Why this 16-inch Acer is the ideal ThinkPad replacement (especially at this price)

ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

• The Acer Swift 16 AI is regularly priced astatine $1,250.
• Its 16-inch OLED display, well-designed lightweight form, and marathon artillery enactment unneurotic to make a laptop that feels much premium than its terms would suggest.
• Its speakers, however, permission overmuch to beryllium desired, and it has its just stock of bloatware.

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Acer's Swift 16 AI is simply a bladed and airy laptop with a gorgeous OLED display, bully full-sized keyboard, and Intel Core Ultra 7 oregon 9 "Lunar Lake" processor starting astatine $1,200: a competitory terms for a instrumentality that feels much premium than you'd expect. 

I've been commuting with the Swift 16 AI for the past 2 weeks, and it's go a astonishment favourite of the year. It stands retired arsenic a great-value ultraportable that's arsenic versatile arsenic it is susceptible and has fantastic artillery life. 

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The Acer Swift 16 AI features a minimalist carnal build, with an all-over, metallic matte achromatic coating that looks a batch similar the LG Gram Pro 16. Its full-sized keyboard and generous enactment of I/O marque it applicable for a assortment of uses, and the carnal signifier is sleek and well-designed. 

The configuration I tested had an Intel Core Ultra 7 256V, 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and a 1TB SSD -- a flexible loadout that tin bash a small spot of everything. It's peculiarly well-suited arsenic a enactment instrumentality with Wi-Fi 7 and a responsive, precise comfy keyboard with a flimsy upward tilt acknowledgment to Acer's hinge design. 

I was blessed to spot that some USB-C ports enactment Thunderbolt 4, which is large for folks who privation their outer monitors. Otherwise, you besides get an HDMI larboard that supports up to 8K resolution. The webcam is besides amazingly good, with 1440p solution for a crisp representation during video calls. 

Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET

The glossy, 3K OLED show astatine 120Hz is 1 of the laptop's strongest features. It's a crisp and vibrant representation that looks fantastic whether you're gaming, editing video, oregon conscionable moving successful productivity software. Despite its precise bladed clamshell design, I experienced precise small surface wobble -- 1 of the archetypal things I look for erstwhile I spot a show this thin. 

You tin besides get immoderate amazingly bully gaming show retired of this laptop with the Intel Arc GPU, arsenic agelong arsenic you're not pushing the limits connected top-tier titles. I ran a fistful of my accustomed Steam titles, and though it's not a gaming laptop, it feels competitory and responsive, lone stuttering with texture shaders turned up to max. 

Also: I tested HP's first-gen EliteBook X, and it's a powerhouse astatine the bureau (and $500 off)

The lone happening is that the show is incredibly glossy -- we're talking near-mirror status. You volition request to set it if you're successful an bureau oregon determination with overhead lighting, thing I recovered myself doing alternatively frequently. If you're sitting with your backmost to a agleam window, it becomes borderline unusable. 

That said, the show looks fantastic otherwise, truthful I'd inactive urge this laptop to astir users unless you're specifically looking for a instrumentality to usage outdoors oregon are not a instrumentality of a glossy display. 

Another critique I person of this laptop (which is an inevitable effect of its terms point) is its talker system, which is not great. While it's existent that laptop speakers are infamously lacking successful bass and depth, this 1 takes that estimation and runs with it.

Usually, I would accidental this is simply a trade-off I don't mind, but it's a spot of a bummer that the dependable is truthful shallow erstwhile the gaming show is truthful good. If you're idiosyncratic who ever has a brace of headphones on, however, this won't beryllium an issue. 

Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET

Ultimately, the Acer Swift 16 AI's strengths outweigh its drawbacks. When it comes to mundane use, the show is there, and arsenic a portable 16-inch laptop, it's well-designed and casual to commute with. 

The artillery is besides a banger. The laptop has a precise bladed signifier factor, but inactive manages to acceptable successful a ample 20Wh artillery with a 65-watt charge. Depending connected however you usage it, you tin get aggregate days of usage connected 1 charge, and it ranks up determination with different businesslike devices I've tested this twelvemonth specified arsenic the Asus Zenbook A14, Microsoft's Surface Laptop, and the Dell XPS 13 with the Snapdragon X Elite chip. 

During our modular video playback test, I got astir 18 hours of video playback connected 1 charge. When it comes to utilizing this laptop for work, you'll easy past done the enactment time and into the next, unless you're pushing it with much demanding workloads. Like each of the different Lunar Lake-powered devices I've tested this year, powerfulness drain drops to a trickle erstwhile it's not successful use. 

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The Intel Core Ultra 7 spot generates small to nary vigor during mundane use, but pushing it with heavier task loads and plugging successful the charger volition effect successful somesthesia increases. 

Notably, the charging process seems to beryllium hotter during the archetypal 30 minutes, oregon beneath 30%, past tapers down to a overmuch cooler somesthesia astatine higher artillery percentages. Also, erstwhile you commencement oregon halt charging, the laptop emits a chirp. All that said, it charges precise accelerated and tin attack 100% successful astir an hr successful Balanced Mode. 

Beyond gaming, this laptop makes for a competent laptop for creatives with its accelerated refresh complaint and beauteous display. The 16GB of RAM mightiness bounds high-end workloads with ample video files oregon 4K rendering, but it's different a joyousness to enactment on.

Comparing this laptop to immoderate peers, we spot precise adjacent (with 1 identical) benchmarking scores to Dell's XPS 13 with the aforesaid Intel Core Ultra 7 "Lunar Lake" chip. 

ZDNET's buying advice

The Acer Swift 16 AI is simply a fantastic worth and a sleeper deed from Acer's lineup. The bottommost enactment present is that for astir $1,250, you're getting a 16-inch OLED show astatine 120Hz and 3K resolution, a sleek, minimalist build, afloat suite of I/O, and a marathon battery. Those elements unsocial enactment unneurotic to marque a practical, susceptible main operator that tin bash a spot of everything. 

As a enactment laptop, it feels premium and powerful, contempt the subpar speakers, which is simply a tradeoff I'm consenting to take. 

Also: I recovered the eventual MacBook Air alternate for Windows users - and it's priced well

Why the Acer Swift 16 AI gets an Editors' Choice award

We've awarded the Acer Swift 16 AI our Editors' Choice grant chiefly for its features, hardware, and physique prime comparative to price. The "Lunar Lake" Intel Core Ultra 7 processor future-proofs this laptop with commendable performance, and its carnal physique feels much premium than its terms constituent would suggest. 

Ultimately, it's an fantabulous prime for anyone wanting a gorgeous show paired with fantastic artillery life. Starting astatine $1,250, it's already a value, and if you tin drawback it connected sale, it's adjacent better.