It wasn’t too long ago that the phrase “OLED laptop” implied a luxury product. But, over the past few years, that tide has slowly begun to shift. Samsung has begun mass-producing OLED panels for more portable form factors. And while they’re still not exactly commonplace, we’ve begun to see sub-$1,000 OLED devices trickle onto shelves.
But Acer made an announcement today that should make folks who want to see more affordable, accessible OLED (like myself) very excited. The Acer Swift 3 — hailed by many outlets, The Verge included, as one of the best student laptops on the market — is getting an OLED screen. This doesn’t sound like one of those cheaper FHD OLEDs you sometimes find on ultraportables, either. It’s going to have 2.8K resolution and cover 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut, by Acer’s estimate.
A starting price of $899.99 means the Swift 3 won’t be the cheapest OLED laptop on the market (and that is a higher starting price than the Swift 3 has had in the past), but it does seem likely to be one of the most affordable OLED 14-inchers you’ll see this year. The base model will be a few hundred dollars cheaper than the flashier OLED notebooks we’ve seen recently and will present a new option for shoppers in the sub-$1,000 range who don’t want to compromise on screen quality.
Elsewhere, the Swift 3 OLED contains 12th-Gen Intel Core H-series processors with up to 16GB of LPDDR5 memory. It weighs just 3.09 pounds, and Acer is claiming 10 hours of battery life. The device is expected to be available in July in the US / EMEA and in China in May.
Acer’s convertible Spin 3 and Spin 5 have also been outfitted with 12th-Gen Intel processors. The higher-end, 14-inch Spin 5 has a 2560 x 1600 panel and up to 16GB of memory LPDDR5 and supports Acer’s Active Stylus. Acer says new cooling upgrades will increase performance “by up to 75 percent” over the 11th-Gen model. The Spin 3 (also a 14-incher) has an FHD screen and also supports the Active Stylus. The Spin 5 hits shelves in July with a starting price of $1,349.99 while the Spin 3 hits shelves in August in the US and in June in the EMEA with a starting price of $849.99.
Source: https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/18/23106191/acer-swift-3-oled-spin-5-computex-price-specs-features