Acer is announcing a selection of new laptops for CES 2026: small refreshes across its Swift lines and a few Nitro and Predator gaming laptops. But there’s nothing small about the haptic trackpad on the new Acer Swift 16 AI, which Acer claims is the world’s largest haptic one. Big trackpads are fairly prevalent on larger laptops, like the Razer Blade 16, but they’re usually mechanical, not haptic — and not this big. The Swift 16 even includes a stylus you can use on this football field of a trackpad for some sketching and editing without an additional tablet or Wacom slate.
The Swift 16 AI will also be getting Intel Panther Lake chips (up to the Core Ultra X9 388H), an optional OLED display, and a plethora of ports. Acer has other laptops getting refreshed with Intel’s new Panther Lake chips: the lower-cost Swift Go 14 AI and the thin and light Swift Edge 14 AI and Swift Edge 16 AI. The larger Swift Go 16 AI will have AMD.
These are all mostly chip bump models with some slight tweaks, but there are now more options for OLED displays across them all — which is always welcome. The Swift Go and Swift Edge models also feature media controls built into their mechanical trackpads, showing up contextually when detected.
Over on the gaming laptop side, Acer has new Nitro V 16S AI, which is slightly above its entry-level offerings, and a higher-end Predator Helios Neo 16S AI. The new Nitro starts with an RTX 5050 GPU and goes up to an RTX 5070. The new Predator Helios Neo 16S is Acer’s starting point into its flagship Predator sub-brand. It too tops out at an RTX 5070, but it’s got a much sleeker build and optional OLED display. Each of these new Acer gaming laptops is outfitted with Intel Panther Lake processors to complement their Nvidia GPUs.
Interestingly, despite “AI” still being jammed down our throats in all these laptop names, Acer has scrapped its AI lid logo and light-up NPU activity monitor on the trackpads. Hmm. I wonder why.
It feels like a bit of a sleepy CES for Acer laptops. Last year of course was buoyed by the launch of new RTX 50-series GPUs across the board. But Acer was also looking to shake things up with its Blaze gaming handheld announcements, including the jumbo-sized Blaze 11 that I briefly got my hands on (and could barely stretch my fingers around) in Vegas. I asked about the Blaze 11 in my preview briefing with Acer, and company reps told me it’s on hiatus after US tariffs arrived shortly after its announcement. Lisa Emard of Acer America Corporation told me, “We wound up just focusing on our core products, on laptops … We don’t have any imminent plans to offer them.”
Acer isn’t announcing pricing of any of these new laptops just yet. The Swift 16 AI and Swift Go 16 AI are expected in Q1 2026. The other Swifts are due out in Q2. The Nitro V 16S AI and Predator Helios Neo 16S AI are launching in Q3. Some models may land sooner in other regions.
Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge
