Acer's new laptops are so thin they make the MacBook look fat
BERLIN — Acer, one of the top PC makers, has two razor-thin Windows 10 laptops it wants to sell you.
Announced at IFA 2016, the Swift 7 and Spin 7 measure 0.39-inches and 0.43-inches thick, respectively. The bottom half of each laptop is barely thicker than a USB-C and 3.5mm headphone jack, which makes them even thinner than Apple's MacBook and MacBook Air at their thickest point.
Impossibly thin Swift 7
The Swift 7 is the less interesting of the two. It's a regular ol' laptop that weighs 2.48 pounds and has 13.3-inch full HD IPS display with no touchscreen and a full-sized keyboard. The trackpad is also extra-wide.
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It's aluminum body looks great in black and gold, but the screen does flex a little.
Underneath the hood is a new seventh-generation Intel "Kaby Lake" Core i5 processor, 256GB SSD and up to 8GB of RAM. That's enough power to view and edit 4K content without the entire computer choking up and maybe play new games at a decent graphics level and frame rate. Battery life is rated at up to 9 hours, according to Acer.
The thin body leaves practically no room for ports. You get two USB-C 3.1 ports (charge, transfer data and output video) and a headphone jack on the right side, and that's it. No memory card slot of any kind. The USB-C ports also aren't Thunderbolt 3.
Acer also touts HDR for its webcam but I didn't get to take a look at that.
The Swift 7 starts at $999 and will launch in North America in October. China gets an earlier launch in September.
Convertible Spin 7
The Spin 7 is a teensy bit thicker than the Swift 7, but a little lighter at 2.6 pounds. It has a larger 14-inch full HD IPS touchscreen that flips all the way back like the Yoga-series popularized by Lenovo.
Like all convertibles, you get your four different modes — laptop, stand, tent and tablet — depending on how far back you fold the screen back.
Compared to the Swift 7, it's a little more powerful, too. It's also packing the new seventh-gen Intel Core processor, but with the beefier Core i7 chip. It, too, comes with 256GB of SSD and up to 8GB of RAM. Acer says the Spin 7's battery life is good for up to 8 hours.
Onboard ports are the same as the Swift 7: two USB-C 3.1 ports and a headphone jack and an HDR webcam.
Acer will launch the Spin 7 in North America in October starting at $1,199 and China will get it early in September as well.
Topics Windows
Raymond Wong is Mashable's Senior Tech Correspondent. He reviews gadgets and tech toys and analyzes the tech industry. Raymond's also a bit of a camera geek, gamer, and fine chocolate lover. Before arriving at Mashable, he was the Deputy Editor of NBC Universal's tech publication DVICE. His writing has appeared on G4TV, BGR, Yahoo and Ubergizmo, to name a few. You can follow Raymond on Twitter @raywongy or Instagram @sourlemons.
