Acer Switch 7 review in progress
What is the Acer Switch 7?
The Acer Switch 7 is a 2-in-1, Windows 10 convertible that features a 13.5-inch 2256 x 1504 touchscreen with stylus support.
A Wacom EMR stylus and a keyboard dock is included in the box – which, at a glance, makes the Acer Switch 7 a compelling alternative to the Surface Pro; the latter requires you to shell out extra for those two extra accessories.
What’s more, the review unit we’ve seen is the “Black Edition” (SW713-51GNP). With its new Surface Pro 6 range, Microsoft is mixing up its usual colourful livery with a new all-black look.
While I’ve yet to finish testing the Acer Switch 7, and so aren’t able to give a full verdict, here are my thoughts so far.
Acer Switch 7 – Design and features
At a glance, the Acer Switch 7 is a typical convertible – it’s a black tablet with a dark grey keyboard dock. Like many docks, the keyboard accessory snaps into place via some magnetic strips. This is strengthened by two plastic clips that help lock the dock into place.
Unlike many convertible tablets, the Switch 7 features a neat metal kickstand. The added weight makes for a very stable design. I can confirm that the Acer Switch 7 is particularly resistant to inquisitive cats who enjoy cuffing things off tabletops when they think you’re not looking.
Acer has built a fingerprint scanner into the bezel of the Switch 7. This works quickly – and if you want to bypass the usual rigmarole of inputting PINs, passwords or using Windows Hello (which uses facial recognition to unlock laptops) then it’s a real plus.
Two front-facing speakers are built into the tablet – one either side when the Switch 7 is docked or in landscape mode.
In terms of ports, you don’t get much on the Switch 7 – one USB-A, one USB-C, a 3.5mm headphone jack and a microSD card slot – but that’s normal for devices such as this.
Acer Switch 7 – Keyboard and trackpad
Compared to that of the Surface Pro, the keyboard dock you get with the Switch 7 is far roomier (although, since the Switch 7 is bigger, you’d expect it to be).
It’s generally easy to type on, too. Although the keys exhibit a slight wobble in places, they snap back nicely and – thanks to the heavy kickstand – you can confidently hammer away at reviews, reports, articles, or whatever you’re working on and you won’t see the Acer Switch 7 slowly get shunted across your desk.
I don’t like the fact that the arrow keys are both tiny and tucked away with the Home/Page Up and Page Down/End keys immediately above the left and right arrow keys. It’s far too easy to hit the wrong key here.
Admittedly, I had a similar issue with the Dell XPS 15 2-in-1’s keyboard layout to start. Over time, I’m confident that muscle memory will kick in, but it’s nonetheless frustrating at first.
A big plus is that the dock is backlit, so if you’re working late then it will be a little easier to see where everything is.
The trackpad is nicely sized. It’s about one third of the width of the dock wide. It has a rubberised coating that provides a bit of resistance when you’re swishing and swiping through menus. Some people might prefer a smoother trackpad; personally, I found that a degree of drag actually made it easier for me to navigate spreadsheets and web pages.
I typically find that most trackpads are too sensitive to use out of the box, so I invariably have to dive into the settings and dial things down a notch. Sensitivity is set to medium as standard on the Acer Switch 7, and that was fine for me.
Equally, the pad supports left and right clicks, but by default, to right-click on something, you have to tap the trackpad twice. Again, if you prefer a more old-school approach, changing this in the settings is easy.
Acer Switch 7 – Display
I haven’t had the opportunity to properly play with the stylus, so can’t comment on how good the Switch 7 is for digital art just yet. However, I can share the results of elementary colorimeter tests performed on the display.
I recorded maximum brightness levels of 380.17 nits with the X-Rite i1 Display Pro colorimeter on the Switch 7. That’s a good result – anything approaching 400 nits is plenty bright enough for writing, digital art and streaming media. Black levels were also impressive at 0.23, adding up to a fantastic contrast ratio of 1633:1.
As such, bright areas will look clear and brilliant; dark areas will look as they should, neither being flat nor washed out. Colour temperature was 7290K, higher/cooler than the 6500K ideal. I’ve not yet noticed any instances of blues looking unnatural or any warmer colours suffering as a result.
Colour gamut coverage was similarly decent. The Switch 7 maxed out 98.7% of the sRGB gamut, which will be of interest to digital artists.
Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 coverage was less impressive – I saw readings of 69.3% and 73.1% respectively, which makes this display not so ideal for intensive photo work. It’s common for laptop/tablet displays these days to cover more of the sRGB gamut than Adobe, so the Acer Switch 7 is by no means an outlier here.
The relatively underpowered MX150 GPU (compared to something like, say, an Nvidia GTX 1050) ought to give serious photographers pause anyway, so this perhaps isn’t a big deal.
The main takeaway point is decent brightness, high levels of contrast, combined with excellent sRGB coverage is good news for anyone wanting a tablet/laptop hybrid for sketching and drawing.
Acer Switch 7 – Performance
I’ve yet to finish testing the Switch 7, but here’s what I’ve recorded so far using basic benchmarking tools:
| Acer Switch 7 | Microsoft Surface Pro 6 | |
| PC Mark 10 | 2684 | 3309 |
| Geekbench 4 single-core | 3353 | 4080 |
| Geekbench 4 multi-core | 11,039 | 13913 |
Geekbench is designed to give you an at-a-glance idea of how well a device’s processor performs when subjected to stress tests. The higher the number, the better. Geekbench 4 sets 4000 as the baseline score for the single-core stress test, and 8000 for the multi-core test.
Looking at the results above, you can see that the single-core score of the Acer Switch 7 isn’t anything to shout home about. Not only is it below Geekbench’s own benchmark score, it’s also beneath what I saw on the 8th-gen Core i5 Surface Pro 6 – the Switch 7’s processor is an 8th-gen i7 CPU (i7-8550U).
The multi-core score fared a little better (11,039), but it’s still a little south of what I saw on the Surface Pro 6 (13,913).
PCMark simulates typical PC use cases such as program load times, web browsing, videocalling, gaming, word processing, spreadsheet busywork, and then spits out an aggregate score. On the Acer Switch 7, PCMark 10 recorded 2684. Again, this is below what I saw on the Surface Pro 6, which gave me 3309.
Day to day, I haven’t noticed any huge instances of instability or slowdown, but by “day to day” I mean doing my day job at Trusted Reviews, streaming something on Netflix, Now TV, or iPlayer in the evenings.
I need to test the Switch 7 further before logging a final verdict. Early scores suggest this isn’t a device for artistic work or even light gaming – but I might be surprised. For now, I can say that the Switch 7 is fine for basic work. But then again, if you want a laptop/tablet for basic work, there are other (cheaper) options available.
Acer Switch 7 – Battery
Powermark scores for the Acer Switch 7 aren’t great. With the screen’s brightness set to 150 nits, I used Powermark to simulate 10 minutes of browsing and five minutes of video streaming until the battery hit critical levels. I achieved 3hrs 33mins, which isn’t very good. I tested it again with the keyboard dock detached to see whether it made a significant difference; it lasted an extra 10 minutes.
The Surface Pro 6, tested under the same conditions, lasted 7hrs 55mins.
While the Switch 7’s battery hasn’t stood up well here, I’ve yet to see how it fares with long Netflix/iPlayer binges.
So far, I’ve been managing around 4-5 hours before power out when using the device just for writing with Spotify on in the background – again, with the brightness dipped to 150 nits (roughly equivalent to 30% brightness). That’s about standard for what I’d expect from a tablet such as this.
I haven’t really tested out the stylus yet, so I can’t say how much sketching time you’d get with the Switch 7.
While the Switch 7’s battery drains faster than the current value of Bitcoin falls, I’m happy to say that it charges back up pretty quickly. From an empty tank, expect to get 40% of juice after half an hour and 70% after 60 minutes. You’ll typically be able to fill the Switch 7 from empty after an hour and a half.
While you should never leave home without your mains adapter, you’ll especially want to keep an eye on the meter when using a Switch 7 on the go.
Acer Switch 7 – Specifications
| Acer Switch 7 (SW713-51GNP) | |
| Dimensions | 10 x 329.4 x 229.7mm/15.35 x 329.4 x 236.1mm (with the dock) |
| Weight | 1.6kg |
| Processor | Intel Core i7-8550U, base clock 1.8GHz |
| Memory | 16GB LPDDR3 |
| GPU | Nvidia GeForce MX150 |
| Storage | 512GB Serial ATA/600 |
| Display | 2256 x 1504, LCD with IPS (in-plane switching) |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi ac (IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac), Bluetooth 4.1 |
| Ports | USB-A, one USB-C, 3.5mm headphone jack, microSD card slot |
| Cameras and mics | Quad HD rear-facing camera, 720p HD front-facing camera |
Acer Switch 7 – First impressions
First impressions of the Switch 7 suggest that it’s unlikely to be a solid alternative to the Surface Pro 6 just yet. Build quality and design are excellent, but early benchmark scores and battery life prove underwhelming. I need to see how the stylus performs and weigh up the Switch 7’s ability as a tool for drawing and creating digital art.
The low Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 scores mean that photographers are likely to give this device a pass anyway.
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