Acer refreshes Vero, Swift X and Predator laptop lineup

Acer’s quarterly global press conference usually presages an avalanche of new products, including the odd left-field announcement, and April 2023’s edition is no different. It brings a wide spread of new laptops, including the latest Swift X16 and a gaming Predator machines, plus – oddly – a selection of e-bikes.

Among this selection, the Acer Vero and new Swift X 16 are the most interesting, the former increasing the percentage of post-consumer recycled plastics in its construction and moving to the latest 13th gen Intel Core CPUs, and the latter adopting AMD’s 7000-series Ryzen CPUs in tandem with the latest Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 mobile GPU.

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Acer Aspire Vero 15 hands-on and first impressions

We gave the original Vero our seal of approval when we first reviewed it and the new Vero 15 (AV15-3P) expands on the theme, with increased use of post-consumer recycled plastics in the production of the chassis – now up to 40% from 30% – and keyboard key caps, up to 50%.

The laptop retains the Vero’s attractive, textured matte plastic finish that worked so well in the first Vero, and it looks and feels just as great in the hand, proving that you don’t have to manufacture a laptop from metal for it to feel great.

It’s blessed with a decent selection of ports around the edges, too, with two Thunderbolt 4, one HDMI 2.1 and a USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port on the left edge, and a 3.5mm audio jack and USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 on the right. The only thing that looks a little disappointing is the 1080p sRGB display, which peaks at a mere 300cd/m² of brightness.

Inside, the 2023 Vero 15 moves up, as you would expect, to the latest generation of Intel CPUs, with Core i3, i5 and i7 models available. And finally, as you’d expect from an eco-conscious machine such as this, the Vero comes supplied in packaging that uses up to 90% recycled paper.

The new Vero 15 will arrive in the UK in Q3, and prices start at £750 for the Core i5-1335U model with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. The Core i7-1355U model with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD will cost £900.

Acer Swift X 16 updated with AMD Ryzen, Nvidia RTX 40-series GPUs and 120Hz OLED display

The Acer Swift X 16, meanwhile, focuses all its updates on the internals, shifting from Intel CPUs to an all-AMD lineup with a choice of five Ryzen 7000-series processors, starting at the Ryzen 5 7535H and running all the way up to the Ryzen 7940H.

These CPUs are accompanied by 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM, up to 2TB of SSD storage and either an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU or, oddly, an older generation RTX 3050. That’s a big change from last year, when the Swift X was among the first laptops to come with Intel Arc graphics – a decision that proved ultimately to be a mistake as it didn’t perform particularly well in our tests.

And while the chassis is the same as before, the display is all new. This time, the Swift X 16 arrives with a vivid OLED panel that has a sharper 3,200 x 2,000 resolution, a smooth 120Hz refresh rate and wider colour gamut reproduction that’s claimed to cover 100% of DCI-P3.

Other notable features include a high-resolution 1080p webcam, fingerprint reader login and improved cooling over the previous model which, according to Acer, improves the air intake by “up to 36%”.

The Acer Swift X 16 will be available from in Q3 in the UK, with prices starting at £1,500.

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Other updates

The latest Swift X 16 OLED and Vero 15 laptops weren’t the only products launched at the Acer Global Press Conference, though.

The company also announced a series of new Predator gaming laptops, including the Triton 14, the Triton 17X, Helios Neo 16 and Helios 3D 15 SpatialLabs Edition. All of Acer’s new gaming machines, as you’d expect, will run on 13th gen Intel Core CPUs with Nvidia GeForce RTX 40-series GPUs in tow.

Acer also unveiled a pair of new Chromebooks – the Spin 714 and Enterprise Spin 714 – some TravelMate laptops and finally, it also announced a trio of e-bikes, including the rather funky-looking ebii bike. This weighs a mere 16kg, comes with puncture-resistant “airless” tyres, is powered by a 48V 350W motor and has a range of up to 110km. The ebii will available in Europe from September at a price of €1,999, but we don’t know yet if it’s coming to the UK.