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The Auditor-General said funding and contract changes at the agency last year lacked clear understanding of how changes would affect at-risk children and families. Read...

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Acer’s new Aspire notebooks for Computex 2025 offer the choice of all three processor platforms, with either 14- or 16-inch display options. But there’s one big problem that the company can’t do anything about. In a word? Tariffs. Acer’s Aspire notebooks typically are its most affordable, so America’s fluctuating import tariffs add a confusing wrinkle to anything Acer announces. As a result, Acer isn’t announcing either the pricing or the ship date for its six new Copilot+ PCs. It is, however, disclosing what European customers will pay. Acer’s new Aspires are easy to understand: the company is shipping two notebooks, each with Intel’s Core Ultra (Lunar Lake) series, the AMD Ryzen AI 300 series, and the low-end Qualcomm Snapdragon X platform inside. In each processor category, Acer is shipping both a 14-inch and a 16-inch version. All qualify as Copilot+ PCs. Perhaps because of the price, Acer executives told us that the emphasis is on the Snapdragon-based Aspires. The 14-inch version will ship for 899 euros ($1,006) and will be available in June to European customers. Naturally, we just don’t know what tariffs will do to your wallet. Acer While there are slight differences, each of the 14-inch Aspires generally shares the same features as the others, and the same goes for the 16-inch Aspires, too. There are some slight variations, we’re told: for example, the Snapdragon PC platform includes a 1440p webcam, while the AMD and Intel versions include a more basic 1080p webcam. The Intel- and Qualcomm-based Aspires include Wi-Fi 7, while the AMD-based Aspire ships with a Wi-Fi 6e radio instead. The Intel variant also includes Thunderbolt 4 ports, while the others include the virtually identical USB4. Finally, the Intel-based Aspire ships with a 1920 x 1280 display option (and a 60Hz panel), while the others ship with a 1920 x 1200 display instead but nudge up to 120Hz. Qualcomm These are the specifications for the new 14-inch and 16-inch Aspire AI notebooks, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X chip inside. I had a chance to briefly check out the new Aspires in a press preview before Computex. The displays of the new Aspires are better than you might expect, with both OLED options and conventional IPS panels that can reach 500 nits and top out at 120Hz refresh rates — not what you would normally expect for a budget PC. Memory options climb to 32GB of LPDDR5X, with storage options of up to a 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSDs. In general, the 14-inch Aspires measure 12.28 x 8.89 x 0.63in. and weigh about 2.73 pounds, while the 16-inch versions measure 13.97 x 9.85 x 0.63in. and weigh about 3.28 pounds. There are some slight variations depending upon the processor. Acer Acer’s 14- and 16-inch Aspire AI notebooks, this time with an Intel Lunar Lake chip inside them. Again, the key is the price. Acer’s two Snapdragon Aspires, the A14-11M and A16-11M, will ship for 899 euros ($1,006) and 999 euros ($1,118) in June and July, respectively. The Acer Aspire A14-53M, a 14-inch Aspire with Intel’s Core Ultra chip, will ship for 999 euros ($1,118) in July and accompany the 16-inch A16-52M for 1,099 euros ($1,230), which will ship in August to the European market. Finally, Acer will ship its 14-inch A14-61M and the 16-inch A16-61M with Ryzen AI 300 processors inside to Europe in July and August for 999 euros ($1,118) and 1,099 euros ($1,230). As for the United States? Acer said that it will announce a ship date and price for the various models closer to when you can buy them. Read...

Acer’s Swift Edge 14 AI laptops already feel like one of the standouts of next week’s Computex 2025 show, combining a matte OLED display with an incredibly light weight. If you’re constantly on the go, this might be a laptop for you. All told, the Acer Swift Edge’s magnesium-aluminum chassis eliminates the vast majority of the weight. At 2.18 pounds, this puts the emphasis on light, which should be one of the focus points for a laptop that is constantly dropped into a bag or backpack. Acer’s Swift Edge 14 AI (SFE14-51 and -51T) and the Swift Go 14 and 16 AI are among the number of laptops that the company is debuting at Computex in the thin-and-light category, along with the Swift X creator series and the cheaper Aspire notebooks as well. Acer is also launching updates to its Predator line of gaming notebooks, too. I had a chance to go hands-on with the new Swift Edge in a preview of Acer’s Computex lineup. The Swift Edge is incredibly light, easily drawn out and moved around with a single hand. The real star of this Core Ultra (Lunar Lake) notebook may be its 14-inch screen, a 2880 x 1800 OLED coated with a Corning Gorilla Matte Pro finish. Laptop makers typically offer reflective screen which can mirror the light and background of your nearby environment. If you’ve ever worked in a library or cafe with overhead lighting, you’ll notice it. On the other hand, a matte screen dulls all that, eliminating reflections and minimizing the reflected light. That’s even more important with an OLED display, whose rich blacks tend to emphasize a reflective display. Acer’s Swift Go laptops, available in 14-inch and 16-inch screen sizes, are a bit more conventional. Like the Swift Edge AI, these are Copilot+ laptops, so the Intel Core 200V chips (Lunar Lake) inside these Swift Go 14 AI and Swift Go 16 AI allow for Microsoft’s Copilot+ experiences like Windows Studio Effects, Windows Recall, and more. The signature feature here is one you may have seen before: the Acer Multi-Control touchpad that provides contextual controls — such as play, pause, and fast-forward/rewind — during specific applications. The Swift Gos also include Acer Assist, a dedicated AI app, which provides a folder into which users can load documents and then assign an LLM to make sense of them all. The new Swift Go platform also includes Purified Voice 2.0, which can filter out ambient noise during video calls like magic. (Rival Asus offers a similar technology. Both use the NPU for noise filtering, which I’ve tested.) Because of the variability of the Trump tariffs, Acer isn’t disclosing pricing or the ship date of these laptops for the U.S. markets. In general, however, you should expect them to ship in between 30 and 90 days, Acer tells us. “We will announce U.S. pricing, availability, and configurations closer to market availability in the United States/North America,” Acer said in a statement. Acer did provide European pricing, however, as a point of comparison. Acer Swift Edge 14 AI Previously, Acer’s Swift Edge featured AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 CPUs. At least for Computex, Acer is showcasing the Swift Edge AI with just Intel inside. Acer’s Swift Edge 14 AI helps set the bar for the thin- and-light laptop category.Mark Hachman / Foundry Acer’s Swift Edge 14 AI measures 12.35 x 9.02 x 0.37in (9.3-16mm) and includes processor options from Intel Core Ultra 5 226V to the Core Ultra 9 288V, plus Intel’s integrated Arc graphics GPUs. Though it’s thin and light, it’s not flimsy; the laptop is rated at MIL-STD 810H resilience. Inside the notebook are options for either 32GB of LPDDR5X memory and up to a terabyte of PCIe Gen 4 SSD storage. This is the advantage of a matte screen: look at your phone or laptop edge-on, and note the reflections…which don’t appear here.Mark Hachman / Foundry Although battery life will vary based on a number of factors, the Swift Edge boasts a 65Wh battery, enough for what the company says is good for 21 hours of battery life. Wireless connectivity is supplied by Intel’s Killer Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 and above. There are also plenty of ports: a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports, plus two USB-A ports, one that’s capable of charging. The specifications of Acer’s Swift Edge 14 AI.Acer Acer includes a standard 1080p webcam on the Acer Swift Edge 14 AI, but with an additional fingerprint reader mounted behind the power button. The Acer Swift Edge 14 AI (SFE14-51/T) will be available in Europe in June, starting at EUR1,599 ($1,788) and in Australia in the second quarter, starting at AUD3,999. Acer Swift Go 16 AI and Acer Swift Go 14 AI Acer’s Swift Go laptops are thicker, and built out of aluminum. Acer’s 14-inch Swift Go 14 AI, for example, measures 12.3 x 8.89 x 0.63 inches and measures 3.06 pounds; the 16-inch version measures 14 x 9.87 x 0.63 inches and weighs a chunkier 3.53 pounds. They both include 64Wh batteries. Acer’s Swift Go 16 AI.Acer The two laptops are built around either your choice of an OLED (a 16-inch 2040 x 1280 or 14-inch 1920 x 1200) or a standard 1200p IPS display — put another way, the 16-inch offers significant differences in screen resolution while the 14-inch does not. In both, you’ll have a choice between four different Core Ultra (Lunar Lake) processors, with up to 32GB of LPDDR5X memory and a whopping 2TB of storage. Both laptops have two Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB-A ports, WiFi 7, and Bluetooth 5.4. The Acer Swift Go 16 AI (SFG16-74) will be available in Europe beginning in August, starting at 1,299 euros ($1,453). The Acer Swift Go 14 AI (SFG14-75) will be available in Europe in July, starting at EUR1,199 ($1,341). Acer Read...

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