is a reviewer covering laptops and the occasional gadget. He spent over 15 years in the photography industry before joining The Verge as a deals writer in 2021.
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Acer is announcing a selection of new laptops for CES 2026: small refreshes across its Swift lines and a few Nitro and Predator gaming laptops. But there’s nothing small about the haptic trackpad on the new Acer Swift 16 AI, which Acer claims is the world’s largest haptic one. Big trackpads are fairly prevalent on larger laptops, like the Razer Blade 16, but they’re usually mechanical, not haptic — and not this big. The Swift 16 even includes a stylus you can use on this football field of a trackpad for some sketching and editing without an additional tablet or Wacom slate.
The Swift 16 AI will also be getting Intel Panther Lake chips (up to the Core Ultra X9 388H), an optional OLED display, and a plethora of ports. Acer has other laptops getting refreshed with Intel’s new Panther Lake chips: the lower-cost Swift Go 14 AI and the thin and light Swift Edge 14 AI and Swift Edge 16 AI. The larger Swift Go 16 AI will have AMD.
These are all mostly chip bump models with some slight tweaks, but there are now more options for OLED displays across them all — which is always welcome. The Swift Go and Swift Edge models also feature media controls built into their mechanical trackpads, showing up contextually when detected.
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