Acer's popular Swift 5 and Swift 3 notebooks have been refreshed for 2022 with new hardware. Both new Swift 5 and the Swift 3 laptops are now powered by Intel's new 12th gen Alder Lake processors. Despite being a relatively affordable model the Acer Swift 3 seems to have all the essentials including a QHD or FHD touch display, an FHD webcam, and more. But there's one thing that a lot of people want to know -- does the new Acer Swift 3 have Thunderbolt support?

Acer Swift 3 (2022) Thunderbolt support

Well, the short answer to that question is - yes, the Acer Swift 3 (2022) models have Thunderbolt ports. In fact, the new refreshed model has two of them, which we think is great. This is a noteworthy improvement over the previous-gen Swift 3 model and is now more in line with the more expensive Swift 5 laptop. This also means you are less likely to buy a Thunderbolt dock for the Acer Swift 3. Besides the Thunderbolt ports, the Swift 3 has a decent set of ports too.

New Acer Swift 3 ports

The new Acer Swift 3 laptop comes with two USB Type-C ports, two USB Type-A ports, an HDMI 2.1, and a 3.5mm combo jack for audio. Both USB Type-C ports are USB 3.2 Gen 2 with support Thunderbolt 4. These ports can also be used for charging with the 65W charger. You can see these ports in the image above with the Thunderbolt logo.

As for the layout of the ports, you get two USB Type-C ports on the right side along with the HDMI 2.1 and a single USB Type-A port. The other USB Type-A port is on the other side along with the 3.5mm combo jack. The ports selection of the Acer Swift 3 is on-par with the more expensive Swift 5 notebook, which is great. The outgoing model of the Acer Swift 3 only had a single Thunderbolt 4 port. The new one upgrades that with the addition of another USB Type-C Thunderbolt 4 port.

What is Thunderbolt 4 and do you need it on the Acer Swift 3?

Thunderbolt 4, in case you don't know, is developed by Intel that provides high bandwidth over a USB Type-C port. It's useful for laptops because it allows users to connect a Thunderbolt dock. An external dock allows you to add more ports to your laptop, and it only takes up a single port on the machine itself. Thunderbolt 4 can carry both display signals and power to charge the device, so you can essentially use the Thunderbolt 4 port for many things as long as you have a dock with the necessary port. Even a simple and compact Thunderbolt 4 dock like the Anker PowerExpand 5-in-1 Thunderbolt 4 mini dock would do:

The Acer Swift 3 (2022), as we mentioned earlier, comes with a pretty decent selection of ports, so buying an external dock isn't necessary. And if you think a Thunderbolt 4 dock is overkill or is too expensive for you, then you can also consider buying different USB-C adapters. They're not nearly as powerful or versatile as the Thunderbolt 4 dock, though. Thunderbolt 4 is also useful if you're interested in gaming as it lets you connect an external GPU enclosure to your laptop. That would be a solid addition because the integrated graphics isn't going to be as powerful as a discrete GPU. With this, you can use an external GPU to turn your portable business notebook into a great gaming machine when you're at home.

Closing Thoughts

If you're interested in buying the Acer Swift 3, you ca do so using the link below, though there are other configurations on Acer's website. Otherwise, you can consider checking out our collection of the best Acer laptops. Alternatively, you can also check out our round-up of the best laptops overall to see if you can find some other alternatives.