When you’re shopping at the higher end of the laptop market, it can be rare to find something that provides comparatively great value for money, but with everything that Acer has crammed into the Swift 16 AI, £1199.99/$1199.99 feels very reasonable.

The laptop’s best feature is what you’ll immediately notice as soon as you turn it on: the drop dead gorgeous 16-inch OLED display with 2.8K resolution. Having that winning combination of colour contrast that only OLED can provide, and the richness of detail in that 2.8K resolution, the laptop is an easy win right off the bat for photo editors, or those who obsess over visual fidelity whenever they’re ready to call it a day and stream the latest films.

It’s a shame that the built-in downward firing speakers don’t quite match the prowess of the Acer Swift 16 AI’s display, so if you are planning on at least partially using the laptop for entertainment then we recommend pairing it with one of the best headphones you can buy.

Thankfully, Acer has made sure to maximise the available space where the keyboard is concerned. You’ve got a full row of function keys as well as a number pad on the side, so it’s very unlikely that you’ll feel to need to bring a dedicated wireless keyboard with you on the road, although it would have been nice if Acer had similarly made the trackpad just a little bigger than it currently is.

If you do fancy bringing some accessories into the mix then you’re covered with plenty of ports, including two USB-C, two USB-A, a full sized HDMI port and a 3.5mm headphones jack. Throw in a battery life that lasted for up to 14-hours in our testing and you’re looking at one of the top productivity laptops you can buy right now.

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If you’re looking for a functional work laptop that’s powerful, lightweight and offers a good couple of days’ worth of battery, then the Acer Aspire 14 AI is a brilliant choice.

As it prioritises substance over style, while it doesn’t sport a particularly sleek design it still sports a sturdy aluminium frame that only weighs 1.4kg.

Unlike more expensive laptops, the Aspire 14 AI is fitted with all the ports you could need. There’s two USB4 Type-Cs, an HDMI and a fast USB-A on the left, while the right has a second USB-A and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The latter is especially useful, as we think the speaker quality of this laptop is only fine.

Its 1920×1200 display is fitted with a 60Hz refresh rate and, although we found it does lack some punch, is still an overall good screen that suits modern workloads. Plus its peak brightness of 383.5 nits means it’s suitable for both indoor and outdoor working too. 

Powering the Aspire 14 AI is an Intel Core Ultra 7 256V processor which we found offers solid performance. This, paired with its battery capacity, allows the laptop to see just over 18 and a half hours of life.

Overall, we found the Acer Aspire 14 AI to be a brilliant, well-built laptop that offers brilliant performance and endurance, all for a solid price point.

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Chromebooks have come leaps and bounds over the last few years to become fantastic options for everyday work, and the Acer Chromebook Spin 714 arguably shows off the concept in its best form.

The 13th-gen Intel processor under the hood further boosts the iconic zippiness of ChromeOS, and in our testing it fared quite well against similarly priced Windows laptops, such as the Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 3, making a solid case for those who might be tempted to migrate over from Microsoft’s operating system.

The 14-inch screen is no slouch either, as its 1920×1200 touch-enabled panel is accessible and looks great during everyday use, whether that be for scrolling through spreadsheets or catching a bit of Netflix when it’s time to wind down.

Battery life is exceptional here too, as we were able to keep the Chromebook going for 11 hours and 20 minutes before it needed to be topped up. That’s more than enough to get you through most days, and while the port selection could be a little better, there’s plenty to love about the Spin 714.

With a stylish design, a Snapdragon chip and a brilliant battery life, the Acer Swift Go 14 AI utilises features from premium Acer ultrabooks like the Acer Swift 14 AI but into a more reasonably priced model.

Although it doesn’t boast a fancier OLED display and opts for a more functional IPS choice instead, the Swift Go 14 AI sports a modern 16:10 aspect ratio alongside a 120Hz refresh rate which ensures on-screen movement looks responsive and smooth.

Running the show here is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Plus chip with 10 cores and 10 threads which we found responsive and speedy across both daily tasks and more intensive workloads too.

It’s worth noting that where we found this laptop fails is with its integrated graphics, as we saw the Adreno GPU received a disappointing score in the 3D Mark Time Spy test.

Having said that, there’s enough AI horsepower from the Snapdragon X Plus to mark the laptop as a Copilot+ PC which offers access to Microsoft’s AI toolkit. However, being Arm-based means we did note some issues with app compatibility but this shouldn’t be a huge hurdle.  

Otherwise, we found the Acer Swift Go 14 AI is among one of the most long-lasting laptops we’ve tested, as it offered a whopping 19 hours and 15 minutes during our battery test. That means you can reasonably expect a few days of work use.

We hailed the Acer Nitro 14 as a “decent gaming laptop for 1080p gaming with a solid power core” alongside a 1920×1200 display and a plethora of ports. 

Unlike some other of the best gaming laptops, the Acer Nitro 14 has a relatively sleek appearance with a mostly black frame that’s complimented with translucent orange cooling vents. Open the lid and you’ll find some especially bright RGB lighting too.

There’s also a solid port selection too including a barrel jack, a headphone jack, two USB-As, two USB-Cs, a micro SD reader and a full-size HDMI. Plus, these ports are split across both the left and right sides too, as opposed to being on the rear.

The Nitro 14 offers a combo of an AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS and RTX 4050, which served up impressive results in our Geekbench 6 and Cinebench R23 scores. In fact, it even scored better than the likes of the Lenovo LOQ 15i and Acer Nitro 16.

The beauty of the Nitro 14 is that it can be used for everyday tasks too, which is aided by the inclusion of Microsoft’s Copilot key which acts as a shortcut for Copilot AI Assistant. 

One area where the Nitro 14 really lets itself down is battery life, as we found it lasted just four hours and 12 minutes in our testing. Even so, we noted that the 230W barrel jack charger took just 48 minutes to get the laptop from zero to 50% or 98 minutes for a full charge.

While you’re more than welcome to opt for the Acer Predator Triton 17 X if you want a true powerhouse gaming laptop, the Predator Triton Neo 16 continues Acer’s trend of also offering a great value gaming machine for the more budget-conscious buyers in the room.

The model that we tested packed an Intel Core Ultra 7 chip and an Nvidia RTX 4060 GPU, which came in at £1899.99/$1549.99. Since then however, it’s been possible to snag a discount on those prices, making the Triton Neo 16 even better value for money.

That CPU/GPU pairing proved to be a winning combination in our testing, with the sweet spot being 60fps at 1080p, although we were able to push that slightly with Returnal, hitting 75fps at the same resolution. Anything beyond that requires DLSS to pick up the graphical gruntwork.

Even when playing at 1080p, everything looks great thanks to the super bright 16-inch display, and the 240Hz refresh rate makes fast paced games look their best. What is surprising about the Triton Neo 16 is that, from a distance, it doesn’t look like your average gaming laptop.

This might sound a downside for some, but if you want a powerful work laptop that can also offer up some gaming chops for the money, then the Neo 16 fits the bill quite well, and the minimalistic all-aluminium chassis won’t look out of place in an office environment.

Fitted with the Snapdragon X Plus chipset, a Copilot key and some of the best speakers we’ve ever tested in a laptop, the Swift 14 AI is a brilliant AI-infused option. Plus, as £1199/$1099, it sits comfortably among some of the best ultrabooks.

Despite being considerably more expensive than the Acer Swift Go 14 AI, the Swift 14 AI also opts for an IPS panel rather than an OLED. Otherwise, it boasts a 2.5K resolution with a 120Hz refresh rate too, which we found provides solid detail and smooth motion too.

Although at 1.32kg, the Swift 14 AI is lightweight, it is slightly thicker than other ultrabooks. This, however, isn’t necessarily an issue and it means there’s room for plenty of ports including a pair of USB4-capable Type-Cs, two USB-As and a headphone jack too.

The 10-core Snapdragon X Plus, which is also found in the Inspiron 14 Plus 7441, offers performance that we found is “virtually on-par” with X Elite-powered alternatives. While productivity tasks felt smooth and fast, we did note that its graphical performance was slightly disappointing, although this is the issue with X Elite too. 

As a Copilot+ PC, the Swift 14 AI doesn’t just support Microsoft’s AI toolkit but also includes the addition of a Copilot key which acts as a wake up button for the Copilot assistant.

Overall, if you’re looking for a powerful ultrabook that offers impressive AI tools, speedy performance and heaps of ports to boost your workload, the Acer Swift 14 AI is one for you.