Skip to main content

Acer’s ultra-thin and ultra-portable Spin 7 and Spin 5 hit store shelves

Acer Spin 7 Hands On
Simon Hill/Digital Trends
Just in time for the holiday season, Acer announced on Wednesday the Acer Spin 7, the world’s thinnest 2-in-1 notebook, is available for purchase in the United States. The ultra-thin, ultra-versatile notebook launches alongside its larger, more budget-friendly cousin the Spin 5, a 13.3-inch version of the fully featured Spin 7.

The Acer Spin 7 and its impossibly thin design were awarded the CES 2017 Innovations award and it is easy to see why. The Spin 7 was shown off earlier in 2016 at IFA, where it made a splash with its seventh-generation Kaby Lake processor and subtle hinge design.

Recommended Videos

Designed from the ground up to be the thinnest 2-in-1 on the market, the Acer Spin 7 is remarkably fast for such a compact notebook. Boasting an Intel Core i7-7Y75 processor, 8GB of LPDDR3 RAM, and a 256GB SSD, the Acer Spin 7 is small in size but offers up impressive performance chops and eight hours of battery life.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

To be fair, though, the Spin 5 is no slouch either. Also hitting store shelves on Wednesday, the Spin 5 takes a step back from the impressive specs of its larger cousin to embrace a more budget-friendly set of internals and a slight bump to battery power.

The Spin 5 can reportedly last for about 10 hours on a single charge and has an Intel Core i5-6200U processor and a standard 256GB SSD — all starting at $650. That is about half the starting price of the Acer Spin 7.

With the release of the new MacBook Pro and a handful of other premium ultra-thin laptops, it is going to be a competitive holiday shopping season. But considering the Spin 7 and Spin 5 are hitting store shelves, it looks like Acer is well positioned to take advantage of the appetite for ultra-thin, ultra-light 2-in-1 notebooks that won’t break the bank.

Jayce Wagner
Former Digital Trends Contributor
A staff writer for the Computing section, Jayce covers a little bit of everything -- hardware, gaming, and occasionally VR.
Google says quantum computing applications are five years away
Google Quantum chip Willow.

A few weeks ago at CES 2025, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang posited that practical uses of quantum computing were about 20 years away. Today, Google’s head of quantum Hartmut Neven told Reuters that we could see real-world applications of quantum computing within five years. So, who is right?

According to Huang, current quantum systems don’t have enough “qubits.” In fact, they’re short by around five or six orders of magnitude. But why do we need so many? Well, current research suggests that more qubits result in fewer errors, creating more accurate quantum computers. Let's talk about why that is.

Read more
Texas brings the ban hammer down on DeepSeek and RedNote
Mobile users experience censorship bias with DeepSeek AI.

If you’re a government worker in Texas, you can’t use DeepSeek or many other Chinese-developed applications on your state-issued device. Texas Governor, Greg Abbott, has instated a ban, preventing state employees from downloading, installing, or using several notable Chinese apps on government-sanctioned devices.

Sighting data privacy and national security concerns, the Governor decreed that state workers are prohibited from interacting with Chinese AI and social media apps including DeepSeek, RedNote, and Lemon8 on state-owned devices. Additionally, the ban includes Chinese stock-trading platforms such as Moomoo, Tiger Brokers, and Webull.

Read more
It’s easier than ever to use ChatGPT Search — sign-in no longer needed
The ChatGPT Search icon on the prompt window

You no longer need to sign in to use ChatGPT Search.

“ChatGPT search is now available to everyone on chatgpt.com,” OpenAI said in a post on X announcing the change, adding, “No sign up required.”

Read more