GoKawiilAcer Swift 16 AI (2026) 3.5 / 5 Good ZDNET's key takeaways Pros: Gorgeous display, big haptic trackpad doubles as a drawing surface, battery lasts long
Cons: Poor webcam quality, larger trackpad has usability issues View now at Best Buy
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Last year, Acer's Swift 16 AI was one of the best laptops I tested. It was a sleeper hit: a solid bang-for-buck option with a fantastic battery and a gorgeous display that looked a lot more expensive than it is (on sale right now for around $900).
The 2026 refresh of the Acer Swift 16 AI holds the same position in the lineup as a premium 16-inch, but to give it a unique identity, Acer added a few different design elements that push it further into "made-for-creatives" territory -- most notably, the football field-sized trackpad that also serves as a drawing surface with the included stylus.
Also: Dell XPS 14 (2026) review: A Windows laptop I wouldn't mind returning to from Mac
But in trying to make this laptop stand out in the crowded mid-range price point, is Acer trying to fix something that wasn't broken to begin with?
Go big or go home
The 2026 Acer Swift 16 AI is one of the first new Panther Lake laptops of the year, armed with the Intel Core Ultra X7 or X9 processor -- the "X" designating the integrated Intel Arc GPU. My review unit had the Intel Core Ultra X7 Series 358H, 32GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and a 1TB PCIe Gen 5 SSD.
Let's address the elephant in the room: the monumental trackpad. Measuring seven inches by 4.5 inches (8.15 inches diagonally), it takes up so much room on the clamshell that it almost doesn't look like a trackpad. That's true, in part, as it's also a drawing surface with the included stylus.
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