This morning Acer announced its latest lineup of consumer notebooks across its Swift, Spin, and Aspire series. And they all include an Intel 11th-gen processor with Iris Xe Graphics. Some of them we already knew were coming, like the Swift 5 which will be Evo-certified, and the smaller and less expensive Swift 3, but Acer has provided more details on the Swift 3 as well as its other models that are getting a major upgrade with Intel and Iris Xe Graphics.
Xe Graphics is the best advancement in integrated graphics I’ve seen in years. Combined with Intel’s newest generation of mobile processors, it sets a fantastic foundation for super portable laptops that can handle a multitude of different tasks quickly. We got a taste of what this processor can do last month, and it was impressive. Even compared to AMD’s Ryzen 7 4800U it was faster at converting giant files to PDFs, encoding videos, photo editing, and even gaming. Intel 11th-gen sets the bar high.
First up is the Acer Swift 3X, which weighs just 3.02 lbs. and has a battery life that lasts up to 17.5 hours. It features a 14-inch FHD IPS screen covering 72% of the NTSC color gamut, and an 84% screen-to-body ratio to keep those bezels nice and slim to match the smaller chassis. The Swift 3X also supports Wi-Fi 6 and a host of ports, USB-C, Thunderbolt 4, and USB3.2 Gen 2, for faster file transfers, and downloading and uploading.
The Swift 3X will be available in North America starting in December for $900, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa starting in November for €850, and China starting in October for ¥5,000.
Next is the Spin 5, a touchscreen convertible notebook with a 360 degree hinge and Corning Gorilla Glass for the display, which are two nice and essential features for artists who use their laptop as both a computer and sketchpad. It’s lighter than the Swift 3X, weighing just 2.64 lbs., and the entire chassis is only 0.58-inches thick. It’s slightly more tricked out than the Swift 3X, too: 80% screen-to-body ratio, 3:2 IPS display, and dual front-facing speakers. It’s battery lasts up to 15 hours and can be configured with up to an 11th-gen Intel i7 Core processor.
Acer is also releasing a new Spin 3, which is a slightly smaller version of the Spin 3: up to a 13.3 inch, WQXGA IPS touch display with a 16:10 aspect ratio that also rotates 360 degrees.
The Spin 5 will be available in North America starting February 2021 for $1,000, and the Spin 3 starting March 2021 for $850. China will be the first to get the Spin 5 starting in November for ¥7,000, followed by EMEA in December for €1,100. The Spin 3 will also be available the same month in EMEA for €900.
Finally, there’s the Acer Aspire 5, which features an optional Nvidia GeForce MX450 GPU. It’s a traditional clamshell notebook with a full HD IPS touchscreen and an 80% screen-to-body ratio. The display comes in three sizes: 14-inch, 15.6-inch, and 17.3-inch. The Aspire 5 is also fully stacked with 24 GB RAM and up to a 1 TB M.2 PCIe SSD and 2 TB HDD storage. It’s also Wi-Fi 6 ready.
The Aspire 5 (14 and 15.6-inch models) will be available in North America starting in December. Both will cost $500. The 17.3-inch model will be available starting February 2021 for $550. All three models will be available in EMEA starting in November for €600. The 14- and 15.6-inch models will be available in China starting in September for ¥4,500.
Of course, all of the new notebooks Acer will be releasing over the coming months can be configured differently, and depending on how much RAM or storage space you want inside, those prices listed above will increase. Acer did not say how users will be able to configure each of these, but given the power of Intel’s 11th-gen mobile processor and sub-$1,000 price on most of these notebooks, there’s a lot of room to opt for more RAM, storage, and other special features to get the most out these notebooks. Hopefully, we get our hands on some of these sooner rather than later so we can experience their full range of capabilities—and see Intel’s 11th-gen processor in action inside a retail model instead of a production model.