Acer’s answer to the MacBook Neo is a $699 laptop with Intel chips and 8GB of RAM

Acer is aiming to take on the MacBook Neo more directly with a new Swift Air 14, a new 14-inch laptop that starts at $699. The laptop will use Intel’s lower-cost Core Series 3 “Wildcat Lake” chips — either Core 5 or Core 7 models, both of which are six-core processors. It comes in green, pink, purple, and a gray-ish blue with an all-aluminum chassis. While the Neo is often criticized for its limited 8GB of RAM, the Swift Air will start with the same amount and be configurable with up to 16GB.

According to Acer’s specs, the Swift Air will be about the same weight as Apple’s Neo at 2.76 pounds / 1.25kg, but it will be a little thicker (12.9mm at its thinnest point to the Neo’s all-around 12.7mm). The Swift’s screen is just 1920 x 1200 resolution with 350 nits of brightness (lower res and dimmer than the Neo), but it supports a speedier 120Hz refresh rate and Acer claims it will cover 100 percent of the sRGB color space. And if the Neo’s two USB-C ports aren’t enough for you, Acer has the edge with two faster Thunderbolt 4 ports and even a USB-A 3.2 — not bad.

The big unknown is the chip. Intel’s Wildcat Lake has thus far only appeared in some early benchmarks, where it showed promise in competing with the A18 Pro of the MacBook Neo. If it’s also efficient like its bigger sibling Panther Lake, then it could hopefully offer excellent battery life in a laptop like the Swift Air — which has a generous 70Wh (nearly double the Neo’s 36.5Wh capacity). But that 8GB of starting RAM obviously gives me pause. It’s workable on macOS, but Windows 11 is a different monster. And after pitting a Lunar Lake-equipped Acer Aspire 14 AI against the MacBook Neo earlier this year, I wonder what corners Acer might be cutting to reach $699. That Aspire had an MSRP of $1,050 and would dip down to sub-$600 on sale, but aside from its chip and port selection the Neo trounced it.

The Swift Air is set to launch in North America in August, though it should arrive in July for other regions and sometime in Q3 for Australia.

Acer has a couple more intriguing laptops it’s announcing ahead of Computex: the Aspire 18 AI and the Nitro 16. The former is a massive 18-inch everyday laptop that I imagine is best for people who just want a big screen to move around the house. It’ll come with Intel Core Ultra Series 3 (Panther Lake) chip options, up to 32GB of RAM, and up to 2TB of storage (complete with a second M.2 SSD slot). But while this large laptop weighs in at a reasonable 4.83 pounds / 2.19kg (not bad for an 18-incher), its huge screen has a resolution of just 1920 x 1200 — which doesn’t sound very crisp when stretched to such a big panel. At least it’s a speedy 165Hz refresh and decently bright 400 nits.

As for the Nitro 16, it’s one of the few gaming laptops out there configurable with a 16-core AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX3D. That’s one of AMD’s flagship laptop chips, and the one it calls “the world’s fastest mobile gaming processor” thanks to its second-gen 3D V-cache — cramming much more cache on the CPU for the most graphically demanding games. While the Nitro 16 is stacked on the CPU side, it’s made slightly more modest by maxing out with “only” an RTX 5070 Ti GPU. That might help it maintain some level of affordability, but we can’t say yet because pricing is still TBD for both the Nitro 16 and Aspire 18. So it’s hard to say what kind of value they offer. What we do know is that the Aspire 18 should ship in August for North America and other regions in July. The Nitro 16 is expected to launch in August for all regions.