First Intel Panther Lake laptop: Acer Swift 16 AI debuts with world's largest haptic touchpad

Starting with the most obvious detail, the Acer Swift 16 AI is powered by the upcoming Intel Panther Lake laptop APUs. Fabbed on the brand new Intel 18A process node, Intel Panther Lake chips are a direct successor to the Lunar Lake Core Ultra 200V notebook chips. The new PTL processors, which will ship inside machines in 2026, bring a much more powerful Xe3 iGPU, a more capable NPU for faster AI, and new P/E-cores.

As far as unofficial specs go, the Intel Core Ultra 300 Panther Lake SoCs reportedly pack up to 16 CPU cores with Cougar Cove P-cores and Skymont E-cores. The new iGPU is said to have up to 12 Xe3 cores. The NPU and the iGPU allegedly deliver a combined 180 TOPs of AI performance. Intel is using the increased AI performance of Panther Lake chips for features like the Intel AI Assistant Builder, which apparently allows users to build local Generative AI agents.

Moving to the laptop itself, the Acer Swift 16 AI features a new chassis that is thinner than the current Lunar Lake Swift 16 AI, up to a 3K OLED panel with a 120 Hz refresh rate, up to 32 GB of LPDDR5X memory, and a new 1080p webcam with a privacy slider. Sadly, the Acer Swift 16 AI skips Thunderbolt 5 and will stick with two Thunderbolt 4 ports, like the Lunar Lake-based Swift 16 AI.

For the inputs, the Acer Swift 16 AI brings a full-length keyboard with larger keycaps, a numpad, and a single-color backlight. There is also a giant trackpad, which Acer claims to be the world’s largest haptic touchpad. The touchpad relies solely on vibrations for feedback, has no moving parts, and supports stylus input.

Although Acer hasn’t revealed any pricing information, the company has stated that the Acer Swift 16 AI with the Core Ultra 300 Panther Lake chips will launch in early 2026.

Buy the Acer Swift 14 AI with Core Ultra 7 258V on Amazon