This Laptop Handles AI Like a Pro — Without the Premium Price Tag

CNET’s key takeaways 

Laptop prices are on the rise — and the more they increase, the better Acer’s Aspire 14 AI looks. 

• The Acer Aspire 14 AI is available for $500 at Costco and $628 at Amazon.
• The Intel Lunar Lake CPU offers good performance for the price and long battery life.
• The display and design won’t wow you.

When I reviewed it in April, it cost $700 at Costco and was the cheapest Copilot Plus PC I had reviewed. Fast-forward two months, and a Labor Day deal has brought that price down to $500 at Costco, making it the cheapest Copilot Plus PC I’ve seen — and a great value.

Budget laptop shoppers will find no shortage of cheap models around $500 that are priced so low for the simple fact that they are older laptops with aging components that get more outdated with each passing day. The Acer Aspire 14 AI doesn’t fall into this category. It’s the rare laptop with both a truly budget price and modern components. It’s based on a current Intel Core Ultra Series 2 processor (codenamed Lunar Lake) that delivers good performance for the price, along with great battery life and competitive AI performance. The Aspire 14 AI also wins points for supplying more RAM and storage than most budget laptops. In fact, it’s one of my best budget laptops of 2025.

My experience with the Acer Aspire 14 AI

I’m still waiting for the killer AI app to make a laptop AI CPU a must, but it’s nice to know that when it arrives, you’ll have a machine that’s built for it. 

Thanks to its Intel Core Ultra 5 CPU that has a neural processing unit capable of 40 trillion operations per second, the Aspire 14 AI hits the minimum requirement for Microsoft’s Copilot Plus PC platform. Its AI processor can offload AI workloads — constantly taking Windows Recall snapshots, blurring backgrounds for video calls and producing live translations — to its NPU, keeping the CPU and GPU freed up for whatever primary task you’re working on.

Future-proofing is always valuable in any laptop, especially so in a budget model where it’s not always a given. You need to be careful when shopping for a low-cost laptop because many offerings are older models with previous-generation components that are discounted in an attempt to clear out inventory for newer units.

In testing, the Aspire 14 AI hung with the more expensive Copilot Plus PCs I’ve tested. Its scores on our application, graphics and AI benchmarks weren’t all that far off from those of its pricier competitors. Its integrated Intel GPU doesn’t provide much in the way of 3D gaming, but the same can be said for any Copilot Plus PC, as I’ve yet to encounter one with dedicated graphics.

With the Aspire 14 AI, you avoid the budget laptop trap of buying a machine with outdated or soon-to-be-outdated parts. And you also skip past the specter of the Creaky Plastic Monster. Many budget laptops have flimsy plastic enclosures, but the Aspire 14 AI has aluminum top and bottom panels with only a plastic keyboard deck. The keyboard deck feels rigid and doesn’t bend or flex like the thinner plastic commonly found on other budget models. It’s a solidly constructed laptop, and you’d have to look closely to tell it apart from one of Acer’s mainstream Swift laptops.

The specs

• CPU: Intel Core Ultra 5 226V
• Memory: 16GB LPDDR5-8533 
• Graphics: Intel Arc 130V
• Storage: 1TB solid-state drive
• Display: 14-inch 1,920×1,200-pixel touch IPS LCD
• Ports: 2x USB-C Thunderbolt 4, 2x USB-A USB 3.2 Gen 1, HDMI 2.1, combo audio
• Networking: Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3
• Weight: 3.05 pounds
• Battery life: 18 hours, 56 minutes
• Operating system: Microsoft Windows 11 Home

CNET’S buying advice

The best part of the Aspire 14 AI is getting a modern CPU that delivers the performance needed for the laptop to act as your primary machine and not just a cheap, underpowered second system. And the efficient Intel Core Ultra CPU also allows the Aspire 14 AI to run for almost 19 hours on a single charge while also offering a bit of future-proofing with its AI capabilities.

The uninspired design and meh display are really the only items that scream “budget laptop.” The rest of the package is more mainstream than budget, including the 16GB of RAM and the roomy 1TB SSD. You are usually looking at 8GB of RAM and either a 256GB or 512GB SSD when shopping for a $500 to $700 laptop. And this Amazon deal makes the Aspire 14 an even better bargain than it normally is.

If you are willing to spend a bit more, I have a couple of other Copilot Plus PCs you should check out. The Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 is a winner for its slick and sturdy design and awesome haptic touchpad and the Asus Zenbook A14 boasts an ultralight yet rigid enclosure with a gorgeous OLED display. Plus, both offer even better battery life than the Aspire 14 AI.