Acer Swift Air 16: Hands-on with the lightest 16-inch laptop on the planet
IFA 2025Acer has officially unveiled the Acer Swift Air 16 in the lead-up to IFA 2025 in Berlin. To our knowledge, there is no 16-inch laptop to date that weighs less than 2.2 lbs or 1 kg. While there are certainly some laptops on the market that weigh a few ounces more, but until now buyers in this segment had settle for a comparatively small 13- or 14-inch display, as more screen real estate always came at the cost of more weight.
This feels very light...
As it turns out, you really notice the difference between a 2024 Acer Swift Edge 16 and the new Acer Swift Air. The former is already quite light at 2.7 lbs (1.23 kg), but the 0.5 lbs (200 g) lower weight is immediately noticeable. You feel like you're only holding an empty chassis, not a full-fledged Ryzen AI 300 laptop with a 16-inch display. That said, the configuration seen in our pictures comes with a 60Hz display, while the more vibrant OLED variant is 0.2 lbs heavier. In addition to the WUXGA OLED screen, other high-end SKUs with a 3K OLED display are also planned.
...but you have to get used to the keyboard
Unfortunately, the weight loss of the Acer Swift Air 16 is accompanied by some compromises. In a direct comparison with the Swift Edge 16, the chassis feels a bit more plasticky, and the lid on one test unit in the Acer showroom was a little wobbly. However, the hinge was promptly fixed and Acer noted that it was a pre-production model.
However, the keyboard design is probably final and did not impress us in our first hands-on. You might get used to it with time, but the seamless keyboard is definitely something that anyone interested in this superlight laptop should try out before buying. It also remains to be seen how well the Ryzen AI 300 chipsets perform in this light 2.2-lb chassis, and our upcoming review will answer this question.
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