IFA 2016 doesn’t open its doors for another two days, but Acer today has announced its announcements for the global trade show today. The Taiwanese company is kicking things off with the introduction of the new Swift series of laptops.
The Swift series of Ultrabooks comprises of four models: the entry-level Swift 1, mid-range Swift 3 and Swift 5, and the premium and ultra-slim Swift 7. The sleekest of the lot, Acer’s new Swift 7 is the company’s answer to HP’s 10.5mm Spectre ultra-slim laptop, and now lays claim to be the first laptop to be under 1cm thin – at 9.98mm it’s a whisker away.
It’s powered by Intel’s latest 7th-generation Core i5 Y series processor, meaning that like the Switch Alpha 12 from this year, the Swift 7 is also a passively cooled laptop – it has no cooling fans to increase its overall thickness.
The 1.1kg Swift 7 sports a 13.3-inch Full HD IPS display, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD within the aluminium unibody. There’s also space for two USB 3.1 Type C ports, an audio jack, and a battery rated for 9 hours.
Meanwhile, the Swift 5 aims to build upon the success of the Aspire S 13 released earlier this year. With a similar design, Acer improved the Swift 5 by introducing a narrow-bezel 14-inch Full HD IPS display into the Swift 5’s chassis that usually fits a 13.3-inch screen. The fingerprint sensor is also embedded into the touchpad. At just 14.58mm thin, Acer claims that the Swift 5 is capable of 13 hours of battery life.
The Swift 3 adds a full aluminium chassis, a larger touchpad, a fingerprint sensor. At 17.95mm thin, it also features a Full HD 14-inch IPS display.
Finally, the Swift 1 is Acer’s continuation of mainstream affordable notebooks, featuring four colour options and a “diamond cut” aluminium material surrounding the keyboard and touchpad. The 14-inch laptop weighs 1.58kg.
All of Acer’s Swift laptops today are powered by Intel’s freshly-announced Kaby Lake 7th-generation Core processors.
The Swift series of laptops will be available in a global rollout from October, with prices starting from just $249 (about RM1,000) for the Swift 1, $499 (about RM2,000) for the Swift 3, $749 (about RM3,000) for the Swift 5, and $999 (about RM4,000) for the Swift 7.
