More screen, less body in the revamped Acer Swift 7

This CES 2019 update gets up to a 92 percent screen-to-body ratio, and is still under 10mm thick.

Dan Ackerman Editorial Director / Computers and Gaming

Dan Ackerman leads CNET's coverage of computers and gaming hardware. A New York native and former radio DJ, he's also a regular TV talking head and the author of "The Tetris Effect" (Hachette/PublicAffairs), a non-fiction gaming and business history book that has earned rave reviews from the New York Times, Fortune, LA Review of Books, and many other publications. "Upends the standard Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs/Mark Zuckerberg technology-creation myth... the story shines." -- The New York Times

Expertise I've been testing and reviewing computer and gaming hardware for over 20 years, covering every console launch since the Dreamcast and every MacBook...ever. Credentials

Author of the award-winning, NY Times-reviewed nonfiction book The Tetris Effect; Longtime consumer technology expert for CBS Mornings

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Dan Ackerman

Jan. 6, 2019 9:00 a.m. PT

2 min read

Acer's ambitious Swift 7 laptop was one of my favorite laptops of 2018. Its main selling point was an amazingly thin body housing a 14-inch screen. But the world's-thinnest-laptop Swift 7 was more than a one-trick pony: It was actually a very usable everyday laptop, with an excellent touchscreen, good touchpad, 180-degree hinge and fanless cooling.

Exactly one year later, Acer is back with a new version of the Swift 7 for CES . The 2019 model is the Swift 7 SF714-52T, if you're keeping track (last year's was the SF714-51T). What's different this time around? A few small tweaks -- not that there's much room to change a lot in a wafer-thin laptop.

Watch this: Acer's Swift 7, Chromebook 315 break new ground at both ends of the market for CES 2019

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The screen bezels have been reduced to under 3mm, making the laptop's footprint smaller and allowing for a screen-to-body ratio of 92 percent. The 1.9-pound (0.86 kg) laptop does gain just a hair of thickness in the process, going from 8.98mm thick to 9.95mm.

The processor gets an upgrade as well, going from a seventh-gen CPU to the eighth-gen Intel Core i7-8500Y, similar to what you'd find in a new MacBook Air .

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The flat keyboard and fixed (no-click) touchpad won't be everyone's favorite, but I found the previous version to more than make up for that by jamming a ton of features into such a tiny frame. The new Swift 7 is coming to the US in May, starting at $1,699. Exact configurations and prices elsewhere will vary by region.