When comparing Surface Book vs Acer Swift 3 SF314-51-57CP, the Slant community recommends Surface Book for most people. In the question“What are the best laptops for business?” Surface Book is ranked 6th while Acer Swift 3 SF314-51-57CP is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose Surface Book is:
Surface Book has a detachable, 13.5”, 3000x2000, 10 point multi-touch PixelSense display. It has good viewing angles, color reproduction and strong, 1700:1 contrast ratio.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Great touch display
Surface Book has a detachable, 13.5”, 3000x2000, 10 point multi-touch PixelSense display. It has good viewing angles, color reproduction and strong, 1700:1 contrast ratio.
Pro Versatile design
It can be used as a standard touch laptop, the hinge allows it to be used in a tent configuration and the screen can be detached from the rest of the body to be used as a standard tablet.
Pro Good trackpad
The Surface book has a large, accurate 5-point multitouch trackpad.
Pro Zero bloatware
Pro Comes bundled with a great stylus
The stylus can be magnetically attached to the side of the screen.
Pro Great key spacing
Microsoft's years of experience creating keyboards are noticeable in the keyboard's layout as keys are spaced in a way that will be intuitive to most users.
Pro Great laptop battery life
Laptop battery life lasts for an excellent 12 hours on a single charge.
Pro Magnetically sealed lid
The lid of the Surface Book is, when closed, magnetically sealed.
Pro Great performance
Can be equipped with the latest specs in terms of processors, graphics cards, etc.
Pro Durable design
Magnesium casing.
Pro Good performance for the price
The Swift 3 performs quite well for the price and laptop class it belongs to. Everyday tasks are handled without problem, multitasking is not a problem neither, and it can also play some lightweight games (DoTA, LoL, Team Fortress 2) at decent framerates as well as some more demanding software such as Photoshop and Matlab without overheating the hardware or lagging.
Pro Great trackpad
The trackpad is a bit larger than average and feels great to the touch, albeit a bit rougher than most trackpads out there. It performs really well with standard swipes, taps, and gestures and has no stuttering or jumpiness.
Pro Great build quality
For an entry model, the Acer Swift 3 has great build quality. The chassis is solid and there's absolutely no bending in either the chassis or the hood. The outer case is built from aluminum and the inner chassis is made of plastic.
Pro Upgradeable storage
Unfortunately the CPU and RAM are soldered on the motherboard so they can't be upgraded, however the storage is not and can be easily swapped and upgraded if one needs to do so.
Pro Portable
The Swift 3 is a pretty light and compact laptop. It weight around 3.35 lbs and is 0.7″ thick. The screen size is 14" which is well within the small category as far as laptop screens go.
Pro Decent keyboard
The keys have a slightly concave shape and a soft finishing which makes them feel great to touch and they also provide pretty good feedback.
Pro Good battery life
The Swift 3 can get a good 10 hours of use (sometimes even more) with simple tasks such as web browsing or watching videos. This is true for both the models with i3 and i5 CPUs.
Cons
Con Comes with Windows that lacks developer tooling
Developer tools under Windows are lacking compared to OSX and Linux. And while it's possible to replace the OS, dual-boot or run a VM environment for development, it's extra hassle that you have to deal with.
Con No USB-C port
USB-C will be the prominent new port used, as it can manage much more than previous USB ports. While it isn't widely adapted yet for accessories, some computers being sold today only have USB-C, which will really help push for more USB-C devices down the road. For now it isn't a big issue, but in a few years the lack of a USB-C port could limit the accessories you use to older options (unless you want to carry adapters around).
Con Far too expensive for specs
Con The screen and keyboard isn't protected from dirt when laptop is closed
The laptop leaves a gap on the side when it's closed allowing for dust and dirt get to the screen and keyboard.
Con No Kaby Lake CPU options
Kaby Lake is Intel's 7th generation processors, which weren't available when the Surface Book was first released. As such, it isn't possible to get the current Surface Book with these newly optimized processors.
Con Keybord might not be for everyone
Surface Book has a keyboard with a uncommonly low travel that might require some getting used to.
Con Screen's aspect ratio might require some getting used to
Surface Book uses a 3:2 aspect ratio compared to the more traditional 16:9 or 16:10 used in most other laptops. The aspect ratio also means that most videos will be letterboxed.
Con The hinge is not as resistive as a typical hinge of common laptops
The hinge can slightly wobble when the Surface Book is used in a lap. This is especially important on this computer as it has a touchscreen you'll want to use and also a pressure sensitive pen which won't work great in laptop mode without support.
Con Hinge scratches any surface it touches.
The hinge when the screen is open will scratch the surface that the Surface Book is sitting on. That nice glass table you're working on? Ruined. Your antique table? Worthless.
Con 3K, not 4K display
Most laptops in this price range have 4K laptops.
Con 3h of battery in tablet mode
According to a TechCrunch video, 3/4 of the battery is stored in the base and 1/4 in the tablet. That 1/4 of the battery will last you about 3h.
Con Comes with some bloatware
The Swift 3 comes with some bloatware out of the box which may influence performance.
Con Fairly noisy
The Acer Swift 3 has two small fans which sit on the CPU and GPU. Unfortunately they are rather agressive and start spinning even at low temperatures. Even something as simple as opening a browser will prompt both fans to start spinning quite fast. If you also keep in mind that both these fans have a fairly high pitched hum, then it's soon clear that this laptop is not the quietest on the market.