Acer's Swift 7 is the first laptop thinner than a centimeter

That’s 0.39 inches in imperial units



Acer is getting IFA 2016 off to a wondrous start this morning with the launch of the incredibly thin Swift 7 laptop. This Windows 10 machine, powered by Intel’s brand new 7th-generationCore i5 processor, measures a scant 9.98mm, making it the first to limbo under the 1cm bar (0.39 inches). Despite beating Apple’s MacBook and HP’s Spectre 13 for the braggadocious title of being the world’s thinnest laptop, the Swift 7 doesn’t sacrifice much in the way of either ports or battery. It offers two USB-C 3.1 ports and a headphone jack, plus Acer promises a 9-hour endurance thanks to Intel’s newly updated and more efficient Y series of chips.
The display up front is a 13.3-inch Full HD IPS panel with nothing to truly distinguish it. It’s not going to be the Swift’s big selling point, but neither is it any sort of deal breaker. On the inside, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD storage sit alongside the Intel Kaby Lake chip, which is passively cooled — the whole system is fanless. Acer outfits the Swift 7 in an aluminum unibody chassis, which is dark on the outside and a quite classy gold on the interior.
Weighing in at 1.1kg (2.48 pounds), the Swift 7 is effortless to tote around in one hand. The keyboard is nice and comfortable to type on, even if it does have predictably shallow key travel. The only thing I didn’t like about it was that it had some flex in the middle — though the overall laptop feels rigid and solid enough to survive daily use in spite of its paper-thin construction. One other peculiar thing about this notebook is its touchpad, which might be the widest on any laptop yet; are we standing on the precipice of a new era of widescreen touch pads?

 I don't usually want a touchscreen or a rotating display on my laptops, but the Swift 7 is so light that it encourages more unconventional use, which in turn makes those features feel like something of an omission. Cognizant of that, Acer is today also launching a Spin 7 model, which is similar in most respects, but adds a better Core i7 processor, larger 14-inch display, touch, and a 360-degree hinge. All that improvement for the low price of just an extra millimeter over the Swift 7.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

DirectX 12 vs DirectX 11

Image
DirectX 12 vs DirectX 11 – How DX12 will transform PC  gaming on Windows 10 DIRECTX 12 VS DIRECTX 11 – WHY DOES IT MATTER? Windows 10  has arrived and, along with integrated Cortana, Xbox One game streaming and a fancy new web browser, one of its key features is DirectX 12, the latest version of the operating system’s gaming API. A software layer that sits between the hardware that powers our computers and the software that runs on them,  DirectX is at the heart of the vast majority of games that run on Windows.  The other major gaming API is OpenGL, which as its name suggests is an open source API. Both offer very similar key functions, but it’s DirectX that tends to be at the heart of most bigger games. Microsoft talks up the amazing new capabilities for every new release of DirectX, but with DirectX 12 it really does have some key new features, at least when it comes to improving performance. It also has some new effects tools and functions for making games look bett
Read more

Android N's "Freeform Windows"

Last week, we wrote about the " freeform window " mode in the Android N Developer Preview. Brief mentions in the developer documents and hints in the code pointed to Android someday displaying apps in resizable floating windows, just like in a desktop OS. Freeform window mode isn't normally accessible in the current dev preview, but shortly after the post, we were contacted by reader  Zhuowei Zhang  with instructions on how to make it work. We'll get to the instructions, but first let's talk about what's actually here. Freeform window mode is just what we imagined. It's a dead ringer for  Remix OS —multiple Android apps floating around inside windows—and it might be the beginnings of a desktop operating system . It works on Android N phones and tablets, and once the mode is enabled, you'll see an extra button on thumbnails in the Recent Apps screen. To the left of the "X" button that pops up after a second or two, there will be a s
Read more

The Chord Mojo turns good headphones into great ones

Image
The best gadget you never knew you wanted Audio processing isn’t sexy. Better sound doesn’t lend itself to easy marketing through numbers or pretty posters, and so many companies treat it as an afterthought when designing their products. The  blissful ignorance  of "good enough" audio pervades the world of consumer technology, leaving only a niche of audio enthusiasts supporting a few boutique hi-fi manufacturers. Things have been like this for quite some time, but recently a new gadget was introduced that bridges the gap between the many and the few, and its name is the  Chord Mojo . The Mojo is an audio processor and amplifier that’s smaller than a pack of cards yet delivers the awesome performance of much larger rivals. Honestly, I think its size works to its disadvantage because it looks like, and is, a portable unit you can plug into your phone and use off its 10-hour battery. By audiophile standards, it’s almost  too  practical. But those same aud
Read more