Customer Ratings & Reviews

With computer components and RAM prices skyrocketing, it seems these days like most decently-specced laptops are priced at well over $2,000. Enter the Acer Swift 16 AI. I'll admit, Acer is not a brand that comes to mind when I think of high-end or premium laptops. But after using it for a couple of weeks, I'm extremely impressed. The design, build quality, display, and specifications are something I would have expected in a high-end gaming laptop -- not one from Acer. It's quickly moving towards the top of the list of the best Windows laptops I've used in the past 5 years. But there are a few minor quirks to consider. === PROS === - The design and build quality of the Swift 16 AI are excellent. The dark gray design with gold accents is very elegant. For a 16" laptop, it is incredibly thin and lightweight at under 3.5 pounds. The hinge feels strong and the display is easy to open with one hand. There is a little bit of flex to the keyboard when you push down hard enough, but it's nothing major. - The display is one of the major highlights of this laptop. It's an OLED with a 2880×1800 resolution and 120Hz refresh rate -- and it's beautiful. Colors are rich and vivid. It gets very bright, though not as bright as some of the most premium laptops on the market. The 120Hz refresh rate makes scrolling through documents, webpages, and photographs feel seamless with no lag. I was not expecting such a great laptop display at this price point. - The trackpad is, hands down, the best I have ever used on a Windows laptop. It's a haptic trackpad, which are hard to find on Windows laptops in general (even my high-end gaming laptop doesn't have a haptic trackpad). The trackpad is massive, so you have a very large area to move your fingers and scroll through content. You can click anywhere on the trackpad -- even at the very top or bottom -- and you will get the same satisfying haptic feedback "click" no matter where you press. It's incredibly satisfying to use, and it might even rival the trackpad of a MacBook Pro. - The internal specs of this laptop are equally impressive. The Intel Core Ultra X7 358H is a very powerful 16-core CPU that allows for excellent efficiency and battery life. But where the chip really shines is with its integrated graphics. The integrated Intel Arc GPU is capable of running AAA games at low to medium settings and decent frame rates. Is it going to keep with with a high-end, dedicated gaming laptop? No, but it's pretty incredible that a chip like this is even capable of running such games. It's perfect for 3D modeling and video rendering tasks. - The large 70 watt-hour battery paired with the Ultra X7 chip means this machine has some serious battery life. I used the machine on battery power for a full 8-hour workday (emails, Word documents, video calls) and I still had almost 30% battery remaining at the of the day. I could have easily gotten at least 12 hours out of the battery. - The Acer Swift 16 AI has a decent selection of ports, with two USB-C ports, two USB-A ports, and an HDMI 2.1 port. There's also a microSD card reader. The laptop also supports Wi-Fi 7, so the connectivity here is relatively future-proof. - The speakers are pretty good for such a thin laptop. They get very loud without any distortion, and the sound is mostly balanced without sounding tinny. - The laptop charges via USB-C and not some proprietary barrel charger. So if you lose the included charger or simply want to carry around a second one when you travel, any 100W USB-C charger will do. - This laptop comes with a very nice travel case/sleeve in the box, which is a nice premium touch. I don't recall any other laptop I've owned coming with a travel case in the box. === CONS === - My main gripe with this particular configuration is that it only has 16GB of RAM, which is basically the bare minimum for a decent Windows PC these days. If it weren't for the current RAM shortage, my guess is that Acer may have included 32GB of RAM in this base configuration. 16GB is fine for basic workloads, but if you do any kind of serious graphic design or video editing, you might need to look at a higher configuration. - The OLED display is stunning, but it is very glossy. If you frequently work outdoors or in a bright room, the reflections could get annoying. - I love that the laptop charges via USB-C, but only the left side of the laptop has USB-C ports. So depending on where your power outlet is located, you might have to reach the cord around to the opposite end of the laptop. - The Acer Swift 16 AI comes with a stylus that can be used on the trackpad to draw, write notes, sign your name, etc. Since the trackpad is so large, this could be a nice feature for artists. But the stylus does not work on the laptop's display, even though it's a touchscreen. So I don't really see myself using the stylus very often. - The keyboard is decent with a nice amount of travel to the keys. But I'm not a fan of number pads on keyboards. The number pad here just feels cramped and out of place, and it causes the space bar to not be centered over the trackpad. I guess it's a matter of personal preference, but I wish Acer would have just left off the number pad. - The webcam is 1080p, but it seems to produce washed-out and somewhat pixelated video. It will be fine in a pinch, but don't use this as your primary webcam if you make a living on video calls or YouTube. === OVERALL === Minor shortcomings aside, I'm seriously impressed by this laptop. It's simply a joy to use, and it feels more premium than some more expensive laptops I've used. It's thin and light. It has a gorgeous display. It has arguably the best trackpad ever on a Windows laptop. It has incredible battery life and even better performance. Honestly, what more do most people need in a laptop? At this price point, I think Acer has delivered the laptop of the year with the Swift 16 AI. Highly recommended!

My review focuses on the laptop’s 16 inch vivid OLED touch screen and new touchpad & pen combo, that may make it a good choice for creatives and content creators. I used various apps from Adobe CC suite, Affinity, as well as other apps to gauge performance. I also compared it to similar laptops that I’ve already reviewed that are close to specs and price. FLIR Thermal camera photos for idle and under load heat maps, audio quality, build quality, keyboard, cooling fans and more. Specs are only quoted when needed. The product’s overview covers all of that. Windows Setup was easy and simple. A very basic quick guide tells you where to plug it in and where to turn it on, and Windows takes over from there. Typical PC setup after that. Especially if you already have a Microsoft account / other Windows PCs. Mine did some updates, and Windows asks the typical questions it does during setup. The OLED touch screen is beautiful! The colors are vivid and the blacks are true black. The OLED panel is made by Samsung and is “VESA certified Display HDR, True Black 500”. That means it meets specific color and contrast standards for OLED panels. LCD panels have a different VESA HDR rating system. Google VESA for more. While researching this, I discovered that all my laptops with OLED panels, that the panels are made by Samsung and meet the same VESA True Black 500 certification. I think the 3K resolution is a better fit for the16 inch screen than 4K. I have a Dell with a 4K OLED screen, and the text is pretty small, even scaled up. It also requires more CPU and GPU power to push those pixels on a 4K screen. As for glare complaints, this laptop is no worse than the others I have with OLED screens. I agree that a slight matte texture would have made it perfect. The Screen refresh can be set as high at 120hz or 60hz and can go as low as 40hz via dynamic refresh. It drops to 40 Hz for static web pages and ramps up to 120 Hz for fast‑moving games or other content. Specs state a P-3 color gamut and max brightness of 350 NITS. I verified that with my Datacolor Spyder X Pro and the latest 6.4.4 software. It stated 100% P3 and sRGB, and 97% Adobe RGB. Also, 6500K color temp, 2.2 gamma and 400 NITS peak brightness. See photos. Right click and open in new tab to make them bigger. I like that the Webcam has a physical shutter. It’s FHD and gets the job done. Windows Hello works very well. No fingerprint scanner. The 16 core Intel Core Ultra X7 358H is a powerhouse that gives outstanding performance. Then add the onboard Arc B390 GPU that is almost on par with a discrete GPU+ RAM setup and NPU and you get good basic gaming performance and an excellent laptop for edit photos and videos. Especially if you get the 32GB version. The CPU, GPU and NPU all share the system RAM and 16GB is barely enough for that kind of work. Also, it’s soldered on the board and not upgradeable. The Kingston SSD performed well. I ran several benchmarks on it and captured idle and full‑load heat maps (top & bottom) for thermal analysis with my FLIR One Pro thermal camera so you can see where the heat is and isn’t, and how warm it got under load. It handles heat dissipation very well, and the fans were much quieter than all my other laptops at full speed, or any speed. Passmark overall score: 9145 GeekBench: Single Core: 2787 Multi: 15,353 Open GL:52,935 Cinebench R23: 15,704 multi core. Didn’t run single. Puget Benchmark for Adobe: Photoshop 27.6: 7588 LRC15.3: 7337 Didn’t run Premiere Pro due to 16GB of RAM & large video files. The closest thing I have to compare it to CPU wise, is my Acer Predator Helios (core i9-14900HX, 32GB, RTX 4060) that I reviewed in 2024 and Gigabyte A16 (core i7-13620H, 32GB, RTX 5060) last July. They are gaming laptops, but the CPU speed and specs are the closest to this laptop, and it sits middle ways but closer to the Predator Helios for general use and content editing. As for games, the Gigabyte with the newer RTX 5060 took the crown. Using the pen on the “world’s Largest” touch pad / graphics tablet is a mixed bag. For note‑taking and sketching, it’s competent but not pro‑grade. The pen has potential if the software or firmware can be tweaked to make it better. It works like using a pencil on an iPad or Samsung phone or Tablet but isn’t as precise. Very small movements hardly register, if at all and there’s some lag to it once you move it enough to start leaving a mark. Pressure sensitivity must be fixed. In Photoshop using a brush tool and starting with light pressure you get a thin line, as expected, pushing harder makes it thick and it stays thick even when you lighten up. It only resets pressure when you pick it up from the pad. My Wacom tablet, iPad Air M3 and Pencil Pro don’t behave that way. Lighten up and the line thins back up. You must hover the tip close to the pad to see its position, and accidental touches are too easy to make. If you have other touch screen laptops, try using the pen on their screens, as the pen worked on my two Asus touch screen laptops. The pen runs on an included replaceable AAAA battery that can last from 1 year with heavy use to several years with occasional use. All Alkaline batteries will eventually leak, so take the battery out of the pen if you rarely use it. Using the touch pad for intended use does a good job but has a couple of quirks. The haptic feel is pretty cool. It can be set to 4 different levels or turned off. Palm rejection is good, but not perfect. Sometimes it can relocate the cursor when you’re typing. When typing this review in MS Word basic online, I had to adjust the touch so the pad would acknowledge finger touches to relocate the cursor no matter where on the pad you touched it instead of the center only. I concluded that it is a browser text editing quirk in Word in Edge and Google Docs in Chrome only. Audio quality is disappointing for a laptop of this caliber. It sounds boxy, with mids that sound harsh and highs that feel muffled. Using DTS didn’t help and no EQ options. The best audio I ever heard from a laptop is the Asus ZenBook S14 I reviewed last year with 4 H/K tuned speakers. Clean highs and even some bass response, from a smaller unit. Has a headphone out jack. I like the feel of keyboard, that it has a small numpad and the per key lighting that doesn’t bleed as much as the usual back lit keyboard. Letters and numbers are very easy to read with or without back light. The keyboard backlight offers three levels—off, low, and high. There’s a 30 second time-out setting for the back light, but it’s only accessible in the BIOS. You get a choice of a 30 second time-out or always on. It has a handy micro-SD slot, however, it’s USB-2 speed and I only got 29 MBs out of it compared to a couple of USB-3 card readers that were pushing around 100MBs with the same 128 GB SanDisk Extreme Plus card. You can charge it with smaller USB C chargers but will take longer, use the100 watt power supply that’s included for best performance. Battery life can vary a lot depending on settings and use, and I got about 13 hours of light mixed use in light mode with brightness at 25% before it hit 10%. Dark mode would probably get you a little more. I think 24 hours is a stretch. Build quality looks and feels very solid considering how thin it is. Conclusion: I think the OLED screen and its resolution are perfect for the screen size. The Core Ultra X7 is a powerhouse. However, 16GB RAM can hold it back in some situations. Thin, light, and quietly capable. However, the new pen‑pad combo still feels experimental but shows promise. Right click on photos, open in new tab will make them larger.

This laptop is a powerhouse. Equipped with an Intel Core Ultra X7 358 H chip, the laptop supports AI tasks, light gaming, and 8K video editing. Design The laptop features a slim profile and exhibits high-quality craftsmanship. Acer utilizes premium materials, contributing to the device's refined appearance. The generously sized touchpad enhances usability and offers a luxurious aesthetic. Despite its classification as a 16-inch laptop, the device maintains a lightweight feel. The laptop comes with a soft case to carry the laptop around and it is a very useful accessory as not all backpacks or bags have laptop compartments. There’s plenty of ports including USB 4, audio input and even a micro-SD slot. The laptop also supports WIFI 7. Performance This is where the laptop truly shines. The screen quality is just excellent. Texts are so crisp and images look vivid. It has great amount of brightness and the colors are superb. The blacks are just excellent on this screen. This is an OLED touchscreen display with 100% DCI-P3 color gamut. It is also an HDR screen with VESA certification bearing True Black 500. Watching videos on the laptop is a great experience, thanks not only to the beautiful screen quality. The laptop has above-average sound quality and DTS Ultra support, with a graphic equalizer for 10 frequency customizations. The screen is touch capable and the touchpad supports stylus input. The laptop actually includes a stylus for touchpad input. There are several Acer apps that users can choose to download and one of them is for drawing. The laptop is actually capable of some light AAA gaming. I play Crimson Desert at low setting and the game plays smoothly. I edited 8K videos with DJI Studio easily, outputting both 8K panoramic video and 8K linear video. Working with MS Office is a great experience as texts come out crisps and the keyboard gives great typing experience with full size keys. Typical use for MS Office can last for more than 8 hours while playing videos with full volume can last for about 6 hours at 50% display brightness. Even at 25% brightness, it’s plenty bright and can push the laptop to last for about 9 hours playing videos at maximum volume. As far as performance goes, this is a great laptop for work, light AAA gaming and entertainment. Conclusion This is a laptop that brings joy to use. This device offers powerful performance in a slim, lightweight design, complemented by outstanding screen quality. It delivers reliable performance across different activities, such as working, light gaming, or watching movies. I will say again that the screen is just beautiful and the processor performance is excellent. The laptop is well suited for work, play and entertainment. Pros: Intel X7 358 H is both powerful and power-efficient USB 4, Wifi 7 and Micro SD Slot Beautiful 16” screen Great thin and lightweight design Comes with a soft case Cons: There are no particularly distinctive ones; however, while the sound quality is satisfactory and exceeds typical laptop standards, there remains room for improvement.

I was looking to grab a laptop that focused more on productivity, creativity, and the ability to do standard gaming if needed, though gaming wasn't a priority. I will say this is one smooth piece of hardware. It’s efficient, quiet, and along with its integrated benefits under the hood to utilize CoPilot+, I feel it can handle everything you throw at it while also sitting back and enjoying a casual game when you want to take a break from work related items or productivity pertaining to personal hobbies. The overall appearance of the Acer Swift, in my opinion, is beautiful. It is extremely sleek, thin, and lightweight for a laptop with a 16-inch screen, full keyboard with a numpad and a touchpad large enough to utilize the stylus provided in box. Going back to the screen size, the 16-inch 3K OLED panel is stunning. The 120Hz refresh rate allows buttery smooth scrolling and moving around, allowing your multitasking to be that much faster. I have not noticed any drawbacks with this screen. It gets significantly bright and can make up for the glossy screen that might suffer from reflections. This is my first Acer laptop. I am not too familiar with some of their integrated software, but I will say I have become a quick fan of Acer Sense. I really love how it can recognize your attention, put the screen to sleep when you step away, dim the screen when you look away, lock. I feel like the screen dimming when you’re no longer paying attention or getting distracted helps with the battery life, which is phenomenal. I went for two days on a single charge, mixed usage, and that is in sleep mode, not a full shutdown. I am used to other laptops, even in sleep mode, losing battery life, but not here. I’ve been really impressed by how long it can last, especially with the OLED screen and backlit keyboard. I dove into the AI CoPilot+ during my early usage of the Acer Swift, using it to help me compare HVAC options since I am currently shopping around and pricing out different HVAC systems and what manufacturer, its features would best fit my home for the price. The fast responses, chart breakdowns, pros and cons being returned to me as fast as it has been, have been very helpful and useful during my process. I have had multiple tabs from chrome, edge open. Multiple AI’s running at the same time between both CoPilot+ and Gemini, and you couldn’t even tell. The Swift doesn’t feel like it’s being overworked at any point; the fan is not getting loud with all these items open at once, it’s handling everything with ease. The Intel Core Ultra X7 358H, known as the Panther Lake / Series 3, has shown to be a powerhouse. To recap. You get a lot here with this laptop. Stunning screen, great for photo/video editing, sitting back watching movies. A CPU/GPU combo with the ram and storage to support productivity, work, school, and personal use, while also that flexibility to enjoy casual gaming. A stylus and a trackpad that is the largest I’ve ever seen with great feedback to it and can be used as a drawing pad with the stylus if needed and a touchscreen that can also be used with the stylus. A nice simple laptop case to carry all your items. An awesome exterior design on the laptop. Fantastic battery life. An all-around great laptop in its class that you can’t go wrong with.

Acer is making a move with this laptop to compete with the top names in the business. There’s a lot here for the money, and for the most part, Acer has a hit. The build quality and appearance are very good. It’s all metal, very slim, and lightweight. The 16” OLED 3K touchscreen is a thing of beauty, and it has a great selection of ports. It’s powered by an I7 Ultra X7 processor with the latest Arc B390 on board graphics. This is paired with 16 GB of fast memory (non-expandable), a 1 TB SSD (expandable), and WIFI 7. Last but certainly not least is its massive haptic touchpad which can be used with the included stylus. All of this makes this a great all-around laptop for everyday tasks, business apps, creative use, and even reasonable gaming power. As with most medium to high end laptops, it’s a CoPilot+ machine with the power and processor for AI use. As a final extra, it comes bundled with a protective carrying sleeve. As mentioned, the display is bright and gorgeous. It’s a multi-touch screen, but the stylus only works with the large touchpad. Ports include 2 USB C (Thunderbolt), 2 USB A 3.4, HDMI 2.1, headphone, and a micro-SD card reader. Both USB C and one USB A are PD charging ports. Being Thunderbolt ports, the USB C ports are display connectors in addition to the HDMI port. The included charger is a 100 W max using a USB C connection. It’s a typical, bulky brick with a power cord, so you might want to consider a more compact charger for travel. For everyday use this shouldn’t be an issue considering the Swift’s very long battery life. Acer says it lasts up to 24 hours, but that’s ideal with minimal demand. It does appear to give as much as 12 hours or so in typical use. That’s well more than a day of use for nearly all users. There is no perfect computer, and the Swift has a few issues in my mind. It’s comes loaded with bloatware … more so than is now common with others it this category. They aren’t terribly memory demanding, so it’s up to you if you want to leave them or spend an hour or so deleting what is unnecessary in your mind. The huge haptic trackpad is a mixed blessing. The pen is a nice extra, but I found it marginally useful compared to a real graphics pad or a screen that’s pen enabled. The graphic sub-system shares RAM with the system, so 16 GB seems a minimum. However, heavy gaming or high-end graphics rendering are the only uses that might push this. The touch is nice, but I got some unintended clicks. It may just take some getting used to. I read that some users have problems with palm rejection while typing, but that wasn’t a problem in my case. Performance was excellent in my testing. My Novabench overall score pushed 3000. The on-board graphics outperforms many discrete graphics systems, and the PCIe 4 drive and RAM are both high speed and high quality. The minuses are minor compared to everything packed into this performance, AI enabled laptop. It all comes at a competitive price, making this a solid choice which I can easily recommend.

Acer - Swift 16 AI - Copilot+ PC - 16" 3K OLED Touchscreen Laptop - Intel Core Ultra X7 358H 2026 - 16GB Memory - 1TB Storage - Basalt Gray The Acer Swift is based on the very new Intel Core Ultra X7 358H processor and is at the upper end of the CPU Mark Laptop score chart as of April, 2026. This processor performs well in Gaming Score performance, but you will need to be reasonable about settings. I was impressed with this processor for both gaming and video editing. This Acer configuration uses Intel’s high performance chip architecture as well as the denser Xe3 graphics with its Arc Pro B390 GPU’s 12 X cores. This is true graphics competence despite not having a standalone “name” graphics card, and with significantly less of a weight and battery burden. The Acer Swift 16 is power efficient. I’ve come to expect all day power no matter what features or resources that I’m using. I’m typically using spreadsheets and AI graphics creation, but I can top off my day with streaming various sporting events (a dense schedule of playoffs this week), and on exploring YouTube music videos.That OLED high resolution screen! is lush, colorful, almost 3D because of the deep blacks. More than adequate brightness (340 nits), Crisp (3K). Colorful (100% DCI‑P3, VESA DisplayHDR™)., and fast (0.2ms response). All these elements should be tough on battery life, but I haven’t witnessed limitations. Exceptional Screen resolution eliminates any softness in text, while the 16” screen opens up more visual space for work and play. And I’ve got that HDMI port to add a screen. SETUP: I’m still digging out from under a variety of unhelpful helper programs from Acer and all their advertising partners. I volunteered to let Microsoft do all its updates upfront, while I watched playoff games …. on TV. I suppose you can let many of these updates take place in the background, but that has its own issues. I also checked out some customization features that allow the end user to extract more performance from the graphics processor, but I don’t know enough about what’s possible. PERFORMANCE: Acer includes a simple slip cover to protect the attractive, etched casing. I connected to my 1 Gig Internet easily and achieved close to that speed all day. I was pleased to see Thunderbolt 4 ports (2@ 40GBps), a pair of USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, an HDMI 2.1 port and a headphone/speaker/line-out jack. A quick check of the audio output with both desktop speakers and my favorite headphones was fun utilizing the several audio modes onboard. Using the built-in speakers was OK as far as clarity and volume, but not in any way musical or cinematic. That huge touchpad will take some getting used to, but its role as a screenless drawing tablet to be used with the included stylus makes it all good. That is a feature that I can grow into. I spend time editing graphics and creating 3D models while designing simple construction projects, so this feature will make my life easier. I loved the feel of the keyboard and this is a touchpad that didn’t have me immediately looking to connect a mouse to the computer. The number pad serves my limited financial management activity within Excel nicely. The key action was so very natural that I quickly forgot I was on a new laptop. The built-in 1TBSSD is a perfect size for most users, and the Thunderbolt USB-C ports make adding high performance external drives easy to do. That’s a good thing, ‘cause there is no other SSD slot, just like there is no other memory slot. The OLED screen is a beauty, with infinitely deep blacks and sparkling whites. Colors look so real and rich against those blacks. I did notice that reflections were sometimes bothersome. Taking pictures off of the screen was an exercise in futility, because it is a great mirror, too. 
 
SUMMARY: Acer’s Swift 16 AI is a series of choices. It will competently tear through business, data science, multi-tasking, video-editing, and are especially able to power AI applications and high end graphics. It is not a purpose-built for gaming, but it will manage many popular games. It’s also lighter, has a great screen, long battery life, and travels easily.

The Acer Swift 16 AI is a nice laptop that looks great and is nicely made, but it makes a terrible first impression with just a breathtaking amount of bloat and advertising junk loaded on top of Windows. After all of that is cleared off it’s good, but it’s not something that you should have to deal with in a premium laptop. In the box you’ll find the laptop, a 100W USB-C charger, a pen, and a carrying sleeve that holds the laptop and the charger. I always appreciate when laptop manufacturers include a sleeve, even just a basic one, so this was a nice touch for me. The 100W USB Power Delivery charger is pretty generic with a built-in USB-C cable and a separate AC line cord, but fortunately you can swap that for any other PD charger. The Swift 16 is very thin and light and the back has a nice design etched into it. The keyboard deck and display both have a small amount of flex, but it’s not something I noticed unless I was deliberately pressing down on them. It weighs about as much as an equivalent MacBook Air at just under 3.5 lbs. The build quality overall is very good, though not the very best I’ve seen. This model has the new Intel Panther Lake Core Ultra X7 358H with 16GB of RAM. The Panther Lake processors are supposed to have better performance and efficiency compared to the previous generation, but the headlining feature is the Arc B390 integrated GPU with 12 Xe cores. The 16GB of RAM is soldered on and cannot be upgraded, which is becoming the norm for laptops these days, though it’s understandable given the 7467 MT/s speed. The 1TB SSD is a PCI 4.0 NVMe drive rated for 6000 MB/s read speeds. The built-in Intel Killer BE1775 supports the latest Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 specifications. For USB ports, there are 2 Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports on the left-hand side and USB-A 3.2 ports on either side.There’s an HDMI 2.1 output on the left side and the right side has a microSD reader and headphone jack. I do think it was a mistake to not have a USB-C port on each side since they are used for charging and having them only on the one side can make things inconvenient. I also think the utility for a microSD reader is more limited compared to a full size one, but it’s still nice to have for action cameras and drones. Overall it’s a good range of ports for a thin and light laptop. The laptop can be opened with a Torx T6 bit and a plastic pry tool to reveal the RAM is soldered on, but the SSD can be upgraded Booting up and using the Swift 16 for the first time, it follows the standard Windows 11 setup process of signing into your Microsoft account and downloading and installing updates. This process took me about 30-40 minutes and most of that was just waiting for updates to install. Once I was passed this and booted into the desktop this was where I had my first really negative experience. The Swift 16 has what I can only describe as a breathtaking amount of bloatware. Windows PCs in general have gotten a lot better about this over the years and this felt like returning to the bad old days. The start menu is packed with apps that I would refer to as junk, as well as things that aren’t even apps but just internet shortcuts for even more junk. McAfee Antivirus jumped out immediately, but also ads for Booking.com, Forge of Empires, Elvenar, IrisGo, and more. Removing these took me the better part of an hour. Most of them can be uninstalled, but some items like the Booking.com ad are just shortcuts that are placed in the start menu folder structure that you have to navigate to and remove manually. There are also a ton of Acer applications that serve either duplicate or unnecessary functions like an AI image generator and an app store. Of what looked like 10+ Acer applications that were preinstalled, I whittled that down to just 2 or 3. Even after uninstalling things like the AI image generator though I still see it running in the background and appearing in the context menus. These things mostly don’t drag the actual performance down and I know that all laptop manufacturers load up their own ads and utilities on top of Windows, but the breadth of what’s here, the effort required to remove it, and the amount of stuff that still can’t easily be removed outside of just doing a fresh non-Acer Windows install left a bad taste in my mouth. In terms of performance, the Swift 16 tore through everyday tasks with no problems and for me generally stayed silent or barely audible on the Normal performance preset. Apps load quickly and it’s also quick to sleep/wake, so it’s ready at a moment’s notice. This is by no means a laptop for gaming, but the B390 GPU offers a compelling experience as long as you’re okay turning down settings and utilizing upscaling. I was able to get Forza Horizon 5 running on the high preset at a mostly consistent 60FPS with XeSS set to quality. The 16GB of RAM will be a limiting factor for higher-end games since the system RAM and VRAM are both shared by this pool of memory. When the fans did kick into high gear they were still pretty quiet. The keyboard on white Swift 16 includes a small numpad, which some may not like but I appreciate its inclusion for productivity tasks. It’s backlit and while you do have to adjust your hands a little off-center to type on it, it’s nice to use once you’re used to it. I did have occasional problems with the palm rejection, but for the most part it didn’t significantly interrupt me. The trackpad is large and also functions as a surface for the included pen to work on, similar to a Wacom tablet. I didn’t find much utility for the pen, but it seems fine and I can see the use case for artistic purposes. The trackpad also uses haptic feedback instead of a mechanical click, which I didn’t realize until I turned the laptop off, so that is implemented well and the simulated click is convincing. The OLED touchscreen on the Swift 16 looks nice and the 3K resolution fits the 16” size well. It also supports a 120 Hz refresh rate. It doesn’t get particularly bright, but it should be okay in indoor settings. The speakers are not great. They are loud and clear enough for calls, but music sounds terrible on them, even with the included DTS:X license enabled. The webcam is also not great. The image is washed out and grainy. It will work fine for video calls in good lighting, but it won’t impress anyone. You do at least get Windows Hello functionality built-in and there is a physical privacy shutter. The Swift 16 has a 70 Whr battery. I haven’t yet had a chance to run it all the way down. Acer rates the battery life at up to 24 hours, though this is based on a video rundown test and not really representative of real world use. My experience so far has indicated this should get through a full work day with some battery to spare. And the battery does not drain significantly when sleeping. Overall, I think the Swift 16 is a good laptop once all the junk is gone - it’s just unfortunate that it’s there in the first place and many people who purchase this will likely not go through the trouble of removing it and just deal with that subpar experience. It makes this one hard to recommend for that reason, but if you’re willing to put in the effort to debloat this it could be a good option.

The Acer Swift 16 AI - Copilot+ PC - 16” 3K OLED TouchScreen Laptop is my third experience with OLED Laptops. I had an Acer tablet in the early Android days, the Acer Iconia Tab A500 and an Acer Monitor a few years ago and both were good products. However, this Acer Laptop has really impressed me. From the design of the shell the awesome feeling keyboard and the very good looking OLED screen I love everything about this Acer Laptop. The last two OLED laptops I experienced were not nearly as impressive as this Acer. They were good-looking, yes, but not so much that it made me want to use them over my IPS Laptop. This Acer, on the other hand, has that vibrant, deep color that I grew used to with my OLED phones and my OLED TV and i really appreciate that. I also like that for a 16” laptop, this Acer is very compact and light and with this model, you get one of the new Intel chips, the Core Ultra X7 358H, which has a big improvement to the graphics department compared to older Intel chips with onboard graphics. It also comes with a very respectable 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD and 16 gigabytes of the latest ram LPDDR5X, which is clocked at 7467 MT/s. I also appreciate the inclusion of the pen, even though it only works with the large trackpad. Just being able to sign documents is a big deal to me, but it is much more useful than that. It is just not the same as a pen that works on the screen like I am used to with my phone. The Acer 16 AI also comes with all of the ports that I like to see, with a good variety and the latest technology accompanying them. This laptop even has MIL-STD 810H durability, which gives me peace of mind that it is relatively tough for what it is. I feel like Acer has really outdone itself with this one. Not only did they exceed my expectations I am very excited to own one because it is so nice. It really seems like a great deal at the price point it’s at if you look around to compare it with the competition.

_____ *Pros: -Powerful all-around performance from Intel’s latest mobile SOC (Panther Lake). -Bright, gorgeous 3K OLED touchscreen. -120Hz refresh rate smoothness. -The Intel Arc B390 can run AAA games with good frame rates at 1080p. -Nice selection of ports. -Huge quality touchpad with great haptics. -Has a number pad. -Excellent battery life. -Only 3.4 lbs and 0.39” thin. -Very quiet, practically silent. _____ *Neutral: -The speakers are not very loud and sound thin. -There should be another USB-C port on the right side. -Too much bloatware out of the box. -The memory is soldered and can’t be upgraded. -Only one M.2 slot. -The lid is a fingerprint magnet. _____ *Cons: -The pen only works on the touchpad, not the screen. *** Design and Build Quality *** The moment I lifted the Acer Swift 16 out of the box, I knew I was looking at a premium laptop. The Basalt Gray color scheme, which is like charcoal color, accented with shiny gold lines, gave the machine some personality and made it look refined with some elegance. The magnesium-aluminum chassis is smooth to the touch, and despite knowing it was made of metal, it sort of felt like high-quality plastic. Perhaps due to its lightness, and the way the lid flexes inward a bit, the Swift 16 didn't feel very tanky or durable. The bottom panel, the keyboard, and the area surrounding the touchpad fared better and felt solid. Acer states it meets MIL STD 810H durability standards but doesn't provide a list of which tests (out of 28) the Swift 16 passed. I'm hoping the Swift 16 passed the most common ones such as shock, vibration, humidity and rain, and protection against sand and dust. Upon booting the Swift 16 to the desktop, the gorgeous 2880 x 1800 (16:10) 16" OLED display commands your attention and awe. It's bright, very crisp, and the colors are accurate and vibrant, offering 100% DCI-P3 color coverage, which is great for watching movies and TV shows in the way the director intended. The color accuracy will also be beneficial for those like me who do video editing and create digital art. The display also supports 120Hz refresh rate, which enables smoother scrolling, snappier system animations, reduced eye strain, and a big improvement when watching videos or playing games. Moving down to the keyboard area, I found the typing experience to be somewhere between okay and good but not very good. Probably due to the thinness of the laptop, the keys have a short travel distance, and they feel a bit too firm for my liking. I'm probably spoiled, though, by the better keyboards on my gaming laptops with a longer travel but quick response rates. With that said, the keys still feel premium and they operate quietly. A number pad is on offer, and I LOVE having it. I work on my finances and crunch numbers in Excel often, so having a numpad is pretty much a necessity for me. I wish the keys were a bit wider but it's nothing that muscle memory can't solve. Traveling further down, there is that HUGE haptic feedback touchpad, and it's awesome. It feels very smooth to the touch, and my taps, drags, pinches, and multi-finger gestures all registered very quickly and accurately. Despite its large size, I experienced no issues with my hands unintentionally setting off random taps and scrolls while typing on the keyboard. I chalk that up to the way I hold up my hands while typing but I can understand why some people might experience unintentional taps and movements if they're the type that likes to rest their palms on the touchpad while typing. When it comes to ports, the Swift 16 does a pretty job by offering two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports (both on the left side), two USB-A ports (one on each side), one 2.1 HDMI (on the left), and one microSD slot (on the right). There’s also a headphone jack on the right. This means I don't have to carry around any dongle adapters so that's fantastic. I do wish, however, that Acer had added at least one more USB-C port on the right side since there certainly is enough space on the chassis for it. I also wish Acer made it so that the stylus could be used on the screen rather than on the touchpad. I like to do digital art, and it would’ve been nice to draw directly on the screen rather than on the touchpad which feels awkward and not as accurate. I guess I’ll be sticking to my tablet for my drawing. So far, everything's been mostly good about the Swift 16 but when we reach the bottom panel where the speakers are, things start to go a bit off course. To put it simply, the speakers are just so-so. For a premium Ultrabook that is priced accordingly, Acer definitely could’ve done better in the audio department. The soundstage isn’t very wide, the bass is anemic even by laptop standards, and the sounds reaching my ears sound like they’re being stifled or muffled behind some spongy layer. Songs that are heavily vocal-oriented actually sound okay and good, but instrumentals, heavy metal, and rock sound distorted and not true to their source. It’s not horrible but the weak audio especially stands out because Acer did so well in the other departments like the screen, the touchpad, and the highly performant components inside the sleek and premium chassis. To sum it up, Acer scored a win almost everywhere except for the audio which is a shame. *** Performance *** True to its moniker, the 2026 Acer Swift 16 is...very swift. Powered by the latest and greatest mobile SOC from Intel (Core Ultra Series 3 Panther Lake), 1TB Kingston NVME drive, 16GB LPDDR5X memory, and the surprisingly very performant Intel Arc B390 integrated graphics with 12 Xe3 cores that support ray tracing and multi-frame generation (MFG), the Swift 16 is a powerhouse for productivity, entertainment, and gaming (as long as you stick to 1080P and don’t max out all the eye candy settings). In Geekbench 6, the Swift 16 did pretty well for itself, scoring 2829 single-core and 15,775 multi-core (performance mode, plugged in). On battery, it scored 2512 single-core and 13,923 multi-core, a reduction of 12.6% and 13.3% respectively, which is actually quite impressive. Despite having less power to draw upon, the Ultra X7 358H scored almost identically to the Core i9 14900HX (24 cores) and Core Ultra 9 275HX (24 cores) inside my gaming laptops (see table). When it comes to graphics, however, the Ultra X7 358H blew the other CPUs completely out of the water, foreshadowing its strong performance in games. I put the Swift 16 to the test by playing some popular AAA games on it, such as the new Resident Evil Requiem as well as Cyberpunk 2077. To my great pleasant surprise, both games ran very, very well. RE Requiem was played at 1080P with ray tracing off, hair strands on, graphic quality set to Normal, frame generation enabled, and the frames consistently hovered between 55 to 60fps. In Cyberpunk 2077, it was also played in 1080P with ray tracing off, and the frames were also around 60fps. In anticipation of the new Tomb Raider game coming out later this year, I began replaying the “Survivor” trilogy, and because those games are older, I was able to set most graphic settings to High and still get good frame rates. I’m truly amazed that a thin and light Ultrabook from Intel with “just” integrated graphics can play games so well and smoothly. The Swift 16 certainly isn’t a gaming laptop, and it doesn’t pretend or claim to be one, but the power is there when gaming beckons you. The Swift 16 is great and fast at everything else as well, such as video and photo editing and multitasking multiple apps (e.g., running Chrome with 30 tabs, music playing in the background, and converting and compressing video files). The NVME SSD drive and 16GB of LPDDR5X memory keep everything running smooth and snappy. *** Rest of the laptop *** As expected, the Swift 16 arrived with Windows 11 Home installed, and the first thing I did was perform all the driver, firmware, and Windows updates followed by removing all the third-party apps I consider bloatware (there was quite a bit). Then, I installed ExplorerPatcher (by valinet on GitHub) to make Windows 11 look and act like Windows 10, bringing back the familiar Start Menu and Taskbar. Everything else was also good and I experienced no issues with Wi-Fi speeds, Bluetooth connectivity, the stylus, and the touchpad. Except for the lackluster speakers, Acer did a pretty good job crafting the Swift 16 – thin and light, crisp and bright OLED screen with excellent color accuracy, a huge and responsive touchpad, quality keyboard with a numpad, and highly performant Core Ultra X7 358H with the Arc B390 integrated graphics that shatters and upends the idea that integrated graphics suck and you can’t play AAA games on such a thin and light Ultrabook. All in all, I give the 2026 Swift 16 a 4.4 out of 5 Stars, which is a B+ in my scale. Unless you’re extra picky about audio quality, I think the Swift 16 will please most people out there and they’ll be very happy with the swift performance, beautiful display, and its thin and light form-factor.

Out of the box this Acer Swift 16 is very sharp looking, thin, and comes with its own protector bag and a stylus pen which is great. Setup was a breeze and jumping right into windows wasnt much of a chore. pros The keyboard has very large buttons, yet they are all compressed, it's looks a little odd but works very well, it even has a slim numeric keypad. The keyboard being designed this way allows for a huge trackboard/pad that can be used with the included active stylus pen Wifi 7 3k OLED 16" Touchscreen (2880x1800) intel ultra x7 (358h 1.9ghz, 16cores) 16GB lp-ddr5x ram 1 Tb nvme ssd intel arc b390 (12 xe cores igpu) Type C Thunderbolt 4, usb 3.2 microsd slot webcam (1080p) cons includes the standard laptop bloatware, mcafee, o365 that requires purchase, things of this nature. personally i found it odd, that there was no included art program to go with the unit, it features this beautifully sized pad to draw on and nothing besides ms-paint to use, you would think they would of included adobe cloud trial or something to encourage the use of this. The other thing i found odd was the included sleeve or protective case, while it is effective in principal, the useability of the 'sleeve' is far from valuable, there is no handle, or strap, so you're forced to either put it in a backpack or an actual case which kind of takes away from the usefulness of it, i liked that it came with the laptop but in the end i found it kind of worthless (personally) Overall the unit performed beautifully, its fast, the pen works great and the size of the trackpad is perfect for a laptop of this size. After installing my own art software and getting to use the stylus and pad it felt pretty good, i really like how large the pad is, keeps me from having to break out my wacom pad... honestly I cant say I have ever seen a touchpad this large on a laptop before, definitely useful for anyone creating any sort of artwork, or doing photo touchups. I would recommend this laptop for anyone looking for a newer laptop with the need of art capabilities, the machine works well for this sort of setup and i can see myself using it for some time with my side projects that i find myself having to do.

This laptop has really good value. It has some of the latest components out for 2026: Intel Ultra X7 358H, latest Intel integrated CPU Arc B390, Wifi-7. I purchased this on sale, which only improves the value further. Buying a similar spec laptop easily costs more. For a 16 inch laptop is it very light weight. Given the Intel Arc B390 GPU and Intel Ultra X7, I am able to quickly load games and play without issue. For example, Valorant loads quickly and plays well. For an integrated GPU it is currently the most powerful available, without needing a dedicated GPU like Nvidia. My usage is more casual and more than meets my needs and enables me to play games with my kids. My only gripes is the left/right trackpad buttons are not the best. I needed to adapt to these a bit. But while home I mostly use a bluetooth mouse. The other problem I had was at separate times the speaker and bluetooth were disabled. But the Windows troubleshooter was able to diagnose and solve the problem after a restart. I am not sure the cause of the problem, it may have been from the new applications I was installing for a new computer. The quality and build looks solid. I do not notice any flex or cheapness to the build quality. The battery life has been great. This can be attributed to the latest chipsets and integrated GPU. Laptops with a separate GPU (i.e. Nvidia) will always be a bigger drain on the battery life. Overall, I love this laptop and repat again, it is great value for the money. Try to find other laptops with similar specs for the same price.

Superb. Actually purchased this for full initial price. Sturdy lightweight metal chassis which feels "premium." Has all the bells and whistles you'd expect n this price range. Great backlit keyboard and keys, am not getting errors. Sharp display. Runs relatively cool (a bit warm, nothing problematic), great battery life. Love the pen support in the huge haptic trackpad - now I can sign documents straight from a desktop -like surface. Note that I initially purchased the very similar and lower level "Go" model by mistake as it had the exact same price (but more installed memory) - not sure why anyone would prefer the Go model.

It is a wonderful computer, especially with the OLED and Ultra X7 358H. At this point in time you wont find a cheaper laptop with the Ultra X series in it. Main callout that I have is the touchpad, while it is super nice and a great first experience to using a haptic touchpad I find myself accidentally wresting my wrist on it a little bit when dragging so when I try to release whatever window I am moving I end up holding it longer than I planned on accident. One more thing I'd like to call out is the charger, the one included is a 100W type C charger but they used on that has a cable to the wall, then a LARGE brick, then it goes to the type C. Most others I've seen at these prices just have the brick that plugs into the wall.

Fantastic quality chasis but the real star of the show is the B390 graphics and its ultra quiet fans...oh and the OLED 3K resolution touch display!

I purchased this brand new for $1099. Mainly for the new Panther Lake 358h b390. 1. At 16 inches and only 3.5 pounds, it is a bit flimsy even though it's made of aluminum. When the laptop is open, holding it on the corner with one hand results in a noticable bending that you can feel, not rigid. The chassis flexes a fair amount. The only plastic on the chassis that I noticed was the hinge housing. 2. 16 GB of RAM was cutting it close a few times. Most of the time it was not a problem. I'm just a casual consumer, I don't do any intensive work or AI stuff that requires a lot of ram. It's unified memory, shared between the system and iGPU so you should be mindful if you're going to do something demanding. 3. The 70 wh battery is small for a 16 inch laptop and could have been bigger to take full advantage of the Panther Lake efficiency. Battery life is still good otherwise. 4. Speakers are down facing and not great. For the price, you can't find anything cheaper with a 358h b390 right now. Other than that, the great screen and haptic trackpad the laptop gave me some e-waste vibes because of its flimsyness so I felt compelled to return it and spend a little more for something else. I will have to wait a while before buying a B390 laptop.

Laptop has a large screen, colors are fantastic. It is lightweight enough to be used while traveling. LIke the fact it came with a sleeve. I had an issue when I first bought it freezing with facebook. I ran a pending update, it seems to have resolved. Speakers are not as bad as some reviews say. I don't buy laptops for great sound anyways. I have a TV with surround sound for anything needeing quality sound.

The color quality is fantastic! The lit keyboard really clear for an early morning person. For an under the radar brand this laptop is a really pleasant surprise.

I like it because it has a numbered keyboard on the side and the picture is glorious plus the genuine look of the screen.

The product was great with the back lighting and a great haptic sensor mousepad, and the oled screen looks very clean.

For the SALE price of $1099, I guess it's ok. You get 16gb of ram which is barely enough to actually enjoy the B390 gaming capabilities which is the main reason I wanted to try it. The 32gb model was $400 more at the time, which at that point I would just get a gaming laptop. This laptop is a horrible value at it original price but on sale it's the cheapest X7 385H laptop youl find.