Acer’s brand new Swift 5 is almost unbelievably light

I’m someone who’s obsessed with light laptops. This obsession stems partly from the fact that I carry a lot of heavy equipment with me to events but mostly it’s because I’m weak af. That’s why LG’s Gram was always something I was super attracted to but could never get my hands on, because Malaysia.

Today though, I may have found the best alternative. It’s Acer’s Swift 5 and this sleek ultrabook weighs just 970g.

That’s a cool number and all but, unless you’re someone who is using something like the Gram, that number won’t prepare you for how truly light 970g is. When you pick it up, it’s almost unreal.

Acer’s done this by creating a brand new magnesium alloy chassis for this year’s refresh of the Swift 5. The unit Acer Malaysia had on display came in a good-looking matte blue colourway and featured an Intel Core i7-8550U processor. This means that this laptop likely also features 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD too.

It also features a 14-inch Full HD IPS touch display, which I think is awesome because I use the touch display very often now, and a hinge that flips open to 180-degrees. It’s not a convertible, but has a pretty flexible hinge.

However, this lightness does make the laptop feel less premium than a more sturdy aluminium construction would, but based on my first impressions I wouldn’t say that the device is flimsy. I will give it a more liberal flex test if I get this device for a full review.

Acer quotes 8 hours of battery life on a single charge which is pretty standard but I wished it would be closer to 10 hours so I can leave the power brick at home.

Despite the fact that it’s so light, Acer’s Swift 5 has a solid set of ports. You get two USB 3.0 Type A ports, an HDMI port and one USB 3.1 Type C port. For me, the only big omission is an SD card reader which is a pretty big deal.

Another not great feature is its keyboard. It’s not bad because it has nicely sized keys with good spacing, but it lacks that tactile feedback that so many good keyboards have. They also did the thing where the power button is also another key on the keyboard and they also put the Pg Up and Pg Down keys right above the left and right arrow keys. Also, there are no media keys (not even function keys) which is always a bummer.

Nevertheless, the sheer portability and practicality this laptop offers makes it a device I’m definitely looking forward to.

For prices, the Swift 5 is retailing at USD999.99 (around RM4,083) for the version with a Core i5-8250U/8GB RAM/256GB storage while the Core i7 variant retails for USD1,399.99 (around RM5717).

Acer Switch 7 Black Edition

Acer Malaysia also teased the Switch 7 Black Edition laptop alongside this Swift 5 but there are no details on which models will be arriving in Malaysia. What they did say was that the devices will be coming to Malaysia next year.