LAPTOP
Acer Swift 14 AI
Mint chip
£1,199 from Currys www.snipca.com/52417
Until now, all the Copilot+ laptops we’ve reviewed have used Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 processor. That’s because there aren’t any Intel or AMD processors with the kind of NPU cores that can surpass Microsoft’s qualifying criteria of 40 TOPS. The X Elite achieves 45, which means it’s good at outsourcing the laborious work of processing instructions for AI tools to its NPU, so they don’t get in the way of everyday tasks and slow things down.
Slick design, high-quality screen and amazing battery life
The Acer Swift 14 AI, however, doesn’t use the X Elite. Instead it comes with Qualcomm’s 10-core Snapdragon X Plus X1P-64-100 chip. That’s a couple of cores fewer than the Elite, but the NPU is just as powerful as previous machines.