2 days ago
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ZDNET's key takeaways
- Acer announced a slew of new laptops at IFA in Berlin, but the Swift Air 16 is one of the most exciting.
- The 16-inch laptop has a starting weight of 2.18 pounds - one of the lightest on the market.
- There are some trade-offs with getting a 16-inch laptop down to this size, specifically with battery life.
Acer announced a new 16-inch featherweight laptop at IFA in Berlin yesterday, weighing just 2.18 pounds for the IPS configuration -- about the same weight as Asus' Zenbook A14, one of the lightest laptops I've ever held. The AMOLED weighs just 2.43 pounds, still lighter than a 13-inch MacBook Air.
The Acer Swift Air 16 manages this weight with a 16-inch display -- an impressive feat on first glance and one of the lightest 16-inch laptops on the market right now. Currently, we have European pricing set at around €999, but no set price for North America just yet.
The Swift Air 16 will come with an IPS or AMOLED option, up to a WQXGA+ resolution at 120Hz for the latter configuration at 400 nits of brightness. Under the hood, it's powered by an AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 processor, officially earning it the Copilot+ PC title.
It comes with 32GB of LPDDR5 memory and up to a 1TB M.2 PCIe Gen4 SSD, two USB-C ports, one USB-A, an HDMI 1.4 port, and an audio jack.
One thing to note is the device's 50Wh battery, which is small for a 16-inch laptop. For comparison, the previously mentioned Zenbook A14 houses a 70Whr battery and weighs about the same, leading me to believe this is one of the more significant trade-offs made to get it down to weight.
The Swift Air 16 is geared toward hybrid commuters and professionals who want a device that can slip into a bag unnoticed and value portability and a nice-looking display over raw power. In that sense, it seems Acer is hoping the display, future-forward design, and lightness-at-all-costs outweigh (no pun intended) any gaps in longevity.
The Acer Swift Air 16 will be available in North America in Nov., 2025.
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