CES 2024: This laptop’s weird touchpad is for YouTube-obsessed users

The Acer Swift Go 14 is now unleashed ahead of CES 2024, and at first glance, it may seem like your average laptop.

It’s got the ever-so-popular silver chassis and a clamshell form factor — what’s the big deal about it? Well, something curious happens to the touchpad when you fire up YouTube on the Swift Go 14.

The Swift Go 14’s funky touchpad

While you’re watching YouTube on a laptop, and you need to pause it to grab some lunch, why go through the arduous journey of dragging the cursor all the way to the pause button? Your poor pointer finger shouldn’t have to go through such a strenuous task.

That’s why Acer, coddling our first-world problems, decided to place media controls on top of the touchpad. In other words, the trackpad doubles as a hub for play, pause, rewind, and fast-forward buttons.

The best part is that the Swift Go 14 can automatically detect whether media is playing on the display. So it’s not just YouTube these LED-lit controls will appear for — it should pop up for sites like Spotify, Twitch, and other media platforms.

Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable

I got to test the Swift Go 14 at an Acer showcase. The touchpad lit up with the integrated media controls when I fired up YouTube, allowing me to hit pause, play, and skip without a hitch.

Credit: Joe Maldonado / Mashable

However, when I tried to pull up other sites besides YouTube (e.g., Twitch), the controls didn’t show up. However, Acer stressed that I was experimenting with a pre-production model and the units bound for store shelves will work as marketed. Once we get the Swift Go 14 in for testing, we’ll know for sure.

12-hour battery life?

The Swift Go 14, equipped with the new Intel Core Ultra processors that are designed to improve AI workflow performance, can reportedly deliver 12.5 hours of battery life. (Again, this is yet another claim I’ll have to test in our lab once Mashable receives a review unit.)

Credit: Joe Maldonado / Mashable

It comes with up to 32GB of RAM and up to 2TB of SSD storage. While all configurations offer a 14-inch display, you can choose the panel you want, from a 1920 x 1200-pixel IPS screen with a 60Hz refresh rate to a 2880 x 1880-pixel OLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate.

It comes with a 1440p webcam, and from what I saw at the showcase, it features a microSD card slot, a headset jack, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB Type-A ports, a Kensington lock slot, and an HDMI port.

Credit: Joe Maldonado / Mashable

The Swift Go 14 will be available in March and has a starting price of $ 749.99.

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