No, the Swift 5 didn’t totally obliterate the MacBook Air. Although the 12th Gen Intel Core i7 processor inside the Acer laptop edged out the M2’s capabilities, Apple’s chip has one killer 10-core GPU that makes casual, lightweight gaming more seamless on the MacBook Air. And yes, the M2 is a more power-efficient chip, allowing the MacBook Air to last more than 14 hours (compared to the Swift 5’s 11 hours). However, when it comes to raw performance and speed, the Swift 5 sits at the throne, making it a better laptop for content creators who resonate with the “Time is money!” cliche. Without further ado, allow me the demonstrate the ways in which the M2 MacBook Air can’t touch the new Acer Swift 5.
Processor performance
The M2 chip, Apple’s highly praised custom silicon SoC, was unveiled in June during the Worldwide Developers Conference. A successor to the M1 chip, Apple boasted that the M2 chip sports an eight-core CPU and 10-core GPU that is 18% and 35% faster, respectively. When we reviewed the M2 MacBook Air in early August, the Apple laptop blew its competitors out of the water, including the Dell XPS 13 and the HP Spectre x360 13. Next thing you know, while diving into a comparative analysis between the Swift 5 and the M2 MacBook Air, we discovered that the Acer laptop is better than the Apple notebook in many ways, which we weren’t expecting. What’s to blame for the Swift 5’s performance prowess? The 12-core Intel Core i7-1260P CPU inside it. The upper mid-range Alder Lake chip whooped the M2’s butt on the Geekbench 5.4 test, which measures simulates real-world tasks (e.g. PDF rendering, image compression, etc.). It notched an impressive multi-core score of 9,859 compared to the M2 MacBook Air’s 8,919. But wait, there’s more! The M2 is featured inside the 13-inch MacBook Pro, too. To ruffle some more feathers, it’s worth noting that the Acer Swift 5 also beat the 13-inch MacBook Pro’s Geekbench 5.4 multi-core score of 8,911. Oof!
System responsiveness
I hate to break it to Apple fans, but the Swift 5 continued to best the M2 MacBook Air on the CrossMark benchmark. It tests how well systems can excel in three categories: Productivity, Creativity, and Responsiveness. We’ll break down which real-world tasks CrossMark runs for each strata below. Productivity (Office-environment use case)
Word processingEditing documentsManipulating spreadsheet dataWeb browsing Archiving files
Creativity
Editing digital photosCataloging digital photosEditing digital video
Responsiveness
Opening filesSaving filesWriting files
In the Productivity benchmark, the Swift 5 beat the M2 MacBook Air with a score of 1,711 while the Apple notebook disappointed with a score of 1,384. When CrossMark ran the Creativity portion of the test, the Swift 5 delivered a score of 1,857, which edged out the Swift 5’s 1,842 score. Finally, when it comes to Responsiveness, the Swift 5 earned an impressive score of 1,710, slaying the M2 MacBook Air’s measly score of 1,063. Overall, the Swift 5 notched a CrossMark score of 1,772, crushing the M2 MacBook Air’s 1,507 score. The shock doesn’t stop there, though. The Swift 5 even beat the 13-inch MacBook Pro, which mustered an overall CrossMark score of 1,517. Womp, womp, womp!
Video transcoding
If you’re a content creator who often dives into video conversion workflows, you’re going to want to hear this! We put the Swift 5 and M2 MacBook Air to the test and tasked them with transcoding a 4K video to 1080p. The objective is simple: be the fastest at converting the footage. Using the Handbrake app, we tested the Swift 5 three times. Consequently, the Acer laptop took an average of 7 minutes and 35 seconds to complete the task. We did the same for the M2 MacBook Air; we tested it three times. It, on average, transcoded the video in 7 minutes and 52 seconds. In other words, the M2 MacBook Air is 17 seconds slower than the Swift 5. This may seem negligible, but in the grand scheme of things, if you’re a content creator who works with a large collection of videos everyday, that 17-second lull piles up, making it a significant disparity for consumers seeking faster workflows. Fortunately, making up for the Geekbench setback, the M2 MacBook Pro beat both the MacBook Air and the Swift 5 with a stellar score of 6 minutes and 51 seconds.
Display
While the M2 MacBook Air has a brighter display (489 nits vs. 457 nits), it’s worth noting that the Swift 5’s screen covers more of the DCI-P3 color gamut. The M2 MacBook Air, with a 13.3-inch, 2560 x 1664-pixel, Retina display, only covers 75.9% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. The MacBook Pro didn’t do so hot either; it only covers 78% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. Conversely, the Swift 5’s 14-inch, 2560 x 1600-pixel display covers a whopping 93% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. In other words, the Swift 5’s display offers a greater range of colors visible to the human eye. The wider the DCI-P3 color gamut, the richer the colors. When we look at the Delta-E color accuracy scores (closer to 0 is better), the M2 MacBook Air, with a score of 0.2, beat the Swift 5 (0.23). But what the heck is the 13-inch MacBook Pro doing with an awful score of 0.31? How dull!
Ports
Apple has always been stingy AF with ports. The M2 MacBook Air only has two Thunderbolt 4 ports and a headset jack. The M2 13-inch MacBook Pro has the same sad story. The Acer Swift 5, on the other hand, delivers a mix of legacy and modern I/O options, offering Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, a headset jack and a Kensington Lock.
Bottom line
As mentioned, the M2 MacBook Air is more power efficient than the Acer Swift 5. Plus, it delivers better graphics performance, but in all other benchmarks, the Swift 5 outpaced the Apple laptop. Hell, the Swift 5 even managed to beat the 13-inch MacBook Pro in many areas, too, except for the video transcoding test.
