You might not think Acer’s skinny Swift X laptop is powerful enough, but it is

This story is part of CES, where CNET covers the latest news on the most incredible tech coming soon.

Acer’s Swift X laptop is a thin-and-light laptop that’s designed for basic content creation as well as regular day-to-day tasks. Because it’s thin and just 3.1 pounds (1.4 kilograms) you might not think it’s powerful enough for cutting together a YouTube video or editing photos, but under the hood of the 2021 model was an AMD Ryzen 7 5800U and a 4GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti, which is enough for those tasks and some gaming on the side. 

For the upcoming 2022 version announced at CES 2022, Acer is adding 12th-gen Intel Core processors to the 14-inch Swift X. It’ll still be paired with the RTX 3050 Ti and have up to 16GB of onboard LPDDR5 memory and up to a 1TB PCIe SSD for storage. Acer is also upgrading the screen from a 1080p 16:9 widescreen to a 2,240×1,400-pixel display with a 16:10 aspect ratio. 

Joining the 14-inch Swift X is a new 16-inch model that will also feature a 12th-gen Intel Core processor. However, instead of Nvidia graphics, it’ll have Intel’s new Arc discrete graphics that it also announced the shipment of at CES 2022. The GPU is a higher-performance product compared to its discrete Iris Xe Max chip and should offer a competitive alternative to Nvidia’s RTX 3050 and 3050 Ti GPUs.  

The 16-inch Swift X will also feature a 16:10-ratio screen, but this time with a 2,560×1,600-pixel resolution. Acer said the display will have 100% sRGB color gamut coverage and 400-nit brightness.  

Other features for the 16-inch Swift X include Wi-Fi 6E wireless, two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, a fingerprint reader and a full-HD webcam. It was co-engineered with Intel, too, and meets its Evo platform requirements for responsiveness, battery life, fast charging and instant wireless connection. 

The Swift X sounds like it will be strong competition for Dell’s affordable Inspiron 16 Plus, which was one of our favorite laptops from 2021. Acer didn’t announce pricing or availability for the new models, however, so we’ll just have to wait and see for now.