Acer Swift 7 review

Acer has made an ultra-thin laptop that’s less than a centimetre thick yet squeezed in a Core m7 processor. A great start, but how does this laptop do elsewhere? We went hands-on in Berlin - read our Acer Swift 7 review.

PRICE WHEN REVIEWED

€1,299

ACER SWIFT 7 REVIEW: HANDS-ON WITH WORLD'S THINNEST LAPTOP

Technology companies love a bit of one-upmanship. At IFA 2016 Acer has announced the Swift 7, the world’s thinnest laptop. When closed, its thickest edge measures 9.98mm, which makes it the first laptop to be under 1cm thick. A fine achievement, but does it warrant you one? We went hands-on - read our Acer Swift 7 review. 

ACER SWIFT 7 REVIEW: UK PRICE AND AVAILABILITY

Acer has priced the European release of the Swift 7 at €1,299, which at the time of writing is £1,090. This makes it more expensive than Apple’s thin as a pancake £1,049 MacBook, so Acer is firmly in premium territory. Then again, the Swift 7 has an Intel Core m7 processor whereas that MacBook at that price has only an m3.

The exact UK price and release date for the Swift 7 are to be confirmed but it’ll be out at some point in October 2016.

ACER SWIFT 7 REVIEW: DESIGN AND BUILD 

It’s thin. Really, really thin. While Acer has gone all-out with the ‘world’s thinnest’ marketing line, you can’t ignore the fact this laptop is a design marvel. 9.98mm at its thickets point when closes means the Swift 7 will slide into a bag like a magazine. It’s got a 13.3in screen with Gorilla Glass, which is great but unusual for a laptop, along with a clever hinge design that displays two performance indicator lights when open or closed. It’s actually a shame that this aspect of the design isn’t utilised a bit better to give the user more information – it’s just two tiny lights.

The lid is a metallic black while the base is a metallic gold. This is currently the only colour option, and follows the lead of Apple and HP (with its Spectre ultrabook) by introducing gold into its premium range of laptops. That gold base houses a full size keyboard which at first glance looks like the keys might be too far apart. Happily, we spent a fair few minutes typing on the Swift 7 and there are no issues. The keys have great travel and their quality reinforces the high-end nature of the product.

The Swift 7 also has a huge trackpad, at 72mm to be precise. We’re not sure why it’s so huge, but it means navigation through Windows 10 is an absolute breeze so we can’t complain. Overall we can’t really fault the design, though if compared to other ultrabooks like Dell’s XPS 13, the bezel around the screen is quite wide, and it doesn’t feel as disappear-in-your-bag portable as the MacBook, but that’s a slightly unfair comparison given Apple’s laptop has a smaller 12in screen.

If you like the Acer Swift 7’s design at first sight, then none of this will matter anyway – and it is gorgeous. 

ACER SWIFT 7 REVIEW: FEATURES AND SPECS

The Swift 7 has a 13.3in full HD IPS display that reproduces colours very well, and pages are readable even on the lowest brightness setting. As we mentioned previously, it has a Core m7 processor, Intel’s current highest spec Core m chip. That’s paired with 8GB RAM and a 256GB solid state drive. The combination should prove very effective, and we are looking forward to putting it through its paces in a full review soon. 

Acer has also taken the USB-C jump, giving the Swift 7 two of the ports for charging, data transfer and external display connections. There are no other ports besides a headphone jack.

ACER SWIFT 7 REVIEW: SOFTWARE 

In the least surprising news, the Swift 7 runs Windows 10. Windows 10 is really good, so no need to worry on this front.

OUR VERDICT

After the initial good impressions of this laptop’s exquisite design, we feel it can live up to its billing. The fact the Swift 7 has a Core m7 at the price point works in its favour, and it has the potential to fall into the laps of business users and consumers alike. We reckon the full dimensions could be a little smaller but that is nit-picking. Acer has done superbly to create such elegant hardware and it stands up well next to its rivals.