The Acer Swift Air 14 (SFA14-I31) is a thin and light laptop with a sturdy aluminum body that comes in four different color options. It has a 14 inch, 1920 x 1200 pixel, 120 Hz display. And the notebook features an FHD IR camera, quad speakers with DTS:X Ultra sound, and two Thunderbolt 4 ports.But this isn’t a premium laptop. With prices starting at $699, it’s a notebook that combines some premium features with mid-range performance and budget pricing (by 2026 standards, at least). The new Swift Air 13 is expected to be available in North America starting in August.It’s the latest example of a new crop of budget and mid-range laptops that are hitting the market at a time when the PC industry is scrambling to deal with two realities:Rising prices for RAM and storage are driving up the average costs for personal computers.Apple has started seriously competing in the budget laptop market with the MacBook Neo, a $699 compact notebook that punches well above it weight class.While it’s unclear whether PC makers and chip designers predicted this when they started working on laptops like the Acer Swift Air 14, there are a few recent developments that show how Windows laptop makers are hoping to stay competitive.Qualcomm just introduced a new Snapdragon C line of chips for laptops with prices starting as low as $300.And earlier this year, Intel’s Core Series 3 “Wildcat Lake” chips are also made for budget and mid-range laptops that should be able to compete with the MacBook Neo… in price, at least.Acer has introduced some of the first laptops with each of those chips. The Acer Aspire Go 15 (AG15-Q31P) is expected to be one of the first with a Snapdragon C series processor, while the new Swift Air is one of the first with a Wildcat Lake processor.The $699 entry-level model is expected to have an Intel Core 5 series Wildcat Lake chip, 8GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage. But Acer says higher-priced versions of the Swift Air 14 (SFA14-I31) support up to an Intel Core 7 350 chip, and up to 16GB of LPDDR5 onboard memory.Intel’s Core 5 and Core 7 Wildcat Lake chips combine 2 Performance CPU cores with 4 Efficiency cores and a dual-core GPU. They should offer single-core CPU performance close to what you’d get from a more expensive “Panther Lake” processor, but these chips will trail behind in graphics, AI, and multi-core CPU performance.While the Swift Air 14 features LPDDR5 memory that’s soldered to the mainboard and which cannot be upgraded, there’s an M.2 slot for user-replaceable storage. The laptop also has a 70 Wh battery, two Thunderbolt 4/USB Type-C ports with support for charging, data, and video output. There’s also a USB 3.2 Type-A port and 3.5mm audio jack. And the Swift Air 14 supports WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.Acer will offer three color options: “sage green,” “frost blue,” “blossom pink,” and “lilac purple.” the Swift Air 14 measures 314 x 222.7 x 13.3mm (12.36″ x 8.77″ x 0.52″) at its thickest point and weighs 1.25kg (2.76 pounds).