Acer Swift 16 AI review: The case of curious compromises

There’s certainly no lack of options when it comes to finding a solid mid-range laptop these days, with many OEMs seeming to have found a stride in delivering quality laptops at an affordable price. When trying to build a product to meet the largest number of customers, however, there are always going to be a few compromises.

The Acer Swift 16 makes some very curious compromises, especially compared to its 14-inch little cousin, but overall, it’s still a solid laptop. You get plenty of power, incredible battery life, and a great display. You’re stuck with only one configuration, and the speakers and webcam leave a lot to be desired, but you could do a lot worse for what Acer’s asking.

About this review: Acer sent us a Swift 16 AI for the purposes of this review. The company had no input in this article, and did not see its contents before publishing.

Price, availability, & specs

Not a bad price for what you get

At the time of writing, Acer is only offering one version of the Swift 16 AI. That one model is equipped with a second gen Intel Ultra 7 256V, 16 GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and 1TB of storage. That’s pretty baseline for a mid-range 16-inch laptop these days, and luckily Acer is asking a reasonable $1,199 for all that.

The first curious compromise of the Swift 16 is that it has a single available configuration, especially since you can get up to an Ultra 7 258V and 32GB of RAM on the Swift 14, but there’s no option for that with the larger size. Acer also says in their review guide that an option for the Ultra 9 series is available, but there is not one available currently. I’ve reached out to Acer for confirmation and will update this when I hear back.

Another oddity is the display on the Swift 16 gets upgraded to a 3K 2880×1800 OLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate. What’s even more curious is that the base model Swift 14, with a 1920×1200 LCD 60Hz display, is exactly the same price as the Swift 16. I’m sure Acer has a very smart team of marketing and product folks who have tons of data on this. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen a company offer a larger computer with a better display for exactly the same price as the smaller model.

To make things even more confusing, the Swift 16 is currently discounted at Best Buy for $999, so I really have no idea what Acer is doing with its pricing. Best Buy is also the only place to buy it currently.

Design & ports

Sleek design with good I/O options

The design of the Swift 16 is really nice. It’s slender and light, and I had no problem lugging it around in my bag for a couple of weeks. The aluminum top and bottom help keep the weight down while also helping thermal management as well. The few times I heard the fans kick up, they were never distracting.

Sadly, the Swift 16 only comes in black, unlike the more eye-catching blue option on the Swift 14, and the only other potentially interesting design elements are the AI logo on the lid and the AI light indicator on the touchpad.

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The Swift 16 AI offers a fairly well-equipped set of I/O ports for a thin and light laptop. On the left is a full-size HDMI port, USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port, and two Thunderbolt 4 ports that support up to 100W charging and 40Gbps data speeds.

The right side houses the other USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port and the 3.5mm headphone jack. There’s certainly plenty of room to add another USB-C port or two on the right, but I won’t lose much sleep over it.

Display, webcam, and audio

Great display, the rest is passable

As I mentioned earlier, the only part of the Swift 16 that gets an upgrade from its smaller sibling is the display. It’s a 2880×1800 OLED touch display with a 120Hz refresh rate and I thoroughly enjoy it. The colors are bright, the blacks are deep, and the high refresh rate helps things feel much smoother. It only gets up to 340 nits which is a bit disappointing, so try to avoid using it outside if you can.

The webcam is a QHD 2560×1440 camera that supports 1440p video capture at 30 fps — you know, for all those laptop YouTube videos you need to film — and Windows Hello. The camera itself is fine, likely better than most other laptops at this price, but the AI features Acer includes are not useful at all. Both the enhanced portrait and Super Sharp features just made things look worse, so I wouldn’t bother with them.

The second curious compromise of the Swift 16 is the audio. The Swift 14 had nice, rich, upward firing speakers that made watching stuff and gaming enjoyable. The Swift 16 went with downward firing speakers that don’t sound good above around 60%. They’re fine in a pinch, but they’re tinny and blown out much higher than that, so it just lessens the experience.

Keyboard & touchpad

Great keyboard, confusing numpad

Acer went with downward firing speakers on the Swift 16 to accommodate a numpad, but I wish it included an extra column next to it that houses the Pg Up, Pg Dn, Home, End, and other keys. I personally don’t have much need for a numpad on a laptop, but especially not one with smaller keys and missing functionality.

What’s weird is that the Home, Pg Up, End, Pg Dn, Insert, and Delete capabilities are there, but they’re not behind function keys, they operate when Num Lock is off. It’s just an odd implementation of a numpad for me and I wish they’d have kept the speakers instead, especially with such a nice display that begs to be watched.

The keyboard itself is lovely to use. The keys are clicky and have a fair amount of travel. It’s not as enjoyable as you might hope for a $1200 laptop, but it’s certainly more than usable for extended periods.

The touchpad is Corning Gorilla Glass, and it’s very smooth and responsive. The best part is that you can turn the annoying AI indicator light off, so it’s not bothering you. But it only comes on when you’re actively using AI applications (like Copilot) anyway, and since I never do, it doesn’t bother me, but it’s nice that Acer gives you the option.

Performance and battery life

Decent performance, fantastic battery life

The Intel Ultra 7 256V powering the Swift 16 was more than enough for my daily tasks and light gaming. Intel’s second generation Core Ultra processors promised decent performance improvements with much greater efficiency improvements, and in my testing, those claims mostly hold up.

Once again, there were some oddities with the Swift 16. As expected, it performed just behind the 258V when compared to the Swift 14, but the same PCMark 10 benchmark test clocked it higher than the Dell XPS 13, which uses the same Core Ultra 7 258V as in the Swift 14. In other tests, the Swift 16 outperformed the 258V as well, which is why it’s never a good idea to base performance solely on benchmarks.

For all the workloads, this laptop is aiming to tackle, which is mostly business workflows, web browsing, Netflix, etc., it’s more than enough power. I noticed no lag or stutters and could power through everything I did without a hitch. I honestly even had a better experience gaming on the Swift 16 than I did on the HP Zbook Studio.

Battery life was something that surprised me on the Swift 16. Intel’s promised efficiency gains are on full display with just how long this large, power-hungry display can last. Acer claims just under 14 hours of battery life, and while I didn’t get quite that much, the 11 hours 26 minutes I got is more than respectable. That is easily more than a full day of battery life, and even under demanding workloads, you should be fine.

Should you buy the Swift 16 AI?

You should buy the Acer Swift 16 AI if:

• You want a powerful and affordable laptop
• You want a great screen at a reasonable price
• You want a thin, light, 16-inch laptop with great battery life

You should NOT buy the Acer Swift 16 AI if:

• You want more configuration options
• You want a 2-in-1
• You want something smaller

Once again, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed using the Swift 16. For a fairly reasonable price, you get more than enough power to manage most workflows and well over a single-day battery life. Plus, you get a really great display that’s hard to find on a mid-range laptop. If you really want AI features, or it’s time to upgrade your old laptop, the Swift 16 is easy to recommend.

There are some odd compromises with the Swift 16, like the fact that there’s only one configuration available, that 16GB of RAM is the max you can get, and the numpad replaced the great upward firing speakers of the Swift 14. Still, the Swift 16 is yet another solid laptop from Acer.

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Acer Swift 16 AI

Despite some downfalls,. the Acer Swift 16 AI is a solid laptop with powerful Intel Lunar Lake processors that doesn’t break the bank.

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