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Two USB-C ports are on the left, alongside HDMI and a USB-A port. A second USB-A port, microSD slot, and headphone jack are on the right. Not all ports are great, and I just wish Acer had split the USB-C ports so the laptop had a charging port on both sides.
Acer is using a high-quality 16-inch OLED display on the Swift 16 AI. It has a resolution of 2880 x 1800, a refresh rate of 120 Hz, and the closest color density I’ve seen. Like most OLED laptops, it has a bright, very bright display that clocks in at 315 nits of brightness, according to my testing. It’s nowhere near as bright as IPS or mini-LED displays, but the bright trade-off is achieving the unbeatable contrast that only OLED can bring.
A Risky Touchpad
Photo: Luke Larsen
The full-size keyboard and larger touchpad are the highlights of this laptop. The first thing you notice is the touchpad, which is the best I’ve ever seen. You might think it sounds silly, but I always love it when companies leave a little bit of room for loss in what they can do. I really wanted to like this touchpad, but unfortunately, it may prevent many people from buying it.
On larger laptops like the Swift 16 AI, which have the numbers on the right side of the keyboard, the touchpad is usually below the keyboard, making it appear in the middle. Although it works, the system looks strange, and some 16-inch laptops get around this by omitting the whole number. That’s what you see on the MacBook Pro, Dell XPS 16, and more laptop games today, too.
Instead of removing the numbers, Acer enlarged the touchpad and placed it in the middle. This makes good use of the space under the keyboard, saves numbers, and eliminates the aesthetic frustrations that plague large laptops.
