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You’ll find no shortage of tempting 16-inch laptops ready for desktop replacement duty. We gave the Acer Swift Go 16 a year ago a thumbs up, saying, “Find a laptop with a better screen for $1,200—we’ll wait.” Now, the Swift Go comes packing one of Intel’s AI-boosted Core Ultra processors, but its lower price ($899.99 as tested) comes with a lesser display, making it a smart choice for bargain hunters but not a standout for demanding creative apps.Configuration: A Kirkland Signature Value The $1,199.99 Acer Swift Go 16 we reviewed in July 2023 is still available, teaming an Intel Core i7-13700H chip with a 3,200-by-2,000-pixel OLED panel. The new system seen here (model SFG16-72T-95LG) runs on a cutting-edge Intel Core Ultra 9 185 processor, a generous 32GB of memory, and a 1TB NVMe solid-state drive—not to mention a Windows Copilot key on the keyboard. However, its 1,920-by-1,200-pixel IPS touch screen and Intel Arc integrated graphics instead of a discrete GPU may turn off would-be photo or video editors, designers, and low-key gamers.
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(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
On the other hand, this version is a low $899.99 at Costco, which was cut to $799.99 for 10 days during our testing; it was a deal to rival the $1.50 hot dog and soda (and Costco gives members a second year of warranty coverage on computer purchases). It’s one of seven models listed on Acer’s website, though last year’s review unit is the only one with a higher-res OLED screen.Design: A Big-Screen Laptop With All the FixingsAcer says this member of its Swift family lets you “unlock AI on the go,” though it’s debatable how often any 16-inch laptop is on the go compared with a 13- or 14-inch ultraportable. A plain slab of Steel Gray aluminum, the notebook is relatively trim at 0.59 by 14 by 9.6 inches and 3.53 pounds; the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus is a bit bulkier (0.71 by 14.1 by 9.9 inches) and a pound heavier. The Swift doesn’t feel flimsy so much as slightly tacky, with a fair amount of flex if you grasp the screen corners or press the keyboard deck.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Slim bezels surround the 16:10 aspect ratio display, with a tiny ridge at the top center to hold the webcam and its sliding privacy shutter. The camera lacks IR face recognition, but a fingerprint reader built into the power button at the top right of the keyboard lets you skip typing passwords with Windows Hello.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The laptop’s left edge holds two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports that both support charging, one USB 3.2 Type-A port, and an HDMI monitor port. A second USB-A port joins an audio jack, microSD card slot, and security lock slot at the right. Acer included Intel Killer Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth to handle wireless connectivity.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Using the Acer Swift Go 16: Thanks for the Numeric Keypad, We Guess Acer’s dimly backlit keyboard makes room for a number pad at right, but it’s squished compared with the primary keys, and the Num Lock key has an on-screen indicator instead of a glowing LED like the microphone mute key (F4). The keyboard also lacks Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys unless you turn Num Lock off and use the keypad’s 7, 1, 9, and 3, respectively—pairing the Fn key and cursor arrows doesn’t work. Worse, those arrow keys are in a clumsy HP-style row, with hard-to-hit, half-height up and down arrows stacked between full-size left and right.The typing feel is no consolation: Typing feels flat, shallow, and lifeless instead of responsive, even worse than some tablets’ detachable keyboards. It contributes to the Acer’s slightly lower-end feel; I suspect my hands would hurt if I had to type for hours on it. The buttonless touchpad glides and taps smoothly but has a heavy, hollow click.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The webcam tops table-stakes 1080p and crummy 720p cameras by capturing 2,560-by-1,440-pixel videos and images with decent color and minimal static, though it’s somewhat dark in all but the brightest environments. It supports Windows Camera’s recently added AI tricks, such as auto framing and background blur. A pop-up software menu contains Acer PurifiedView, which combines those Windows Studio Effects with fine-tuning brightness, contrast, sharpness, and saturation controls. Its companion app, PurifiedVoice, provides AI noise reduction for individual or conference calls and promises stereo-enhanced podcast recording.If we hadn’t seen the 3.2K OLED version of the Swift Go 16, we’d be pretty impressed by its full HD IPS touch screen. This model’s display is bright and crisp—white backgrounds are clean instead of dingy, helped by the ability to tilt the screen as far back as you like, and you’ll see no pixelation around the edges of letters. Contrast is decent, and viewing angles are broad, with less reflection of room lights than usual from the touch glass. Colors don’t quite pop like poster paints but are rich and well-saturated.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Sound from the built-in speakers is neither loud nor full, with no hint of bass. You can make out overlapping tracks, but the audio is hollow. However, the included DTS:X software features an equalizer for toggling music, movie (louder and harsh), gaming, and other presets. An AcerSense key on the top row pops up a utility that provides system updates and checkups along with silent, normal, and performance cooling fan modes. Acer preloads its systems with annoying extras such as pop-up ads for Forge of Empires and Google Play Games, joined here by a couple of AI tools, including LiveArt and AlterView, which let you remove the backgrounds from images to create “stickers” or slightly animated wallpaper with 3D depth effects.Testing the Acer Swift Go 16: No Superstar, But No Slouch, EitherWe compared the new Swift Go’s performance with four other 16-inch laptops. Two that join it in the under-$1,000 club are the Lenovo Yoga 7i 16 Gen 9 ($899.99 as tested), a 2-in-1 convertible, and the Acer Aspire Vero (about $750 as tested), an eco-friendly economy model with an Intel Core Ultra 5 processor. Two others hover around the $1,500 mark, in the case of the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus ($1,649.99 as tested) because of an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU and the MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo ($1,449 as tested) because of a spiffy 4K OLED screen.
Productivity Tests We run the same general productivity benchmarks across both mobile and desktop systems. Our first test is UL’s PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and office workflows to measure overall system performance, and it includes a storage subtest for the primary drive. Three other benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads to rate a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 uses that company’s Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Geekbench 5 Pro from Primate Labs simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. We also use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better). Finally, we run PugetBench for Photoshop by workstation maker Puget Systems. It uses Adobe’s famous image editor, Creative Cloud version 22, to rate a PC’s performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It’s an automated extension that executes various general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks, from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.
The Swift Go 16 slugged it out with the powerful MSI and Dell, narrowly trailing in PCMark 10’s office productivity benchmark (where all five systems proved overqualified for everyday office apps) but excelling in the CPU tests and Photoshop. Its screen, not its processor or memory, will hold you back from complex image or video editing. Graphics Tests We test Windows PCs’ graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark, Night Raid (more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). To further stress GPUs, we also run two tests from the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which stresses both low-level routines, like texturing, and high-level, game-like image rendering. The 1440p Aztec Ruins and 1080p Car Chase tests are rendered offscreen to accommodate different display resolutions while exercising graphics and compute shaders using the OpenGL programming interface and hardware tessellation, respectively. The more frames per second (fps), the better.
With the only game-worthy dedicated GPU in the group, the Inspiron crushed its opponents’ integrated graphics while the Acer and MSI jockeyed for a distant second place. They’re fine for solitaire or video streaming, but they don’t make any pretense of playing the latest fast-paced shooters or simulations.Battery and Display Tests We test each laptop’s battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. Before the test, we ensure the battery is fully charged, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off. To gauge display performance, we also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Windows software to measure a laptop screen’s color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).
Any of these machines will get you through a full day of work or school plus an evening’s entertainment, but the Lenovo showed a phenomenal 27 hours and 29 minutes of stamina in our unplugged video rundown, while the Swift and Prestige tied for the silver medal at almost 19 hours. The MSI’s OLED screen was in a class by itself for color coverage, but the Acer produced decent color and more than adequate brightness for an IPS panel (unlike, say, the Yoga 7i).Verdict: A Fine Option for Buyers on a Budget The 2024 Acer Swift Go 16 is one of the better-performing under-$1,000 laptops we’ve seen, a worthy desktop replacement for office productivity and modest creative tasks. Its main drawback is the ready availability of somewhat pricier but more desirable models with dazzling OLED screens and better keyboards. (We’re quite fond of the Editors’ Choice Asus Zenbook 14 OLED Touch.) However, the Swift Go’s benchmark and battery scores promote it from a 3-star to a 3.5-star rating.
Cons
Lackluster keyboard
While decent, screen can’t match sharper OLEDs
Mediocre build quality and bloatware
The Bottom Line
The under-$1,000, IPS-screened, Intel Core Ultra-powered version of Acer’s Swift Go 16 lacks finesse but delivers plenty of speed and battery life for the price.
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