Acer Swift 14 AI Copilot+ PC quick hands-on: Looks familiar, feels different

Looks like a typical Windows PC

The laptop looks like a typical Windows PC (Image credit: Vivek Umashankar/The Indian Express)

“I have seen this before,” was my first impression of the Acer Swift 14 AI Copilot+ PC. It looked like the x86-variant of the Swift 14. The two visible differences were the new logo on the trackpad and the Snapdragon X Elite sticker in place of an Intel or AMD sticker we are used to.

While it wasn’t drastically lighter or thinner than a typical Windows laptop of this class, it did feel a bit different, possibly since my go-to PC is a gaming laptop that is considerably bulky.

The Copilot+ PC did make me feel at home, but as I started testing it, I discovered some of the key differentiators.

Feels smooth and ‘swift’

Generative-AI-backed Recall function in action (Image credit: Vivek Umashankar/The Indian Express)

The software user experience on the Acer Swift felt fluid. It could be courtesy of the 2.5K high-resolution, high-refresh-rate panel with good touch support. There is also a cheaper, non-touch version of the Acer Swift 14 AI Copilot+ PC. The wedge on top of the display makes it look unique and reminds me of some of the latest Lenovo Legion gaming laptops.

While it still delivered the core Windows PC experience, the software on the Acer Swift 14 AI Copilot+ PC has a few new tricks up its sleeves, currently limited to its kind (ARM-based Windows PCs). One such feature is Recall, which automatically takes screenshots in the background and arranges them in a timeline, allowing users to go back in time, in a way, to revisit a certain task on the PC.

According to Microsoft and Qualcomm, the Recall feature on Copilot+ PCs is powered by the neural processing unit (NPU), and is a result of on-device generative AI capabilities. For a PC to be branded as a Copilot+ PC, it needs to have an NPU that delivers at least 40 TOPs of AI performance. The Snapdragon X Elite has the Hexagon NPU, which offers up to 45 TOPs of AI performance.

Do note that the same Acer Swift 14 AI will also be coming with an Intel Lunar Lake or AMD Ryzen AI 300 series chips soon, giving more choice to users.

While some are calling this feature a privacy nightmare, Microsoft is assuring that no one except the user will have access to this data. Users can also turn the feature off. I could not figure out how useful this feature would be on a day-to-day basis, especially when this is a feature headlining Copilot+ branded PCs.

Another on-device generative AI-powered experience that I tested on the Acer Swift 14 AI is the Paint Cocreator, which can convert a plain sketch into an image in real-time. This works best when you have a laptop with touch input and stylus support. The results from the Cocreator were quite good. It could interpret and cocreate as per my imagination to an extent.

Final thoughts

Acer’s all-new Copilot+ PC seems to deliver on it’s promise (Image credit: Vivek Umashankar/The Indian Express)

The Acer Swift 14 AI Copilot+ PC felt like an amalgamation of a PC and a Mac. Qualcomm and Microsoft vouch for the performance and battery life of these PCs, and claim these will outperform both Windows PCs and Apple Silicon-powered MacBooks. Since I had limited time to test it, I cannot talk much about these aspects.

The Acer Swift 14 AI feels like a well-executed Copilot+ PC, delivering an experience we expect from a Windows PC, with a couple of new features.