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There are two USB-C ports on the left side, along with an HDMI port and a USB-A port. A second USB-A port, microSD card slot, and headphone jack are on the right. It’s not a great variety of ports overall, and I just wish Acer would split up the USB-C ports so the laptop could have a charging port on both sides.
Acer is using a 16-inch OLED touchscreen on the Swift 16 AI. It has a resolution of 2880 x 1800, a refresh rate of 120Hz, and color saturation is as close to perfect as I’ve seen. Like most OLED laptops, it has a glossy, high-reflective display that reaches a maximum of 315 nits, according to my tests. It’s nowhere near as bright as IPS or mini-LED displays, but the trade-off in brightness is achieving that unbeatable contrast that only OLED can provide.
The touchpad is risky
Photo: Luke Larsen
The full-size keyboard and oversized touchpad are definitely the highlights of this laptop. The first thing you notice is the touchpad, which is definitely the largest you’ve ever seen. You might think it sounds a bit silly, but I always love it when companies leave as little wasted space on the product as possible. I really wanted to like this touchpad, but unfortunately, that may stop most people from purchasing this product.
On larger laptops like the Swift 16 AI, which have a number pad to the right of the keyboard, the touchpad is usually below the keyboard, making it visually off-center. Although practical, this arrangement feels awkward, and some 16-inch laptops get around this by omitting the number pad entirely. That’s what you see on the MacBook Pro, Dell XPS 16, and most Gaming laptops These days too.
Instead of removing the number pad, Acer has expanded the touchpad and placed it in the middle. This makes good use of the space under the keyboard, preserves the number pad, and solves the aesthetic inconvenience that full-sized laptops typically suffer from.