Acer Swift 5 (2020): This MacBook Air alternative plays Fortnite

Now that Apple’s M1 chip has raised the bar for lightweight laptop performance, there’s a question every ultraportable PC maker must address: Why would someone buy this instead of a MacBook Air?

Well, here’s an answer for the new Acer Swift 5: It’s fast enough to play Fortnite and a bunch of other games that are absent from Apple’s platform, but it still weighs only 2.3 pounds and gets stellar battery life for work or web browsing. It also has a touchscreen and a bunch of useful ports, including HDMI out and USB-A, none of which you’ll find on Apple’s thin-and-light Air.

That’s not to say it’s any cheaper. With a starting price of $1,000 (and $1,300 on Amazon for our review unit), the Acer Swift 5 is very much a premium ultraportable PC. But with no huge flaws and lots of upsides, it’s well worth putting on your short list.

SPECS AND FEATURES

The $1,300 Acer Swift 5 model we tested (SF514-55TA-74EC) has the following specifications:

11th-gen Intel Core i7-1165G7