The fun, colorful hues on Acer’s new slim Swift X laptop make it the perfect Windows alternative to those who were waiting for Apple to redesign its MacBook Air. In addition to beating Apple’s rumored colorful MacBook Air redesign with bright tones, the Swift X also plays up its premium design and lightweight form factor.
This slim notebook with its aluminum chassis looks more like a premium ultra-thin laptop than a gaming notebook, but don’t be fooled. The Swift X’s gaming chops come from Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3000 series mobile GPUs under the hood. Specifically, the Swift X uses Nvidia’s newly launched GeForce RTX 3050 Ti laptop graphics card alongside AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800U mobile processor.
Measuring just 0.7-inch thin and weighing just over three pounds, the Swift X is able to deliver up to 17 hours of battery life, which places its stamina in between that of the MacBook Air and Apple’s more powerful 13-inch MacBook Pro.
Equipped with a 14-inch FHD IPS screen with an 85.7% screen-to-body ratio and support for 100% of the sRGB color space, the Swift X is as just as nimble of a content creation machine as it is a mobile gaming rig.
“Professionals need a clean-looking notebook that is compact enough to take with them throughout the day, but it also has to be powerful enough to run multiple resource-intensive programs at once,” said James Lin, General Manager, Notebooks, IT Products Business, Acer Inc. “With every device we make, we’re always pursuing that balance.”
Despite being packed with powerful silicon, the Swift X is also highly energy efficient. Acer stated that this laptop will come with up to 17 hours of battery life. 16GB of memory, a custom cooling solution to keep fan noise low due to better airflow, and artificial intelligence-enhanced noise suppression for smoother video calls round out the features of the Swift X.
The Swift X launches this June with a starting price of $899.
New TravelMate P6 series for business
If the Swift X’s colorful tones are too playful for a more professional setting, Acer also unveiled two new TravelMate laptops in its P6 series. Swapping out AMD’s Ryzen processors for up to Intel’s 11th-gen Core i7 silicon, the TravelMate Spin P6 Convertible and TravelMate P6 laptops come in at just 0.6 inches thick and weigh a more svelte 2.2 pounds. Given that the P6 series caters to a hybrid work environment, these notebooks can be outfitted with optional 5G mobile broadband connectivity.
Both laptops come with a Corning Gorilla Glass-protected 14-inch FHD screen that supports the same 100% sRGB color spectrum as the Swift X. The Spin P6 also supports a lockable Active Stylus for drawing and note-taking.
To keep the laptop light and premium, Acer is using a magnesium-aluminum alloy for the chassis, which is stronger than just aluminum alloys. And with battery life up to 20 hours, the TravelMate P6 will be a direct competitor, at least when it comes to power efficiency, to Apple’s M1-powered MacBook Pro 13-inch.
Other features include support for up to 32GB of memory, 1TB of PCIe Gen3 solid-state drive, and MIL-STD 810H certification, which makes it more rugged and durable than consumer laptops.
The TravelMate P6 will retail for $1,299 when it goes on sale in December, while the TravelMate Spin P6 is priced at a $100 premium with its 360-degree convertible hinge.
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