Tech review: New Acer laptops have models for all budgets

Networking and ports

Both laptops have 802.11ax Wi-Fi, but the Swift has Intel Killer Wireless Wi-Fi 6E that supports dual-stream in the 2.4GHz, 5GHz and 6Ghz bands. The Aspire offers Wi-Fi 6 with 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz.

The extra wireless speed of the Swift is nice, but the Aspire’s Wi-Fi is more than fast enough for streaming video.

The Swift has two USB Type-C ports that support Thunderbolt 4. This means they can connect monitors, hard drives, Ethernet and fast charging. Their speed is up to 40 Gigabits per second. It also has two USB-A ports, one HDMI 2.1 port, a microSD card reader and a headphone jack.

The Aspire has one USB Type-C port with a speed of up to 10 Gbps. You can also run a monitor and charge from it. The Aspire has two USB-A ports, one HDMI 2.1 port and a headphone jack.

The extra connectivity of Thunderbolt 4 is really nice, but if you don’t use a lot of peripherals, they might be overkill for you.

Final thoughts

I use a laptop as my main computer every day, so I’m going to skew toward recommending the Swift. Is it worth almost triple the price? For me, yes. For me, I’d also bump up to 16 GB of RAM.

Is the Aspire a good deal? Yes, and no.

There are people who shop mainly for price, which is fine as long as they know going in what to expect from the cheapest model.

If you have a desktop at home and are looking to add a laptop for mobile use, the Aspire will do the job — until you fill up that hard drive.

I don’t recommend the Aspire with this configuration for a student starting college. I’d opt for more storage before more RAM.

The Swift has AI features that will keep it relevant longer, and a screen that is more comfortable to use for longer periods of time.

This isn’t a comprehensive review. I just want to get you thinking about what features go into setting the price and feature list for different levels of laptop and why you’d pick one over the other.