For more than a year, Copilot+ PC laptops have generally been on the pricey side, delivering AI features and NPU hardware for $1,000 or more. Here comes the Acer Aspire 14 AI ($879.99) with a less expensive take. It provides reliable midrange performance, capable hardware, and fine-enough design and features to bring an AI PC to more shoppers. It's not the cheapest thing around, but it means we'll soon have at least one AI PC on our list of the best laptops under $1,000.

Configurations: What It Costs, What You Get

For $879.99, the Acer Aspire 14 AI is one of the most affordable Microsoft Copilot+ PCs we've seen. The machine comes in a few different configurations; the most basic model packs an Intel Core Ultra 5 226V with an Intel Arc 130V IGP, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. The laptop's default display is a 1,920-by-1,200 resolution IPS panel touch screen.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

For those seeking more processing power, a version with an Intel Core Ultra 7 256V processor is also available for $1,049.99. It comes with upgraded Intel Arc 140V integrated graphics and double the storage capacity, at 1TB.

AI Features: Copilot+ for Less

The Acer Aspire 14 AI is not only an affordable ultraportable, it's also a Copilot+ PC, outfitted with everything from a dedicated Copilot key to Microsoft's full suite of advanced AI features, such as Live Captions, Cocreator for generating art, the Copilot assistant, and Windows Studio Effects for enhancing video calls.

Our review unit's Core Ultra 5 226V processor comes with Intel's latest NPU hardware, delivering up to 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS) for AI workloads. When combined with the CPU and integrated Intel Arc 130V graphics, the total platform TOPS of the system-on-chip (SoC) can reach up to 97 TOPS. That means that the Acer Aspire 14 AI will handily support Microsoft's AI features and any other apps that leverage the NPU hardware.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Highlighting the AI features a little more, Acer has put a glowing glyph on the touchpad that lights up whenever the NPU is in use. This feature has no functional benefit, but it is interesting to see which apps and features have an unexpected AI element. 

Design: Pedestrian Style and Structure

The Acer Aspire 14 AI uses a mix of aluminum and plastic in its construction, measuring as thick as 0.67 inch and weighing 3.2 pounds. It's not as thin or light as some of the ultraportables we've reviewed, but it's also not as expensive, so I can forgive the half-metal build.

That doesn't mean it can be ignored: You will notice a slight flexing when you lift the laptop by a corner or type hard on the keyboard. The bezels around the display, meanwhile, are a little thick. Again, with a system at this price, it's probably not worth complaining about those details. But they represent noticeable differences from some of the Acer Aspire 14 AI's more upscale competitors.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

The 14-inch laptop has an IPS touch screen panel with 1,920-by-1,200-pixel resolution, equivalent to 1080p in a 16:10 aspect ratio. That's pretty basic compared with other Copilot+ PC laptops, but perfectly usable for pretty much anything, from casual use to homework or even office work.

Overall, though, the only noteworthy thing about this display is how far from premium it is. The brightness and color reproduction are lackluster, almost as if Acer deliberately found the most middling budget screen possible. You can get more specific information in our test data below, but suffice it to say that this display will wow no one, and you might want to crank the brightness all the way up even in everyday use.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

The Aspire 14 AI has a full-size keyboard, which is reasonably comfortable to type on. However, the combination of the backlighting and the metallic finish on the keys makes them less legible. That's not a big deal if you're a touch typist, but the hunt-and-peck crowd might take issue with it.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

The included touchpad is generally unremarkable, though I have no problems with the smooth finish or responsiveness as I swipe and tap. The stylized AI logo can be a little distracting when glowing, but you will likely mostly ignore it.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Above the display is a 1080p webcam, which includes IR sensing for Windows Hello support—a must-have, since the Aspire 14 AI skips out on any fingerprint reader. The webcam isn't spectacular, though it's hard to say whether it or the laptop's mediocre display is the problem.

Connectivity Check: A Decent Selection

Acer's port selection is actually fine for a laptop costing well less than $1,000. On the left side, the Aspire 14 AI has a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports, which can handle USB-C connections as well as power input for the laptop. A full-size HDMI output lets you connect to an external monitor or other display, and a USB-A port gives you connectivity for older peripherals.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

The right side of the machine features another USB-A port, a Kensington case lock slot, and a 3.5mm audio headset jack. It's refreshing to see connections this robust: Many more premium ultraportables have ditched commonly used ports like HDMI and USB-A. The system has Wi-Fi 6E for networking and Bluetooth 5.3 for connecting wireless peripherals and audio devices.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Performance Testing: Speed, Smarts, and Shortcomings

As noted earlier, our Acer Aspire 14 AI test unit came equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 5 226V, so we looked at the similarly equipped Lenovo ThinkPad X9 14 Aura Edition ($1,519.01 as tested), as well as other 13- and 14-inch ultraportables, like the Dell XPS 13 (9350) ($1,699.99 as tested) and the HP OmniBook X 14 ($1,049.99 as tested), which uses a competing Qualcomm Snapdragon chip instead of an Intel. Price differences aside, these systems all feature a similar level of processing power and integrated graphics, as well as similar memory and storage.

Productivity and Content Creation Tests 

Our primary overall benchmark, UL's PCMark 10, puts a system through its paces in productivity apps ranging from web browsing to word processing and spreadsheet work. Its Full System Drive subtest measures a PC's storage throughput.

Three more tests are CPU-centric or processor-intensive: Maxon's Cinebench 2024 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene; Primate Labs' Geekbench 6.3 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning; and we see how long it takes the video transcoder HandBrake 1.8 to convert a 12-minute clip from 4K to 1080p resolution.

Finally, workstation maker Puget Systems' PugetBench for Creators rates a PC's image editing prowess with a variety of automated operations in Adobe Photoshop 25. (The Aspire 14 AI could not complete this benchmark during testing, so that usual chart is excluded here.)

In productivity tests like PCMark 10, the Aspire 14 AI delivered capable performance, easily clearing the 4,000-point threshold that we consider a baseline for regular office use, and pulling slightly ahead of the Dell XPS 13 and the Lenovo ThinkPad X9 14 Aura Edition. (The HP OmniBook X 14, with its Arm processor, could not run this test.)

In Cinebench 2024, the Aspire led both the Dell and the Lenovo, while the OmniBook X 14 posted the highest multi-core score of the bunch. The Aspire's HandBrake video transcoding speed was reasonably snappy, and its Geekbench scores kept the machine on par with the rest. These scores parallel what I mentioned earlier regarding the Aspire's screen: "Perfectly usable for pretty much anything, from casual use to homework or even office work."

Graphics Tests

We challenge each reviewed system’s graphics with a quartet of animations or gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark test suite. The first two, Wild Life (1440p) and Wild Life Extreme (4K), use the Vulkan graphics API to measure GPU speeds. The others, Steel Nomad's regular (4K) and Light (1440p) subtests, focus on APIs more commonly used for game development, like Metal, DirectX 12, and Vulkan, to assess gaming geometry and particle effects. A fifth test, Solar Bay, emphasizes ray-tracing performance using Vulkan or Metal APIs at 1440p resolution. (The HP OmniBook X 14 could not complete the Solar Bay test, so that model's not in that chart.)

Let's be honest. Armed with integrated Intel Arc Graphics 130V, this system would never compete with gaming laptops with a dedicated GPU. But Intel's built-in graphics have drastically improved recently, and the Acer Aspire 14 AI posted decent numbers.

The Dell XPS 13 (9350) led the pack, thanks to an extra Xe core (the Intel Arc Graphics 140V has eight Xe cores, while the 130V has seven), but the Acer Aspire 14 AI is neck-and-neck with the HP OmniBook and the Lenovo ThinkPad X9.

So long as you don't need a game-ready graphics chip, the Acer Aspire 14 AI will handle all your visuals just fine, from browsing to media streaming.

Battery Life and Display Tests 

We test each laptop and tablet's battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.

To gauge display performance, we also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Windows software to measure a laptop screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).

The Aspire 14 AI posted excellent battery life, stretching to more than 17 hours off the charger, landing solidly between the Dell XPS 13 and the Lenovo ThinkPad X9. However, they all paled compared with the HP OmniBook X 14, which blows the competition out of the water with all-day-plus battery life. Regardless, this is still a satisfactory result.

But I'll definitely complain about the display. It's readable and straightforward, but the color quality was disappointing in testing. The 45% Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 color coverage is a real bummer for anyone who wants vibrant color for everything from movie watching to photo editing. The brightness is also disappointing, though, as I said, you won't notice that as much if you bump the screen brightness up to the max.