
Background information
Travel guide for Microsoft Copilot: which AI assistants are out there and what they do
by Martin Jud
Which processor should it be? The new Aspire notebooks from Acer come with a choice of chipsets from AMD, Intel and Snapdragon.
Acer presented six new notebooks at Computex in Taiwan. These are three Aspire 14 AI and three Aspire 16 AI with either an AMD Ryzen, Intel Core Ultra or Snapdragon X. These are all AI chips, which ensure that the notebooks can be labelled Copilot+ and have the corresponding functions.
The chipsets result in further, but rather minor differences. Externally, they are identical and are housed in an aluminium casing. The connections also look the same:
The USB-C ports are Thunderbolt 4 for notebooks with Intel chips and USB4 for AMD and Snapdragon
It is not yet known which exact configurations of chipset, graphics chip, display, memory and storage Acer will offer. The manufacturer has so far only revealed the various components that can be installed.
From AMD, Acer installs either the Ryzen AI 7 350 or the Ryzen AI 5 340 in the Aspire 14/16 AI. The graphics chips are a Radeon 860M or 840M.
More choice is available from Intel. Acer uses four different chipsets here with the Core Ultra 7 256V or 258V and the Core Ultra 5 226V or 228V. For graphics, there are two options with the Intel Arc 130V or 140V.
The chipsets from Qualcomm are more complex. Acer only relies on the Snapdragon X X1-26-100 and the corresponding Adreno GPU.
The 14 or 16-inch screens of the new Aspire notebooks have an aspect ratio of 16:10. Acer also offers an OLED display as an option for the AMD and Intel versions, but only IPS for the Snapdragon version. They achieve a refresh rate of up to 120 hertz and a brightness of 500 nits. Depending on the panel, they offer colour space coverage of DCI-P3 or sRGB of up to 100 per cent. However, the cheapest variant only manages 45 per cent for NTSC.
In addition, the notebooks have up to 32 gigabytes of LPDDR5X RAM and up to one terabyte of storage space on an SSD. The Li-ion battery with four cells and 65 watt hours should enable a maximum runtime of up to 26 or 28 hours - depending on the chipset.
I currently only have recommended retail prices for Germany and not yet for Switzerland. These are the cheapest models and the final prices depend on the exact features.
Acer plans to sell the ARM version of the Aspire 14 AI with the Snapdragon X from 749 euros from June 2025. The other two Aspire 14 AIs with Intel and AMD will follow in July 2025. They will each be available from 949 euros. In the same month, sales of the Aspire 16 AI with the Snapdragon chip will also start - also from 749 euros. The AMD and Intel versions of the Aspire 16 AI will follow in August 2025 for €999 and €1049 respectively.
As a primary school pupil, I used to sit in a friend's living room with many of my classmates to play the Super NES. Now I get my hands on the latest technology and test it for you. In recent years at Curved, Computer Bild and Netzwelt, now at Digitec and Galaxus.