Acer makes some of the most compelling thin and light laptops in the market. One of the most popular one in their stables is the Swift 5. Unlike the Swift 3 or the Swift X, the Swift 5 is made to be a full on thin and light laptop for the masses. It also does not have a discrete GPU, to ensure that it keeps to minimum weight and thickness. It also features a very pretty and handy touch sensitive display for added navigation options. There is a problem with the past two generations of Acer’s Swift 5. They both look exactly the same save for different colour options. Not the new one.
Acer Swift 5
The only thing the new Swift 5 made for 2022 with Intel’s 12th Generation processors shares with its predecessor is its Olive Green colour option which we find quite attractive on the new design. It is still made entirely out of aluminium for that premium feel and finish. This time, the Acer Swift 5 is made from a unibody aerospace grade aluminium that has been precisely CNC-machined. That also means that it should be even more durable than before.
There is a small trade off with the new Acer Swift 5 with more premium build material. The laptop has gained some weight. Instead of weighing just below 1kg, it now weighs in at 1.2kg. It is not the end of the world though, 200g of weight gain is understandable considering the build material.
While it has grown in heft a little, it remains the same 14.95mm thick as before, which is still mighty thin for a laptop with full-sized USB Type-A and HDMI ports. The new construction and some new hardware within the laptop also mean that the body is slightly more compact than before. All these and you are still getting the best Intel can offer within the body.
The Intel Evo device is powered by Intel’s latest 12th Generation Core processors with Intel Iris Xe Graphics. You get up to an Intel Core i7-1260P processor for thin and light laptops. You also get up to 16GB of LPDDR4X RAM to go with the powerful CPU. Unfortunately, the RAM is not expandable. Storage comes in the form of a 1TB NVMe SSD, which is plenty enough for all kinds of work you can do with the Swift 5 plus a few movies for your entertainment needs. Keeping everything cool and comfortable is a brilliantly designed backlit keyboard which also acts as the air inlet for the laptop.
All of these power keeps Windows 11 running smoothly on its brilliant 14-inch touch-sensitive display. The IPS panel boasts 2,560 by 1,600 pixels, effectively a WQXGA 16:10 panel for improved productivity and flexibility with more real estate. If you need to quickly get a photo or video edited, the 100% sRGB rating should do your photos and videos justice. The thin bezels surrounding the 14-inch panel is kept to a minimum too, just to get the device to fit as snuggly in your bag as before. The Corning Gorilla Glass with Antimicrobial coating to ensure that the display is protected from all kinds of abuse.
Other than the two full-sized ports mentioned above, you get two more USB Type-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 and 65W PD support and a 3.5mm combo jack. To ensure that you look your best in video calls, you get a Full HD webcam with SHDR support. You also do not need to carry your charger around too much with up to 9 hours of quoted battery life.
Acer Aspire Series
Alongside the new Swift 5, Acer also launches their new Aspire series laptops. The Aspire series are not made to be as thin and as light as the Swift 5. They are not made to be the most premium laptops in the market either. They are built to be value-for-money laptops for the mainstream market.
Update to Intel’s 12th Generation processors, the 15.6-inch Aspire series also receives an update in the looks department. The Acer logo is now smaller than before and placed at the top part of the shell instead of the middle. To be fair, most of Acer’s newer laptops feature similar design language.
Alongside the powerful Intel processors, you get up to 8GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage. The RAM is expandable with an extra slot, while the storage can be expanded as well with a SATA SSD or HDD. You also get to spec your Aspire 3 with up to NVIDIA’s GeForce MX550 discrete GPU for some extra processing power for quick games or video editing use cases. The Aspire 5 with up to an Intel Iris Xe Graphics also features two USB Type-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 support so that you can hook up two more 4K displays.
Price and Availability
The Acer Aspire 3 and Aspire 5 comes in a few attractive colours, including the new Willow Green colour scheme. The Aspire 3 retails from MYR 2,499 while the Aspire 5 starts from MYR 2,599. The new Acer Swift 5 comes only in Mist Green colour option and starts from MYR 4,699. You can get your hands on the Acer’s latest Swift 5, Aspire 3, and Aspire 5 from Acer’s eStore, Shopee, Lazada, and all authorized retailers immediately. For more information on Acer’s latest offerings, you can head over to their website.