Acer Swift 7
Is thin so important that compromise becomes irrelevant?
Acer says its Swift 7 is one of the thinnest laptop in the world, and the design is incredibly impressive and almost impossibly sleek, it gets long long battery life and offers 4G LTE capability, but there are myriad trade-offs to consider.
For one, it’s so thin that you can’t click on the touchpad -- it feels like an awkward dead slab of glass that takes getting used to. The keyboard is missing the function row, and actions are mapped to keys you wouldn’t expect.
The 13.3-inch, 1080p display on the Swift 7 is surrounded by a noticeable but inoffensive bezel. But the webcam gets plopped in an unfortunate (and unflattering) spot below the display. The deck is also black aluminum, with a chiclet keyboard and a wide touchpad that, again, doesn’t click (a concession made to the gods of thinness).
Unsurprisingly, there’s a dearth of ports on the Swift 7. To be fair, there just isn’t much room for them. You’ll find a headphone jack and two USB 3.1 Type-C ports on the left side, and the power button and a SIM card slot on the right side. If you need more ports, Acer includes a dongle in the box with a Type-C port, USB 3.1 and an HDMI output.
With its 1.3GHz Intel Core i7-7Y75 CPU, 8GB of RAM temperatures under control. While we certainly don’t want the laptop to overheat, that makes for less-thanideal performance.
Acer’s 14-inch, 1920 x 1080 touchscreen display produces vivid colors and is adequately bright.
Let’s talk about this touchpad. Specifically, it doesn’t click. The laptop’s line of the keyboard. Volume and brightness controls wind up on the arrow keys, which is at least more common.
You have to hand it to Acer. It made a laptop so thin that it seems impossible, and one with more than 9 hours of battery life, an impressive touchscreen and 4G LTE. But at the price, the Core i7 Y series processor just isn’t
“There’s a dearth of ports on the Swift 7.