Acer Launches Lightest Ever 15-inch Notebook: Swift 5 at 990 grams / 2.2 lbs
by Ian Cutress on August 29, 2018 5:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Acer
- Trade Shows
- Notebooks
- 8th Gen
- Whiskey Lake
- Swift 5
- IFA 2018
Everyone loves the lack of weight. Carting around a trade show, at least for me, helps the less I’m carrying, and so my work device has transitioned from a clunky beast into a light 13-inch thin-bezel with as much power and battery as I can put into it. The holy trinity of quality, battery, and weight, is hard to achieve. Acer thinks they have something at a 15-inch screen size that fits the bill.
The newest Acer Swift 5 (SF515-51T) is officially launched today as the world’s lightest 15-inch notebook. The key behind the weight saving, says Acer, is the magnesium-lithium alloy clamshell design. We’ve seen laptops with this contruction before, such as the LaVie Z, however never in a 15-inch design. Acer is planning the Swift 5 to be a ‘productivity powerhouse’, featuring 8th generation processors.
The design reminds me a lot of the Zenbook Ultimate editions, with a small hinge, but this time with much thinner screen bezels. The display on this new machine is a 1080p IPS rather than 4K (likely to help with battery), with Acer promoting an 87.6% screen-to-body ratio. The system will lie flat with its hinge, rather than a full rotation, and the full unit measures 15.9mm (0.63-inch) thick.
Under the hood, Acer is offering up to a Core i7-8565U, the latest Whiskey Lake 8th generation part, with up to 10 hours of battery life. Using the newest Whiskey Lake means also offering Intel’s 2x2 802.11ac 160 MHz Wi-Fi CRF, which Acer pairs with up to 16 GB of DDR4 and up to 1TB of NVMe PCIe storage. The keyboard is fully back lit.
Other features includes a USB 3.1 Type-C port, two USB 3.1 Type-A ports, and a HDMI port. The notebook will be available in North America in January, starting at $1099.
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fmcjw - Wednesday, August 29, 2018 - link
what about the old LG Gram 15 inch at 980 grams (which later grew to 10xx grams to include a bigger battery)? I'm surprised Anandtech falls for manufacturer's false claimsIan Cutress - Wednesday, August 29, 2018 - link
Reporting on the show rushing between events. Reporting vs analysis. Time for analysis is brief, so we're reporting what the manufacturer says. In these fast-paced situations, unless you have the knowledge right on the top of your head, it's hard to scour the webs while also writing it up. Case in point, I'm writing this two minutes before meeting number three today rather than researching other stuffyeeeeman - Wednesday, August 29, 2018 - link
To be on the safe side he should have said that it is the lightest 15 inch notebook from Acer.lazarpandar - Wednesday, August 29, 2018 - link
I think repeating claims by the manufacturer is the "safe side", they're not supposed to make entirely false claims.PeachNCream - Wednesday, August 29, 2018 - link
The bigger problem is that Acer should have done their homework before making a false claim to the press. Then again, this is Acer we're talking about and due diligence along with quality control hasn't ever, in my experience, been a thing with them.wr3zzz - Wednesday, August 29, 2018 - link
Just want to make sure it's not a typo, the notebook won't be available until January, another 5 months?digiguy - Wednesday, August 29, 2018 - link
Why no 13.3" ultralight? I am still waiting for someone to beat the 787 grams of my notebook 9 2017.... which is an amazing device other than the fact that after a while the fan has become annoying as it is constantly on even when idle (with zero dust in the fan and with temperatures of 40 degrees...)Teckk - Wednesday, August 29, 2018 - link
Sigh.. The thinness over battery life. Why still DDR4? Aren't the new processors capable of LPDDR yet? Also any idea if they support 32 gigs of RAM but Acer doesn't have a model with that option?MrSpadge - Wednesday, August 29, 2018 - link
It's LPDDR3 or DDR4. This complaint goes directly to Intel.tommythorn - Thursday, August 30, 2018 - link
Oh gods no! It has the same brain dead cursor keys that the MacBook [Pro] and wannabes use. Before I saw that I was going to ask how well it supports Linux.