart-looking, 16-inch ultraportable that oozed quality. The ‘new’ model is mercifully identical in many ways, but it’s got refreshed internals. A bunch of attractive, ultraportable, rivals have appeared since we first saw it so, how does the latest model hold up in the modern market?

Acer Swift Edge 16 Specs

Features, Ergonomics and Design

Acer’s Swift Edge 16 is a 16-inch black ultraportable laptop that weighs an impossibly light 1.25KG. The black, metal chassis looks very smart and does a good job of fending off fingerprints. The small Acer moniker on the lid isn’t brash and the whole laptop oozes a sophisticated, understated cool.

Opening the Swift Edge 16 up reveals the 16-inch, glossy OLED screen and a touch-type, Scrabble-tile keyboard with white backlighting. It’s very smart.

The screen has a UHD 3,200 x 2,000 resolution and, being an OLED, its colours are bright and vibrant and blacks are true black.

This is largely down to the Edge 16 supporting Windows’ HDR which, when activated, produces sublimely smooth, colourful and monochromatic transitions and outstanding contrast that reveals previously hidden details in bright and dark areas alike. The way in which bright lights seem to shine out of the screen, is exactly what makes content on OLED TVs feel so immersive. The only downside is the usual OLED problem of turning into a dark mirror during dark scenes.

The display also has a fast 120Hz refresh rate (which can drop down to 60Hz when prolonging battery life). This, in conjunction with the fast pixel response time, keeps fast moving objects impressively sharp to the point where some FPS shooters would approve. It also supports 100 per cent of the tricky DCI-P3 colour space to please Creators. Whatever you’re using it for, it’s excellent.

Above the screen is a 1,440p webcam that does a good job of retaining a sharp image in low light. Weirdly, though, it’s not Windows Hello compatible (there’s no fingerprint reader either).

Ai assists with the twin-microphone array. We spoke softly while a background child was instructed to make a loud noise and it was almost entirely removed by the Swift Edge 16, leaving very clear vocals.

The (unspecified) twin speakers are also impressive. Despite the thin-and-light chassis, they offer good fidelity from top to bottom and there’s even enough bass to round-out the sound – whether you’re web-conferencing, watching a movie, or listening to music.

The keyboard is very comfortable and accurate to type upon thanks too its low-travel keys which have just the right amount of firmness. The two-stage, white backlighting might not be the strongest, but it’s functional. There’s a thin number pad at one end and our only annoyance is having squished up-and-down arrow keys.

The trackpad is smooth and accurate and the buttons are well-weighted and only slightly clicky.

All in all, Acer’s Swift Edge 16 is a joy to interact with.

Connectivity & Ports

Inside there’s Bluetooth 5.1 and Wi-Fi 6E. It’s a very good collection of connectivity.

Features, Ergonomics and Design Score: 4.5 / 5

Performance

Everything so far has been identical to the 2023 model but the processor is more-modern. Sorta. The 3.3 – 5.1GHz Ryzen 7 7840U processor with its eight cores and 16 threads has been replaced by the 3.3 – 5.1GHz Ryzen 7 8840U processor which also has eight cores and 16 threads. It still has integrated Radeon 780M graphics with its 12 cores that can operate at 2.7GHz. It’s also still flanked by 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM but the 512GB NVMe hard drive has grown to 1TB.

So, what’s the difference between the old and the new processor? One is newer, it seems. And… that’s about it. There’s a deeper dive on this here. However, it boils down to the 7840U processor using AMD Zen 4 (Phoenix) architecture versus the 8840U’s AMD Zen 4 (Hawk Point) architecture which is a ‘repackaged‘ version of the former. So, I’m basically re-reviewing the exact same Acer Swift Edge 16 from 2023. Great. At least we get to update everything using our latest laptop tests.

Because we’ve done all this before, I’m just going to list all the benchmarks and their scores. However, to spice things up I’ll add the previous results as a comparison between the 7840U and the 8840U, where possible. Just to remind people, a score of 1 is the slowest score we’ve seen in the current market while a score of 5 is the fastest.

General Computing & CPU Tests

In our tests, the increase in performance with the 8840u is minor. The Nanoreview testing above showed the opposite, so it might come down to the quality of the chip that’s used in your particular laptop (or something like a slightly superior hard drive).

Either way, for an ultraportable, the Acer Swift Edge 16 still offers impressive performance for occasional, casual rendering and image editing tasks. But, you wouldn’t want to use it for heavy workloads every day.

General Computing & CPU Score: 3 / 5

Graphics & Gaming Performance

AMD didn’t bother renaming the integrated 780M Radeon GPU, so I wasn’t expecting much of a change in the following (gaming) test scores.

Gaming Benchmarks

I also had the chance to run the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 benchmark. Using the default settings, the Acer Swift Edge 16 averaged 40fps with the lowest one per cent of frames (1% Low score) averaging 30fps. That’s just about playable but it’s rendered as a hot mess, as the high-resolution screen and low resolution rendering isn’t a sensible combo. Using the competitive ‘Minimum’ settings at a Full HD resolution (which competitive players will use) it averaged 89fps with a 1% Low average of 67fps. That’s very playable.

Ultimately, while it’s not a gaming machine, the Acer Swift Edge 16 is not without capabilities in this regard for casual and competitive types of games.

Graphics & Gaming Performance Score: 1.4 / 5

Cooling

Cooling comes via two fans and a venting system which draws air through the keyboard. It generally does a good job of keeping the laptop cool but it can still get warm when under sustained load. The fans are usually near silent but can be forced into a low whoosh in ‘Performance’ mode.

When I ran the 30-minute version of Cinebench R23, the score actually increased, so there’s no thermal throttling at play. This is an efficient mobile processor.

Portability & Battery Life

Acer’s Swift Edge 16 is just 15mm thick and only weighs 1.25KG (just 10g more than its predecessor). Note, though, that the phone-style charger is gone and the new power brick and cables add 306g to the mix. Still, it’s still very light for a 16-inch laptop.

Impressively, despite being lightweight, it feels very rigid and robust. The chassis is solid and the lid barely flexes when a twisting force is applied. The hinge (which almost folds down flat) is also strong and stops the big screen wobbling too much. I expect it to survive life on the road.

There’s a 65Wh battery inside (up from 54Wh). I struggled to test the previous model’s battery but the new model ran our PCMark 10 Modern Office benchmark for 9 hours 15 minutes and our UL Procyon Microsoft Office benchmark for 9 hours 6 minutes. That’s just about more than a full day out of the office, but it’s worth remembering that Intel and Snapdragon-based rivals are pushing past 20 hours nowadays.

Portability & Battery Life Score: 3.3 / 5

Price and Value

The availability of Acer laptops has been haphazard since COVID but, at the time of going to press, our review unit (SKU: SFE16-44-R7QH) had an RRP of $2,499 but, at the time of going to press, can be found for $1,798. That’s attractive for a high-quality 16-inch ultraportable and enough to temporarily push the value score to 4.8 / 5 in the current sales, so don’t wait around if you want one.

Value Score: 3.2 / 5

Conclusion: Should you buy the Acer Swift Edge 16?

Despite essentially being more-than a year old, the Acer Swift Edge 16 holds up very well in the modern laptop market. Only its battery life is looking a little long in the tooth. Ultimately, if you want a 16-inch ultraportable, it’s hard to beat, especially if you can find it in the current sales.

Awards

Last Updated on 26 April 2025 by Nick Ross