When it debuted last week, I couldn't let the Acer Swift Go 14 laptop go unnoticed. After all, its predecessor spent most of 2024 as Laptop Mag's #1 budget laptop in our best laptops buying guide.
On January 6, at CES 2025 in Las Vegas, Acer unveiled the updated Swift Go 14, which I had the opportunity to try out.
There are some slight design changes — including an interesting touchpad augmentation that I'll address later. But coupled with a few upgrades inside, it should be one of the sub-$1,000 laptops to beat again in 2025.
Thinner and lighter with some new flare
The Acer Swift Go 14 weighs just 2.9 pounds this year, down from 3.1. This may not sound like much, but every ounce counts when you lug a laptop everywhere. It's also slightly thinner, tapering to just 0.4 inches at its thinnest points. You'd have to have them side-by-side to tell the difference, but it's there.
While the exterior retains the same silver colorway as last year, it adds some much-needed flourish with angular lines crossing the lid and a "Swift" logo in the upper right corner. It's not the flashiest design, but it's a far more dynamic look while retaining minimal elegance that should appeal to a broad spectrum of people.
Contextual touchpad controls
Acer designers added some new features to the touchpad this year, including contextual touch controls.
These include playback and volume controls for watching videos and meeting controls for quickly muting your mic or disabling your video during a call.
While it's not the sort of feature that would single-handedly convince me to buy this laptop, it's a welcome extra on what I expect to be an excellent laptop.
Blessedly, the touchpad retains its accurate navigation and solid touch-and-click response, so quality wasn't sacrificed for this add-on.
Acer Swift Go 14 specs, price, and release date
The Acer Swift Go 14 comes with up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 285H (Arrow Lake) CPU and Intel Arc Graphics. The 14-inch display starts at a 1920 x 1200 IPS touch panel but can be upgraded to OLED at the same resolution or bumped up to 2880 x 1800.
If you are looking to push the capabilities of the Swift Go 14, you can get up to 32GB of RAM and up to a 1 TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD.
Ports include a pair of Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports, two USB Type-A ports, an HDMI 2.1 port, and a microSD card reader. Finally, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 ensure future-proof wireless connectivity.
The Acer Swift Go 14 will ship in May at $899, while the 16-inch model will arrive in April and start at $949. Both the 14" and 16" models see a $100 increase over last year's starting price, so Acer is edging into slightly more competitive territory.
What's next?
I didn't encounter any concerns with the hardware during my time with the Acer Swift Go 14, so the remaining questions will depend on our lab testing and more meaningful time spent with the final shipping hardware when we get a review unit later this year.
Battery life is the biggest question for this updated laptop. It was our most significant complaint about last year's model, which lasted only 8 hours and 25 minutes.
Eight and a half hours wasn't too far short of our battery standards at this time last year, but the second half of 2024 was game-changing for battery life because AI PCs, with their system-on-a-chip CPUs, debuted in the summer. Because so much processing happens directly on those chips, battery life is longer because other laptop components don't come into use and use power.
Intel Arrow Lake chips are being marketed as using less laptop power, which could mean the new Swift Go 14's battery lasts longer between charges. However, this sleek-looking new laptop could suffer if its battery life doesn't significantly improve. Laptop Mag's battery test will be among the most interesting tests we run on this new laptop when we get it in our lab.
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