Pros & Cons
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- Aggressive price for the feature set
- Colorful 120Hz display and unusually high-res 1440p webcam
- Broad port selection
- Competitive performance for the price
- Long battery life
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- Stiff keyboard
- Speakers could have more oomph, considering chassis size
Acer Aspire 16 AI (A16-11MT-X669) Specs
| Boot Drive Capacity (as Tested) | 512 |
| Boot Drive Type | SSD |
| Class | Budget |
| Dimensions (HWD) | 0.63 by 14 by 9.9 inches |
| Graphics Processor | Qualcomm Adreno GPU |
| Native Display Resolution | 1920 by 1200 |
| Operating System | Windows 11 Home |
| Panel Technology | IPS |
| Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon X (X1-26-100) |
| RAM (as Tested) | 16 |
| Screen Refresh Rate | 120 |
| Screen Size | 16 |
| Tested Battery Life (Hours:Minutes) | 17:02 |
| Touch Screen | |
| Variable Refresh Support | Dynamic |
| Weight | 3.42 |
| Wireless Networking | Bluetooth 5.4 |
| Wireless Networking | Wi-Fi 7 |
A budget laptop that checks boxes even some premium notebooks leave blank is rare, so consider the Acer Aspire 16 AI ($699.99 as tested) a gem. For starters, its 16-inch 120Hz IPS screen balances vibrancy, brightness, and sharpness. Also, the Arm-based Qualcomm Snapdragon X processor contributes to lengthy battery life and competitive performance, and the laptop has a slicker touchpad than many pricier laptops. The concessions? Windows app compatibility with Arm chips could be a big or small one for you, depending on what you do day to day and the programs you rely on. Also, the laptop's audio and keyboard could use a tune-up. Still, as a price-wise, big-screen budget laptop (we saw it as low as $549.99 when we published this review), the Aspire 16 AI earns our Editors' Choice award for budget desktop replacements.
Configurations: Just One Snapdragon SKU
Acer sells just one Aspire 16 AI configuration, model A16-11MT-X669, for $699.99. (As noted, we've seen it for as much as $150 off, quite the deal.) This configuration includes a Snapdragon X CPU (specifically the X1-26-100), 16GB of memory, a 512GB solid-state drive, and a 16-inch IPS display. The panel's native resolution is 1,920 by 1,200 pixels (1200p), and the peak refresh rate is a surprising 120Hz.
Whether at full list price or discounted, that's some competitive pricing, considering its size and specs. If you’re looking to size down, the Acer Aspire 14 AI costs $829.99 list price (in places, I've seen it for just $459.99) for similar specs except for an Intel Core Ultra 5 226V CPU. (You might prefer that if you're wary of Arm app compatibility issues.)
Design: A Basic Bod, But Well-Built
The Aspire's design doesn't stand out, but high design is seldom the focus at this price. I always advocate for more colors in laptops, but I also understand the need to blend in. At 3.4 pounds and 0.63 inch thick, the Aspire 16 AI is easy enough to lug around if you need to carry a big-screen model. It won't break any slimness records compared with, say, the Apple MacBook Air 15-Inch (0.45 inch thick), but it’s thinner than its 14-inch sibling (0.67 inch), as well as the competing Dell 16 Plus (0.67 inch).
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)The Aspire presents a semi-premium feel, thanks to a metal lid, while the rest of the chassis is plastic. This material mix is acceptable and expected for the price, especially since it feels quite sturdy, with little to no flex. (Even though the deck is plastic, pressing it doesn't give much, either.) One design quibble: You won't find a lip at the edge of the screen lid, so lifting it can be tricky. But it rises smoothly once you get a grip.
The interior features more of the same gray design, anchored by a full-size keyboard (the keys are topped with bold white lettering) and a large touchpad. The bezels around the display are thin, but you’ll notice that, while the Aspire is thinner than its competition, the chassis is quite wide (9.9 inches) due to its display's 16:10 aspect ratio. Acer left room for a webcam on top (more about that in a moment), so the bezel up there is slightly thicker than on the screen sides.
Display and Audio: A Panel That Pops
The display is usually the first component that manufacturers compromise on in the budget-laptop world. This reality hurts my soul as a techie who loves a sparkly screen. But Acer is one of the acknowledged masters of the budget laptop, and this Aspire impresses with a panel that knocks out what you see on most budget models.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)Not only is this Aspire a rare 16-inch laptop for less than $700, but its screen is also quite colorful and bright compared with others in its category. Also, while its 1200p resolution is standard fare, the 120Hz refresh rate is an eye-opener for the price. The faster refresh rate smooths over the whole desktop experience, making it easier on the eyes. Watching shows like Steven Universe proves that the Aspire 16 captures bright color palettes well. This panel just pops.
That said, there's a bit of trouble down under: The Aspire's bottom-firing speakers disappoint. They sound hollow and even shrill at higher volumes, with scarce bass to speak of. If you want to enjoy movies and music on this laptop, come ready with headphones or speakers.
Keyboard, Touchpad, and Webcam: Two of the Three Are Winners
This Aspire features a full-size keyboard (number pad included) that feels just adequate to type on. I don't expect much from budget-laptop keyboards, so I'll give the Aspire's this: The keys are well-spaced and large, making them intuitive to navigate. However, actuating the keys feels a bit like bouncing my fingers against a desk. The key travel isn’t short, but the keys are just a bit too stiff for my liking. It’s not a deal-killer—after typing for hours, my fingers were comfortable enough—but I'm just not wowed by the experience.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)What elevates the experience, however, is the touchpad. For the price, I’m impressed by how smooth the touchpad is. My fingers glide across it with little effort. While the clicker doesn't depress far, it produces a sharp, bassy clicking sound.
Again, this laptop is full of surprises: You'll find that the webcam packed above the screen is a high-res 1440p model. Budget laptops have barely moved past 720p cameras, so this is likely the best you'll find in its class. The image produces colors consistent with my blue shirt and the My Hero Academia poster behind me. The streamed image looks a little dim and grainy, but overall it’s plenty for video chatting with family and friends, or videoconferencing for work.
Ports: All the Connections Most People Need
The 16-inch Aspire has a wide variety of ports for a relatively thin 16-inch laptop. On the left, you’ll find an HDMI 2.1 port for easy connectivity to an external display, plus a classic 5Gbps USB Type-A. Two USB Type-C ports join them. These USB-Cs are notably not Thunderbolt 4, due to the Snapdragon X platform's lack of support for the spec. Instead, they're USB4, with equally fast 40Gbps data transfer rates.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)Meanwhile, the right side features another identical USB-A port, a Kensington lock slot, and a 3.5mm audio jack. Another neat addition is a microSD card slot, which lets you quickly transfer large files from your phone or camera. For networking, the Aspire contains Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 radios for connecting wireless devices.
Performance Testing: Enough 'Snap' for the Money
It's now time to test the Aspire's mettle. We threw it against our gauntlet of benchmarks and stacked it up against similarly sized and priced laptops to see how the Aspire compares on both points.
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Jumping in with the same chip is Lenovo's IdeaPad Slim 3x 15, for $749 as tested. Then, to throw in some chip diversity, we’ve got the Dell Inspiron 15 ($639 as tested) for AMD and the $1,149.99 Dell 16 Plus for Intel. Finally, we have the 15-inch Apple MacBook Air for that apt comparison, which costs $1,399 as tested.
Productivity and Content Creation Tests
Our first group of tests represents workloads such as content creation, office productivity, and raw CPU speeds. Since our go-to overall productivity and storage test, PCMark 10, is not yet Snapdragon-compatible, we focused on core-stressing tests and media tasks.
The three primary tests presented below 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 transcoding freeware HandBrake 1.8 to convert a 12-minute clip from 4K to 1080p resolution. (The Dell Inspiron laptop could not complete the Cinebench tests, so it's missing from that chart below.)
Additionally, we have encountered issues with Puget Systems' PugetBench for Creators Adobe Photoshop 25 test on systems with Qualcomm Arm processors, so we’ve skipped it here until we resolve our problems with the test.
While the Aspire doesn’t have the fastest motor, it maintained a competitive pace in all three processor benchmarks, placing third in each. The Aspire managed a respectable time in HandBrake: It placed a minute behind the MacBook Air, but that's a more-than-fair showing considering the price difference.
In real-world use, the Aspire feels smooth while browsing the web, writing, and chatting with friends. You'll notice a slowdown with more intense tasks, however. The Qualcomm Snapdragon X chip's Arm architecture doesn’t play nice with some Windows-native apps, but that list is smaller than ever and shrinking still. Unless you own, say, an old printer with no compatible drivers, or you have other highly specific needs, this distinction won't affect you.
While you'll undoubtedly get more punch from the 15-inch MacBook Air, remember that this is a 16-inch laptop that's sometimes just $550. For the Aspire to come remotely close to a MacBook in one test is impressive in its own right.
Graphics Tests
We challenge each reviewed system’s graphics with a quintet 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 next pair, Steel Nomad's regular (4K) and Light (1440p) subtests, focuses on APIs more commonly used for game development to assess gaming geometry and particle effects. A fifth test, Solar Bay, measures ray-tracing performance. (Some of the comparison systems could not complete or were not tested with some of these subtests, which is all reflected in the charts below.)
The Adreno graphics on Qualcomm's first-generation Snapdragon X processors—not to be confused with X Plus or X Elite—have not proved overly competitive in our testing. While the Dell Inspiron’s AMD Radeon 610M Graphics generally trailed the lot, Qualcomm's integrated graphics processor (IGP) got thrashed by Intel and Apple's IGPs.
Gaming on the Aspire, or doing any GPU-intensive work, will be limited, even more so than it already is on most budget PCs running an IGP. Neither use case is a core selling point of this laptop, anyway. More games support Arm processors than ever, and more are coming, but you'll want a gaming laptop for that, regardless. Ditto for anything more than casual content creation: Look to a more powerful business laptop or mobile workstation.
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 set to 50% and audio volume set to 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 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 or candelas per square meter. (We do not have display test results for the MacBook Air, so it is not included in the charts below.)
To no one’s surprise, the Aspire's battery life was quite long. That's Qualcomm's big selling point with its Snapdragon X chips: power efficiency. This desktop replacement might carry you through two workdays before you have to plug it in, though that will vary depending on usage. While the Aspire missed the MacBook Air by an hour, remember the price difference.
Meanwhile, the Aspire bowled us over with a screen that scored remarkably well in our panel tests, hitting competitive color coverage and the highest brightness in the comparison set. Naturally, price is why this development was so shocking, since display quality is usually the first thing compromised in budget laptops.