Acer Swift 16 AI evaluate: An unimaginable OLED laptop computer that lasts all day

Finest Costs Immediately: Acer Swift 16 AI

The Acer Swift 16 AI is a 16-inch laptop computer with Intel’s Panther Lake {hardware}. Due to Panther Lake, this machine is unimaginable, with excessive CPU efficiency, sufficient GPU efficiency for PC gaming, and lengthy battery life. Efficiency is stable even when operating on battery energy, too — even gaming efficiency is respectable on battery!

At a premium $1,899 worth level, a few of this laptop computer’s parts are unimaginable: The OLED show is completely stunning and the massive haptic trackpad feels wonderful. Different parts are lower than splendid, although. The shiny show floor is liable to reflections, and the webcam is on the grainy facet. Nonetheless, $1,899 is available in just a few hundred bucks beneath different competing laptops, a lot of that are arriving at $2,000 or above.

However show reflections apart, the Acer Swift 16 AI shines because of its Intel {hardware}, OLED show, and Acer’s superior trackpad. Panther Lake is an actual generational leap. As one of many first Panther Lake laptops I’ve hung out with, this can be among the finest laptops I’ve ever used.

Acer Swift 16 AI: Specs

The Acer Swift 16 AI features a high-end Intel Panther Lake processor and GPU. The Intel Core Extremely X7 358H is a 16-core CPU that delivers spectacular efficiency mixed with severe energy effectivity for lengthy battery life. This machine additionally has a high-end Intel Arc B390 GPU, which Intel says delivers efficiency on par with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050. Acer rounds it out with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB PCIe Gen5 SSD.

Panther Lake additionally has an NPU that meets Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC necessities. With an NPU delivering 50 trillion operations per second (TOPS) of efficiency, you should utilize Home windows 11’s Copilot+ PC options on this machine.

That is severe {hardware}. Due to Intel Panther Lake, this machine ought to have the ability to present snappy desktop efficiency, lengthy battery life, and even respectable PC gaming efficiency. And that’s precisely what we noticed in our benchmarks, as we’ll see beneath.

• Mannequin: SF16-71T-73P1
• CPU: Intel Core Extremely X7 358H
• Reminiscence: 32GB LPDDR5X RAM
• Graphics/GPU: Intel Arc B390
• NPU: Intel NPU (50 TOPS)
• Show: 16-inch 2880×1800 OLED with 120Hz refresh charge and touchscreen
• Storage: 1TB PCIe Gen5 SSD
• Webcam: 1080p webcam
• Connectivity: 2x Thunderbolt 4 (USB Kind-C), 2x USB Kind-A (1x USB 3.2 Gen1, 1x USB 3.2 Gen2), 1x HDMI 2.1 out, 1x combo audio jack, 1x microSD card reader
• Networking: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4
• Biometrics: IR digicam for facial recognition
• Battery capability: 70 Watt-hours
• Dimensions: 13.99 x 9.66 x 0.58 inches
• Weight: 3.42 kilos
• MSRP: $1,899 as examined

Acer Swift 16 AI: Design and construct high quality

Foundry / Chris Hoffman

The Acer Swift 16 AI is a 16-inch laptop computer with an aluminum chassis, weighing in at 3.42 kilos. The machine feels stable, and it’s an affordable weight for a 16-inch machine, particularly one that may ship this degree of CPU and GPU efficiency.

The hinge is sturdy, and it’s simple to open with one hand. The hinge opens to 180 levels so the machine can lie flat, nevertheless it doesn’t go any additional again.

Regardless of the highly effective {hardware} right here, the Acer Swift 16 AI’s followers weren’t significantly loud, even whereas taking part in Doom: The Darkish Ages — albeit on low settings. The keyboard stayed a snug temperature whereas gaming, too.

The Acer Swift 16 AI we reviewed had a silver chassis with corresponding silver highlights. Acer says the precise mannequin it is going to be promoting within the US is darkish grey and options gold highlights and contours as an alternative of silver ones, with a easy gold “Acer” emblem on the left of the lid and no grey “Acer Swift” emblem. Whereas the lid of the evaluate unit appears to be like relatively plain, the mannequin Acer plans on promoting within the US has a extra distinctive visible look.

Foundry / Chris Hoffman

The 16-inch Acer Swift 16 AI has a big keyboard full with a quantity pad on the proper facet. Some folks love the quantity pad on a laptop computer of this measurement, whereas some choose laptops with out quantity pads, however that’s a matter of private style. The keyboard has a white backlight.

The Acer Swift 16 AI’s chiclet keyboard feels responsive and comfy to sort on, however the motion on the underside of the keys is somewhat smooth — it feels somewhat shallow, and there’s a flex to the keyboard once you press down. It’s an affordable keyboard, nevertheless it’s nowhere close to as premium an expertise because the trackpad.

The trackpad is wonderful. It’s enormous, and it’s a haptic trackpad: You possibly can click on down wherever you need on it. It’s easy and responsive with a Corning Gorilla Glass floor — glass trackpads like this one simply really feel nicer. The trackpad helps energetic pen enter. Once you hover the pen over the trackpad, you’ll see a cursor, exhibiting the place the pen enter will occur on display screen.

That pen expertise isn’t fairly what you’d count on. The pen solely works on the trackpad itself, not on the touchscreen, which lacks the suitable digitizer.

It’s good to have, nevertheless it’s higher for small touchups than observe writing or drawing throughout a big show. I think about most individuals who need pen enter would need to use the pen instantly on the show, as I can’t think about writing notes in OneNote with the pen on the trackpad.

Acer Swift 16 AI: Show and audio system

Foundry / Chris Hoffman

The Acer Swift 16 AI’s show has wonderful image high quality, and it’s an actual spotlight. The 16-inch 2880×1800 OLED panel right here has a 120Hz refresh charge, and it delivers stunning, vivid colours with good distinction. Paired with the spectacular Intel GPU right here, this machine gives a good gaming expertise.

Whereas Acer says this panel is rated for 340 nits of brightness, the precise brightness right here appears nearer to 450 nits. It’s brighter than I anticipated it to be, and Acer says launched fashions could have the identical unexpectedly vibrant panel. That’s a pleasing shock. This machine additionally helps HDR.

The shiny display screen is, sadly, a draw back. Whereas the OLED panel is shiny and vivid, it’s liable to reflections. Utilizing it in my house workplace on a winter day, I can see seen reflections even at most brightness because of the smooth daylight coming by the window. Outdoor, it could be much more difficult.

Extra brightness can compensate for the glare, so the additional brightness on this OLED panel does assist. Nevertheless, it doesn’t repair the issue. How dangerous the reflections shall be for you depends upon the place you’ll use the laptop computer, and many individuals do choose a shiny and vivid panel over a extra muted matte show.

This laptop computer’s audio system have loads of quantity, and so they produce a transparent sound. Extra bass can be good, however the audio system are respectable for laptop computer audio system on this worth vary.

Acer Swift 16 AI: Webcam, microphone, biometrics

Foundry / Chris Hoffman

The Acer Swift 16 AI’s 1080p webcam produced a considerably grainy image. When you may get by with this in a video assembly, the webcam doesn’t shine in the way in which the show and trackpad do. If you wish to look nearly as good as attainable in video conferences, you’ll need one other laptop computer.

The webcam does have a bodily privateness shutter, which is all the time good to have.

The triple microphone array on this machine picked up loud and clearly audible audio, and so they did an amazing job of canceling out ambient background noise. Nevertheless, the sound was somewhat muffled. This isn’t the crystal-clear microphone expertise you’ll discover on higher-end enterprise laptops optimized for video conferences.

The Acer Swift 16 AI has an IR digicam for facial recognition, so you possibly can signal into your PC with Home windows Whats up. It doesn’t have a fingerprint reader.

Acer Swift 16 AI: Connectivity

Foundry / Chris Hoffman

The Acer Swift 16 AI has a wide variety of ports. On the left, it has two USB Kind-C (Thunderbolt 4) ports, a USB Kind-A port, and an HDMI 2.1 out port. This machine expenses through USB Kind-C, so that you’ll be plugging the charger cable into one in all these ports.

On the precise facet, this machine has a USB Kind-A port, a combo audio jack, and a microSD card reader. Total, it’s an excellent setup, though there’s no Kensington lock slot right here.

Due to Panther Lake, this machine helps speedy Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 wi-fi requirements.

Acer Swift 16 AI: Efficiency

The Acer Swift 16 AI guarantees severe efficiency because of Intel’s Panther Lake {hardware}. With an Intel Core Extremely X7 358H and an Intel Arc B390 GPU, it ought to ship wonderful efficiency. It delivered wonderful efficiency in day-to-day desktop productiveness duties, and I even managed to play Doom: The Darkish Ages with a really playable framerate.

As all the time, we ran the Acer Swift 16 AI by our normal benchmarks to quantify simply how effectively it performs. For this machine’s benchmarks, I used Home windows 11’s Settings app to set the Acer Swift 16 AI to “Finest Efficiency” whereas plugged in.

Foundry / Chris Hoffman

First, we run PCMark 10 to get an thought of total system efficiency. That is an total system benchmark, nevertheless it’s significantly targeted on CPU efficiency. The Acer Swift 16 AI produced an total PCMark 10 rating of 10,474, which is unimaginable. Intel is delivering wonderful efficiency with Panther Lake.

Apparently sufficient, the MSI Status Flip 14 AI+ has the identical CPU, and it benchmarked at a rating of 8,184 in our exams. My colleague Mark Knapp benchmarked that machine, so I can’t examine them personally. Nevertheless, that smaller 14-inch machine had an influence plan configured extra for energy effectivity through the benchmarking course of, and that makes an enormous distinction.

Foundry / Chris Hoffman

Subsequent, we run Cinebench R20. This can be a closely multithreaded benchmark that focuses on total CPU efficiency. It’s a fast benchmark, so cooling underneath prolonged workloads isn’t an element. However, because it’s closely multithreaded, CPUs with extra cores have an enormous benefit.

The Acer Swift 16 AI racked up a Cinebench R20 rating of seven,704, delivering spectacular multithreaded CPU efficiency.

Foundry / Chris Hoffman

We additionally run an encode with Handbrake. That is one other closely multithreaded benchmark, nevertheless it runs over an prolonged interval. This calls for the laptop computer’s cooling kick in, and plenty of laptops will throttle and decelerate underneath load.

The Acer Swift 16 AI accomplished the encode course of in a mean of 882 seconds — that’s slightly below quarter-hour. It’s an amazing rating for a machine like this one. Whereas it’s a bit behind AMD’s Ryzen AI 7 350 {hardware}, this machine delivers for much longer battery life.

Foundry / Chris Hoffman

Subsequent, we run a graphical benchmark. This isn’t branded as a gaming laptop computer, however the Intel Arc B390 GPU delivers sufficient efficiency to offer a good gaming expertise. We run 3DMark Time Spy, a graphical benchmark that focuses on GPU efficiency.

The Acer Swift 16 AI delivered a rating of seven,016 in 3DMark Time Spy. That’s considerably above laptops with Intel’s previous-generation Arc graphics. It’s additionally noticeably beneath the Acer Swift X 14 AI, which has a current-generation Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 GPU.

Whereas Intel made an enormous leap, most players will nonetheless choose laptops with discrete GPUs. However Intel’s confirmed that laptops with built-in graphics can ship a good gaming expertise, and that’s enormous.

Impressively, GPU efficiency didn’t appear to drop considerably once I unplugged the laptop computer. The Intel Arc B390 GPU performed Doom: The Darkish Ages effectively on battery energy, too.

Total, the Acer Swift 16 AI delivered critically spectacular efficiency. For a 16-inch laptop computer coming in at 3.42 kilos, particularly one with pretty quiet followers and excessive battery life, that is wonderful.

Acer Swift 16 AI: Battery life

The Acer Swift 16 AI has a 70 Watt-hour battery, and Intel’s Panther Lake {hardware} guarantees severe battery life. It did ship extraordinarily excessive battery life — however nowhere close to another Panther Lake machines. Nonetheless, this could get you thru a workday — and doubtless extra.

Foundry / Chris Hoffman

To benchmark the battery life, we play a 4K copy of Tears of Metal on repeat on Home windows 11 with airplane mode enabled till the laptop computer suspends itself. We set the display screen to 250 nits of brightness for our battery benchmarks. This can be a best-case situation for any laptop computer since native video playback is so environment friendly, and actual battery life in day-to-day use is all the time going to be lower than this.

The Acer Swift 16 AI lasted for a mean of 1,108 minutes. That’s practically eighteen and a half hours. This consequence solely appears to be like middling on the chart above as a result of the MSI Status Flip 14 AI+ lasted for over 30 hours — a stunning consequence. The Acer Swift 16 AI probably has a show that makes use of considerably extra energy than that MSI laptop computer.

You gained’t get eighteen hours in the actual world, however a consequence like this one demonstrates it’s best to get by a workday — and doubtless extra — though it depends upon your utilization. Nevertheless, that is unimaginable — it needs to be greater than sufficient battery life for everybody. Except you’re searching for absolutely the most battery life to spend days away from an influence outlet, the Acer Swift 16 AI delivers greater than sufficient battery life.

Acer Swift 16 AI: Conclusion

The Acer Swift 16 AI is an unimaginable machine with wonderful efficiency. It is going to probably be cheaper than many competing Panther Lake machines with comparable {hardware}, which makes it a sensible choice, particularly if you’ll find it on sale.

Nevertheless, it’s price evaluating costs and specs. For $1,899, I’d pause and suppose earlier than shopping for this laptop computer due to the glare issue alone. Would you like a shiny OLED show? That’s a matter of private style, and many individuals choose the vivid OLED expertise, even at the price of reflectivity. However, since this can be a laptop computer with lengthy battery life that you could be use on the go, a shiny show looks like an actual draw back.

Alternatively, let’s be trustworthy: If my greatest nitpick is a shiny show, that reveals simply how good this laptop computer is.

Whereas the show is a matter of private desire, the remainder of the machine largely shines. The Acer Swift 16 AI is wonderful because of Panther Lake, the gorgeous OLED panel, and that compelling trackpad.