acer Aspire 16 AI Copilot PC | 16″ WUXGA 120Hz Multi-Touch Display | Snapdragon X X1-26-100 | NPU: 45 Tops – GPU: Up to 1.7 TFLOPs | 16GB LPDDR5X | 512GB PCIe Gen 4 SSD | Wi-Fi 7 | A16-11MT-X669

I have not used a Windows based ARM laptop yet and to be honest I was a bit skeptical as I had heard that Windows on ARM has not been great in the past. I did however hear that they had come a very long way so was curious to check it out for myself. I am pleasantly surprised at how seamless it has been so far, if I didn’t know it was ARM I probably would not have picked up on it, at least not for a while. The laptop itself is actually quite nice and has lots to offer for a reasonable price but there are a few things holding me back from giving it a five stat review (not deal breakers but worth talking about).So my first and biggest gripe with it is the bloatware, I have not experience this much of it on a laptop before. I understand these partnerships between Acer and these other companies help keep costs down but it felts invasive to me. Just to name a few, the laptop came preinstalled with McAfee, NordVPN, WebAdvisor by McAfee, Dropbox Promotions, a couple web links made to look like apps, the worst one being a pinned bookings.com logo to the task bar, and a ridiculous amount of Acer software. I am personally really not a fan of this kind of stuff as it adds things to my computer that may slow it down or take up space without me potentially knowing about it. I ended up making a Windows 11 ARM image and doing a fresh install after I linked this Windows 11 key to my account.A few other things I noticed that are not my favourite, the lack of a finger print reader, USB-C ports only on the left side, and a relatively big power cord considering it is only 65 Watts. The laptop has Windows Hello which works really well and is a great feature. It also includes a physical slider to block the camera, again a really nice feature. However, I need to keep this slider open if I want the ability to quickly sign into my computer, a fingerprint reader would be a nice alternative for logging in. The computer has two USB-C ports which are also used to power the laptop, I am glad they are on the left side so they don’t get in the way when I use a mouse but I do wish it had a port on each side to better accommodate any type of setup. For the power cord I was really hoping for a more modern looking brick that plugs directly into the wall with the USB-C cord going directly to the laptop, however its more the traditional style with the detachable (and thick) power cable going into the power supply then from the power supply into the laptop. But, it is USB-C for power and was able to use my own 65W power brick and cable without issues.Outside of these, honestly pretty minor, issues, the laptop is actually pretty great. At 16″ it is a fairly large laptop but is quite thin and not super heavy for the size. The screen has a 16:10 resolution and can run at 120Hz leaving the overall experience feel more smooth. The slightly larger aspect ratio is great as it gives that much more vertical space to work with. The screen is also a touch screen, has nice colours, and is bright. I actually really enjoy typing on the keyboard, the keys feel nice and responsive. The layout is a little different than I am use to so its taking a little time to adjust but nothing too crazy. It has a small num pad on the side, nice to have it but its size also requires some getting use to. The track pad is decent but I do find my finger has a hard time gliding across it sometimes, especially when trying to drag something. But it is large, has a click feedback when pressed, and works with the known gestures. The speakers, to me, feel pretty lacklustre, they are functional but not super loud and essentially no base. The camera falls in the same boat for me, the image quality is not great but it is functional and I am happy it has one.Overall I think this is actually a pretty nice laptop at a reasonable price. I was worried the ARM processor would cause more issues but so far it has not stopped me from doing anything I normally do. I was even able to install Steam and boot up some “not so demanding” games and it simply just worked without any compatibility issues. The bloatware was annoying but a fresh install solved the problem. The other minor issues I pointed out are definitely not deal breakers and only worth mentioning. And as a bonus it included three months to game pass, not sure that will always be the case but was happy to get it!