Acer Swift 7 – The Thinnest Notebook Ever
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,541 words · ~7 min read
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you know it's funny it seems like just yesterday I was making a video about the
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thinnest notebook in the world and here I am doing the same damn thing again
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meet the Acer Swift 7 it is even thinner
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than the old King while costing significantly
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less cooler Masters master case maker 5
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features their free form modular system allowing you to customize adjust and
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upgrade make it yours at the link in the video
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description so naturally today's video is going to contain a lot of comparisons
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to the previous finest notebook Champion
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the HP Spectre 2016 so let's begin then
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with the raw physical Impressions we will start of course with thickness or
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thinness is the Acer Swift 7 thinner
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than the HP Spectre the answer is yes
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was it impossible for me to tell without
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running down to the workshop for a level or a caliper tool also yes so then it
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would appear that we've arrived at the point where declaring one's device to be
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thinner is purely an exercise in bragging rights as opposed to a
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meaningful Advantage for the actual user
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so let's move on then on the bottom of the clam shell we find a unibody
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aluminum design with an aluminum bottom plate that is more rigid in my hands and
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squeaks less while it flexes making it
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feel more premium but that ends up
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actually performing worse in my Bend and
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see if it stays bent test than the specter's aluminum carbon fiber hybrid
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approach with that said it's definitely
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not the worst I've seen so if you don't keep bowling balls in the same backpack
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as your laptop this shouldn't be a huge issue and Acer comes back swinging with
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the display get it swinging like on a
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hinge anyway while HP may be very proud
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of their Fancy Pants hidden hinge in practice Acer's more traditional hinge
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design gives the display less Flex overall and more importantly brings
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screen wobble back down to a level that I would consider acceptable
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on the subject of acceptable let's talk
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about IO HP crushes Acer in this
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department with two Thunderbolt 3 ports
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each capable of carrying a display Thunderbolt or USB 10 gbit data signal
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and a third 5 GB USB port that doubles as a dedicated power input while Acer
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brings only two 5 GB USB 3S to the back
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end of its type-c connectors with only only one of them even capable of
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carrying a DisplayPort signal I mean this is still better than Apple's
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MacBook because at least I can use either of the included adapters HDMI or
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usba and or third party ones that I purchased at the same time as charging
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the device and at least it's got you know a headphone microphone combo Jack
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but um but this is about as barebones as it
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gets these days without being un reasonable Imo
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Acer does make up some ground and then also loses some when we make our way to
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the keyboard and trackpad the spectre's trackpad is simply put too small and the
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Swift sevens is especially by comparison
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glorious the extra width adds more
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convenience than I would have at first expected and once I turned off enhanced
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pointer Precision which is trash by the way and turn down the speed in Windows
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to a reasonable level I was actually really impressed with it the keyboard
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though is a bit more of a mixed bag for me the keys feel a bit spongy requiring
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a lot of pressure to press down but without much of a tactile feel though as
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far as typing speed goes while I don't like them they don't slow me down much
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so I can't complain too much about that so I'll complain about the lack of a
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backlight instead I mean how many fractions of a millimeter would that
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have cost me here Acer no
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backlight which brings us I guess finally then to specs and performance
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eight gigs of RAM DDR3 RAM by the way a
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256 gig SATA 3 SSD which was a
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noticeable downgrade compared to hp's PCI Express based model and for the CPU
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Acer has gone a very interesting route here opting for a 4 and2 watt Intel
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uclass processor so I've got a core i5 7
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y54 in mind instead of a normal 25 wat
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notebook chip but what does that mean for performance performance then well
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looking at a couple Choice benchmarks here we're going to be running anywhere
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from 25 to 35% slower than hp's beast
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but this comes with an advantage too so
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let's get into some of the more experiential stuff battery life for the
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Swift 7 is great and while cinebench
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certainly ran slower it also ran without
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turning on any kind of cooling fan and
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without bringing the temperature of the bottom of the unit above slightly warm
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to the touch which is damn impressive considering that it still has the power
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to do the sorts of things that most people are interested in doing on their
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Ultra portable notebooks like watching movies on the very good Gorilla Glass 4
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top 13.3in 1080p IPS display or using
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video chat applications to talk to their friends over the Internet that is
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provided their friends don't mind the potato quality of the included 720p we
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Cam and that they don't mind the unexceptional speakers that manag to
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make it to the 50% Mark which is good enough to watch a movie at home with a
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little bit of ambient noise without this subtle Distortion setting in the Spectre
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speakers are better there's more good news though there's nothing on this
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machine that I would consider to be bloat other than maybe the pre-installed
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Office trial the onboard mu mimo 2x2 AC
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Wi-Fi solution manages easily in Access of 30 megabytes per second sustained
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transfers on a wave 2 AC access point and I found the side positioned IO
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however scant more natural to use than the ports on the butt of the Spectre
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which means the conclusion pretty much comes down to price here sort of if you
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want the world's thinnest or second thinnest notebook then at MSRP the
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Spectre is positioned as a more premium product with faster performance better
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IO and subjectively more sex appeal if
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you want to save a few bucks and Dodge the screen wobble issues at the expense
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of Creature Comforts like keyboard backlighting Swift 7 is your go-to but
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bear in mind I said if you want the world's th notebook do you I feel like
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it's become a bit of a pissing contest at this point and I'd like to see
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products built to Target a use case rather than a z height measurement so
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let me know in the comments if someone built a notebook with a u processor with
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like the power of the Swift 7 but twice as thick that lasted for like two to
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three days of continuous use on a single charge would you be interested in that
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or tell me do you think Acer nailed it I
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really really would like to know
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going to Tunnel bear.com LT that's right 10% off so thanks for
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watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or
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check out the link to where to buy this notebook at Amazon in the video
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description also linked in the description is our merch store which has cool shirts like this one and our
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community for which you should totally totally join now that you're done doing
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all that stuff you're probably wondering hm what should I watch next great question check out that little button in
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