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The midrange Windows PC market is heating up, and it's all thanks to Apple's MacBook Neo that threatens to take a chunk out of Windows OEMs' most lucrative market. Acer has been building midrange Windows PCs for years, but the Acer Swift Air 14 is the first one that I actually really like.
I got a chance to go hands-on with Acer's new MacBook Neo competitor at Computex 2026, and my first impressions are very positive. It's a beautiful laptop, complete with a metal enclosure that feels premium to touch, and a large trackpad and excellent keyboard that make using the device feel great.
The trackpad is nice and large, and also centered along the bottom of the keyboard deck. It's not a haptic trackpad, but at this price point, I wouldn't expect that. The good news is it's nice, smooth, and accurate to boot. I can't fault it over my more expensive Dell XPS 14, which is a good thing.
It’s also really light and thin, coming in at just 1.19kg and 12.9mm. It really is a nice, clean-looking laptop that I wouldn’t be ashamed to pull out of my bag at a coffee shop, and I don’t think I’ve been able to say that about an Acer laptop in a long time.
On the inside, it's rocking Intel's latest Core Ultra 3 "Wildcat Lake" chipset, which offers a good balance between performance and energy efficiency. Obviously, I can't tell you how well this device performs in those benchmarks just yet, but Acer is citing 16 hours of battery life, competitive with the MacBook Neo.
Just like the MacBook Neo, it ships with 8GB RAM. Now, a lot of people are concerned about 8GB RAM on a Windows machine, as if macOS somehow handles it better, when in reality, that's not really true. For the kind of workflows people are buying a $699 laptop for, 8GB RAM should suffice on both the Acer and MacBook Neo. Of course, more RAM is always better, but this isn’t the end of the world.
The device comes in four lovely colors, which I'd argue are nicer than what's found on the MacBook Neo. For ports, we have two USB-C on the left, and one USB-A and a 3.5mm headphone jack on the right. That's more than you get on the MacBook Neo, which isn’t saying much given that device has two measly USB-C ports, one of which isn’t even USB-C.
The display is fine, featuring a 14-inch 16:10 aspect ratio and a smooth 120Hz refresh rate that beats the MacBook Neo’s display, and it’s also sRGB 100% rated. With that said, the MacBook Neo does have a higher resolution screen, with the Acer Swift Air 14 being just over 1080p and matte. The glossy MacBook Neo display does look crisper and sharper as a result, but the experience feels slower because of that 60Hz panel.
I personally don’t like the display on the Acer Swift Air 14 very much. If it were 2K instead of 1080p, I’d be all over it, but unfortunately, the pixel density just isn’t high enough for me to enjoy looking at the display, even when in motion. That 120Hz spec does help a lot, but the experience isn’t complete without a higher PPI. Above the display is a 1080p shooter that also supports Windows Hello face unlock, something the MacBook Neo doesn’t have.
There’s not much else to complain about with the Swift Air 14, which is a good thing. For $699, you’re getting a lot of computer for the price. With that said, I think Dell’s new XPS 13 is a better deal than the Acer Swift Air 14. It has a much higher build quality, a better keyboard, and a better display.
MacBook Neo has encouraged Windows OEMs to step up their game and deliver genuinely good laptops for affordable prices. Acer and Dell are the first to step up to the plate with genuine MacBook Neo competitors, with the Dell XPS 13 being the new affordable laptop to beat.
Hopefully, we’ll see more $599-$699 laptops from the likes of HP, Lenovo, and ASUS over the next few months. More competition is good, and we have Apple to thank for that.
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