Tech

Behold! This is now the thinnest laptop in the world

Jeff Dunn

2016-08-31T17:09:13Z

Thin laptops are good. Though they aren’t powerhouses, they’ve gotten stronger as the years have passed, and they’ve always taken a load off your back while you’re on the go.

A laptop as thin as the Acer Swift 7, however, is going for opulence as much as convenience.

It’s not just slim — it is, as of this writing, the slimmest laptop in the world, measuring 0.39 inches at its thinnest point. That beats out HP’s Spectre from earlier this year, and makes it the first notebook to crack the sub-centimeter mark.

Let’s take a look at the rest of the machine, which Acer on Wednesday unveiled at this year’s IFA show.

The Acer Swift 7 is the flagship entry in Acer’s new Swift series of laptops. It's all about design. Aside from the slimness, its aluminum, black-and-gold chassis is both very light (at 2.48 pounds), and fanless, meaning it should stay quiet as it’s running.

Ultra-portables like this can sometimes sacrifice horsepower in an attempt to be as thin as possible, but, on paper, it doesn’t seem as if the Swift will have too many issues. It comes with a brand new 7th gen Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. Alongside that is a 13.3-inch, 1080p non-touch display. None of this is particularly special, but it should at least be competent.

Acer

It’s worth mentioning that this Core i5 chip comes from Intel’s “Y series,” which is the low-power alternative than its brawnier U series counterpart. Still, it shouldn’t be too slow.

Being so slim means the Swift 7 doesn't have lots of connectivity options, but it does still manage to fit a pair of fast USB-C ports (over USB 3.1). Also, yes, there’s a headphone jack.

Acer rates the Swift 7’s battery life at 9 hours. That’d be impressive for such a svelte laptop if it turns out to be true, but as always, company estimates have to be taken with a grain of salt.

The Swift 7 will hit North America in October, with a starting price of $999. It won’t be the biggest bang for your buck with those specs, but that’s not really the point: Acer is going for style and prestige here, with hardware built to take on Apple’s MacBook. We’ll see if it’s as nice as it looks in the coming weeks.

Tech Gadgets PC