Acer’s answer to the MacBook Neo is a $699 laptop with Intel chips and 8GB of RAM

Acer is aiming to return connected the MacBook Neo much straight pinch a caller Swift Air 14, a caller 14-inch laptop that starts astatine $699. The laptop will usage Intel’s lower-cost Core Series 3 “Wildcat Lake” chips — either Core 5 aliases Core 7 models, some of which are six-core processors. It comes successful green, pink, purple, and a gray-ish bluish pinch an all-aluminum chassis. While the Neo is often criticized for its constricted 8GB of RAM, the Swift Air will commencement pinch the aforesaid magnitude and beryllium configurable pinch up to 16GB.

According to Acer’s specs, the Swift Air will beryllium astir the aforesaid weight arsenic Apple’s Neo astatine 2.76 pounds / 1.25kg, but it will beryllium a small thicker (12.9mm astatine its thinnest constituent to the Neo’s all-around 12.7mm). The Swift’s surface is conscionable 1920 x 1200 solution pinch 350 nits of brightness (lower res and dimmer than the Neo), but it supports a speedier 120Hz refresh complaint and Acer claims it will screen 100 percent of the sRGB colour space. And if the Neo’s 2 USB-C ports aren’t capable for you, Acer has the separator pinch 2 faster Thunderbolt 4 ports and moreover a USB-A 3.2 — not bad.

The large chartless is the chip. Intel’s Wildcat Lake has frankincense acold only appeared successful immoderate early benchmarks, wherever it showed committedness successful competing pinch the A18 Pro of the MacBook Neo. If it’s besides businesslike for illustration its bigger related Panther Lake, past it could hopefully connection fantabulous artillery life successful a laptop for illustration the Swift Air — which has a generous 70Wh (nearly double the Neo’s 36.5Wh capacity). But that 8GB of starting RAM evidently gives maine pause. It’s workable connected macOS, but Windows 11 is simply a different monster. And aft pitting a Lunar Lake-equipped Acer Aspire 14 AI against the MacBook Neo earlier this year, I wonderment what corners Acer mightiness beryllium cutting to scope $699. That Aspire had an MSRP of $1,050 and would dip down to sub-$600 connected sale, but speech from its spot and larboard action the Neo trounced it.

The Swift Air is group to motorboat successful North America successful August, though it should get successful July for different regions and sometime successful Q3 for Australia.

Acer has a mates much intriguing laptops it’s announcing up of Computex: the Aspire 18 AI and the Nitro 16. The erstwhile is simply a monolithic 18-inch mundane laptop that I ideate is champion for group who conscionable want a large surface to move astir the house. It’ll travel pinch Intel Core Ultra Series 3 (Panther Lake) spot options, up to 32GB of RAM, and up to 2TB of retention (complete pinch a 2nd M.2 SSD slot). But while this ample laptop weighs successful astatine a reasonable 4.83 pounds / 2.19kg (not bad for an 18-incher), its immense surface has a solution of conscionable 1920 x 1200 — which doesn’t sound very crisp erstwhile stretched to specified a large panel. At slightest it’s a speedy 165Hz refresh and decently agleam 400 nits.

As for the Nitro 16, it’s 1 of the fewer gaming laptops retired location configurable pinch a 16-core AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX3D. That’s 1 of AMD’s flagship laptop chips, and the 1 it calls “the world’s fastest mobile gaming processor” acknowledgment to its second-gen 3D V-cache — cramming overmuch much cache connected the CPU for the astir graphically demanding games. While the Nitro 16 is stacked connected the CPU side, it’s made somewhat much humble by maxing retired pinch “only” an RTX 5070 Ti GPU. That mightiness thief it support immoderate level of affordability, but we can’t opportunity yet because pricing is still TBD for some the Nitro 16 and Aspire 18. So it’s difficult to opportunity what benignant of worth they offer. What we do cognize is that the Aspire 18 should vessel successful August for North America and different regions successful July. The Nitro 16 is expected to motorboat successful August for each regions.