Acer Boosts Ultraportable And Hybrid Line, Demonstrating The PC Market Is Not Dead Yet

Acer is looking to prove that the PC market is not dead yet by building out is Swift ultraportable laptop line and its Switch Alpha tablet-laptop hybrid models.

Now sporting a healthy laptop, tablet, desktop and gaming PC line up, the Taiwanese tech company has a lot of health in the PC market, which has consistently seen a decline in sales. Acer took Silicon to a product showcase in New York to demonstrate its prowess in the PC world.

Acer Swift 1 and 3

Building on from its ultra thin Swift 7 laptop, Acer unveiled the Swift 1 and Swift 3, lesser specced versions of their older sibling, but offer a full metal design that marks a departure from the plastic past of previous models.

Available in a suite of colours, including gold and pink, the ultraportables aim to challenge other thinner laptops from rivals such as Asus and HP.

The Swift 1 is aimed fully at the entry-level end of the market, with is processors starting at a capable but low-powered Intel Pentium N4200 processor or an Intel Celeron N3350 chip, supported with 4GB of DDR3L RAM.

On board Intel graphics power the 13.3 Full HD IPS display,  and ten hours of battery life are expected from the Swift 1.

Storage comes starts at either 128GB of solid state memory or 65GB of eMMC (embedded Multi-Media Controller).

Given that the laptop is but 14.95mm thick and weighs 1.3kg, it packs a solid specification for people looking to carry out basic computing tasks while in the move.

The Swift 1 will launch in June for 399 Euros (£336).

The Swift 3 is similar to its sibling but also offers the option of having a 15.6in 1920×1080 resolution IPS display, up to 8GB of DDR4 RAM, up to 512GB of SSD storage and a traditional hard disk storage topping out at 2TB.

This means the Swift 3 weighs in at 1.8kg and at is thickest is 18.95mm, yet that extra weight and girth means users can benefit from having 7th generation Intel Kaby Lake processors going up ti the Core i7-7500U chip.

There is also the option to spec the Swift 3 with dedicated Nvidia Geforce graphics cards, though Acer has yet to reveal what type of graphics processing unit is on offer.

The Swift 3 will launch in June for 649 Euros (£547).

Switch 5 and 3

After revealing the Switch Alpha 12 convertible laptop-tablet, which featured liquid cooling rather than fans, Acer looks to double-down on its cooling tech and hybrid line.

To the range it has added the Switch 5 and Switch 3. Both devices weigh below 1kg and have a reworked kickstand-come-hinge that enable the display to be adjusted from 45 degrees to virtually flat n a smooth one-hand operation.

The Switch 5 sports a 12in display with a resolution of 2160×1440, while the Switch 3 has a 12.2 Full HD display.

Below the chassis Acer’s LiquidLoop cooling technology is put into action to cool Intel Pentium or Celeron chips in the Switch 3 or more powerful Core i7 or Core i5 processors in the Switch 5.

RAM comes in a 4GB of LPDDR3 for the Switch 3 and 8GB of the same for the Switch 5. Storage is up to 128GB of eMMC for the Switch 3 and up to 512GB of SSD space for the Switch 5.

The Switch 3 will go on sale in June for 499 Euros (£420) and the Switch 5 will cost 1,009 Euros (£926).

Go to page 2 to see how Acer is taking on the all-in-one desktop market…