IFA 2018 | Acer unveils the Aspire 7 and Aspire 5 with Intel 'Kaby Lake-G' and 'Whiskey Lake-U' options

The Acer Aspire 7 is now powered by Intel 'Kaby Lake-G'. (Source: Acer)

At IFA 2018, Acer is taking wraps off its new Aspire notebook models. The budget-gamer focused Aspire is getting an upgrade to Intel 'Kaby Lake-G' CPUs with onboard Radeon RX Vega M GL graphics while the Aspire 5 is being upgraded to Intel's latest 'Whiskey Lake-U' 15 ULV chips with optional NVIDIA GeForce MX150 graphics.

by Vaidyanathan Subramaniam, 2018/08/29

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Ever since Intel announced the new 'Kaby Lake-G' CPUs with onboard Radeon RX Vega graphics, we've been anticipating that many OEMs would embrace the new silicon. Unfortunately, only HP and Dell have put out a laptop each powered by the Intel 'Kaby Lake-G' Core i7-8705G and the Core i5-8305G chips. There may be more reasons to this than meets the eye but we're finally glad that Acer has now hopped onto the 'Kaby Lake-G' bandwagon with the new Aspire 7 that was unveiled at IFA 2018 today. Its sibling, the Aspire 5, also gets a decent upgrade to the new Intel 'Whiskey Lake-U' platform. Both the Acer Aspire 7 and Aspire 5 come with support for Amazon Alexa out of the box.

Acer Aspire 7

The Aspire 7 has always targeted budget gamers with its 15.6-inch and 17-inch screen sizes, 45W Intel HQ CPUs and discrete GPU options up to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060. This time, Acer has opted to go the 'Kaby Lake-G' route and is the only notebook OEM to do so after HP and Dell introduced their versions early this year. While the Radeon RX Vega M GL with 4 GB HBM2 VRAM in the Core i7-8705G just falls short of the GTX 1060 in gaming, it is still a great option for those looking at a versatile GPU for content creation, gaming, and productivity. The Aspire 7 comes in both Core i5-8305G and Core i7-8705G options with support for up to 16 GB DDR4 RAM, up to 512 GB PCIe NVMe SSD in RAID-0, a fingerprint reader for Windows Hello, and a backlit keyboard. Despite housing pretty powerful components, the Aspire 7 weighs just 1.5kg and is only 16.9mm thick.

Acer did not reveal whether a 17-inch model will be made available but the 15.6-inch version supports resolutions up to 4K UHD. The usual suite of Acer display and sound enhancements are present. Pricing and availability of the Aspire 7 will be announced at a later date.

Acer Aspire 5

The Acer Aspire 5 joins the just revealed Swift series in getting a 'Whiskey Lake-U' upgrade. These new 15W ULV CPUs come with integrated Gigabit Wi-Fi and the Aspire 5 also comes with an NVIDIA GeForce MX150 discrete GPU option that can accommodate moderate gaming. The 15.6-inch FHD display now sports overall slimmer bezels compared to last year's model and the notebook now weighs just 1.8kg. Options with a backlit keyboard and a fingerprint reader are also available.

The Acer Aspire 5 will be available from November at a recommended starting price of €699 (US$816).