Acer - Swift 14 AI - Copilot+ PC - 14.5" 2.5K 120Hz Touch-Screen – Snapdragon X Elite – 16GB Memory – 1TB SSD - Steel Gray

I knew coming into this that compatibility would be an issue, but Windows Prism emulation is really good, aside from not being able to run virtual machines. Besides that, the laptop has amazing battery life—18 hours when doing school work on Chrome. The build quality is very nice, and it comes with an upgraded SSD inside. The webcam is even better than my iPhone 14’s camera, which shocked me. However, the speakers are pretty bad; they are downward-facing and sound very flat. Additionally, the Windows install on here was full of so much bloatware that it took an hour to wipe. Despite these two cons, overall, this is a really nice laptop, and I can’t wait for more updates and greater compatibility down the road.

The Acer Swift 14 AI is a premium mobile laptop equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 ARM Processor. I was excited to see if this laptop could become my daily driver and it passed the test easily. The unique characteristic of this computer is that it has hardware that is dedicated to AI. My first impression: this computer is fast, it's portable, it runs cool, and the battery lasts forever. The Swift 14 is ideal for professionals or students that also use it for entertainment or creative needs. The native ARM application library is much larger than I anticipated. Additionally, this laptop can virtualize programs that aren't native and does it well. *Design & Build* The Swift 14 AI is lightweight and thin weighing in just under 3 pounds. Dimensions are 13 x 9 x .75". There's a backlit keyboard with no flex. The keyboard feels good, with adequate tactile response. The keyboard is standard with the exception of an AcerSense & AI CoPilot key. Every component feels like quality, although the keys are a little small, but this is most likely due to the size of the laptop. There are 2 USB 4 Type-C ports and 2 USB 3.2 Type A ports. I would prefer one more USB-C port instead of the 2 USB-A ports because most devices are slowly moving towards USB-C. Although depending on your peripherals you might want 2 USB-A. There's also a headphone jack if needed. The display is outstanding. It's 14.5" with a 120 Hz refresh rate, 2560 x 1600 resolution, and it's touch screen. It has a glossy finish that really makes the display pop. The webcam is among the best I've seen on a laptop, 1440p IR. The mouse pad has solid clicks everywhere and feels smooth and consistent. The monitor is solid, no flex, and hinges feel strong. This aluminum chassis is well made. *Specs* This laptop is equipped with Windows 11 Home Edition, and conveniently allows you to sign in securely with Windows Hello. CPU - In my opinion this is the highlight of this laptop, a 3.4 Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 ARM Processor. This 4 nanometer tech processor is very quick, uses low power, and temperatures typically sit around 35 to 50 degrees Celsius. There are 12 High Performance CPU cores. This CPU is one of the best ARM processors out there handling everything I threw at it with ease. You will also notice that fans rarely come on to cool it down. I had about 15 tabs open on my web browser and several apps open in the background, no lag anywhere. In fact, I haven't experienced any slowdown at all while web browsing, running apps, playing games, or even booting up. Above all, it's quiet. GPU - The Adreno GPU is an integrated GPU but still offers approximately 3.8 TFLOPS. NPU - This is one of the fastest Neural processing units available on a laptop equipped with the Qualcomm Hexagon NPU. This unit is dedicated to handle AI tasks. This unit helps blur the background in video calls and adds special effects. It also helps recognize photos and create images without putting an excessive load on the CPU or GPU. The advantage with an NPU is it acts like a 3rd processor dedicated to AI tasks. Memory - 16GB of soldered memory (LPDDR5x-8448) I typically had about 50 to 55% usage of memory when processing typical tasks. This high memory bandwidth is designed for on device AI acceleration. Hard Drive - There's a speedy NVME SSD Hard Drive that I tested at 5700 MB/s Read and Write. 1 TB of space is plenty of space for me, but this is upgradeable too. This is Gen4 technology. Display - 14.5" 120 Hz Refresh, WQXGA IPS, 2560 x 1600 (1440p) 16:10 aspect ratio, touch screen, gloss finish. The brightness specs are around 300 nits, but I think with the gloss finish, the display looks great. I tested my unit and actually had about 360 nits of brightness. You can lean it back to 180 degrees as well so it lays flat. This unit conveniently comes with an HDMI to USB-C plug if you want to use an external monitor. I hooked up 2 external monitors with no problem. There is 100% sRGB which is great for creative. Webcam - 1440p (really impressive), AI helps with blurring the background. I haven't seen a webcam anywhere close to the quality here. The resolution, color, and responsiveness is high quality. There are also numerous options to change settings and add special effects. Keyboard - The keyboard is backlit (white) and feels like a typical keyboard. The keys are easy to click with a small travel distance. I didn't notice any excessive fatigue or issues here with typing. *Battery* I was able to get 17 hours of battery with daily usage and I did a video test that got an outstanding 25 hours. These are excellent results for any laptop. I'm looking forward to taking this laptop on my next long flight. *Software* The Acer Swift 14 AI comes with built-in software that lets you register your computer, monitor your computer performance, set the performance level and a host of other settings. You can also check for Live Updates to keep your software/hardware up to date. You can check the health of your battery, hard drive, memory, and optimize hardware space by cleaning up files. There's a little bit of bloatware, mostly small games, but nothing considerable. *AI* AI helps blur the camera during video calls. There's an AI CoPilot dedicated key and there are ai features built into creative software where you can create pictures and artwork. Most pictures I created were processed within 10 to 15 seconds so the NPU is doing great work here. *Gaming* Even without a dedicated GPU, I installed two of my favorite games and there was zero lag, and framerate looked great. Both games were quick and graphics were beautiful. I wouldn't used it as a dedicated gaming machine though due to a lack of discrete graphics. I am looking forward to trying out a few simulation games to see how it handles them, especially with AI. I would recommend this laptop to students, work professionals, and those that use productivity, entertainment, and creative apps. The Acer Swift 14 AI is easy to travel with and even comes with a travel bag. It's speedy while remaining quiet through most daily tasks such as web browsing, creative apps, and music or movies. A nice added plus is its ability to play games as well. *Pros* *Exceptionally long battery life *No lag *Speedy CPU & NPU *AI is a breeze on this laptop *Laptop runs very cool *Exceptional Webcam *Well built *Travels easily *Responsive Touch screen *Runs very cool *Needs Improvement* *GPU is integrated with average speed *Keys feel close together *External speakers could use more bass

The Acer Swift 14 AI 14-inch laptop powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and Windows 11 Home edition. It’s processor, RAM, and storage capacity make it a powerful productivity machine for heavy multitaskers. The GPU included is the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite Adreno, which is suitable for most standard tasks, but isn’t going to support heavy gaming or high-demand creative tasks easily. DESIGN: As far as looks go, the Acer Swift 14 is a pretty standard laptop. It is dark gray and has the Acer logo etched onto the lid. The bottom of the laptop features rubber feet that lift the computer off a flat surface for ventilation. The trackpad is a little larger than a standard trackpad and it seems very responsive. The laptop is slightly thicker than some other laptops I’ve used but it’s still sleek and has a slim profile. DISPLAY: The screen of the laptop is a touchscreen and I didn’t have any issues with it registering my touch inputs. I didn’t think it the screen collected too many fingerprints and love how bright it is. The display has a resolution of 2560 x 1600 and a refresh rate of 120Hz. The refresh rate is great for smoothing out fast-moving visuals, but may not be apparent with standard tasks. The brightness level is only 300 nits, but it seems to be plenty bright in my opinion. BATTERY: Out of the box the laptop didn’t power on. I plugged it into power using the provided power adapter and it turned on. After setup was completed, the battery showed it was at 89%. I left the laptop on and unplugged it from the power adapter. I changed the standby settings so that the laptop would not fall asleep. Then, I turned on a 4K YouTube video and let it play at 100% brightness. After one hour, the laptop had only drained 6% of its battery. With that in mind, I would estimate that it would take 15-16 hours of use to drain the battery completely. NETWORK SPEED: To test the network speed, I ran Ookla’s Speed Test using Chrome. The dowload speed was 737.19 Mbps and the upload speed was 604.51 Mbps and the ping was 12. This was using an AT&T Fiber connection with a Netgear RAXE500 Tri-Band WiFi 6E Router. PERFORMANCE: When I completed standard real-world tests such as surfing the internet, editing photos (just using Paint), and notepage/processing tasks, the laptop passed above expectations. When I set up the laptop, I did it as a new PC and customized the experience for business and creativity as it seemed to be the best match for the laptop’s specs. One thing that was different about the setup process was that the laptop automatically completed updates as a part of its initial startup. I did decline the trial offers of Office 365 and Xbox Game Pass. When it came to search settings, I turned off search highlights and the work or school account options. Then, I turned off the Microsoft Start feed in the Widget area. Once those setup tasks were completed, I completed the Windows updates. After finishing setup and updates, I restarted the computer and immediately ran Task Manager to see how many computing tasks were running. There were 181 tasks running - most of which were system-based. I ran Geekbench to assess how well the CPU would perform. The Geekbench CPU score was 2426 single-core / 14374 multi-core. As a means of comparison, the top-ranking CPU on Geekbench’s charts is the Intel Core i9-13900KS with a score of 3140 for single-core and a multi-core score of 21796. When looking at the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite (X1E-78-100) processor that is in the Acer laptop against the Intel Core i9, the Intel chip outperforms the Snapdragon X Elite in nearly every area except power efficiency and integrated graphics. Overall, the Acer laptop is a power-efficient laptop that is great for many different tasks. I wouldn’t bet on it as a dedicated gaming machine, but for most other tasks it’s worthwhile.