Acer has updated its Swift 7 in time for CES 2018 and given it an even thinner chassis – now just 8.98mm thick (it was around 10mm previously). What’s more, Acer has even managed to squeeze in an Intel XMM cellular modem, so you can have always-on connectivity – forget about torrid coffee shop Wi-Fi.

You do pay for the size and 4G though; it’ll be available in the UK in April for a not inconsiderable £1,599 or $1,699. At that price you have to seriously consider rivals including Dell’s upgraded XPS 13, Microsoft’s Surface Laptop and Lenovo Yoga line and just plug in a 4G dongle or tether your laptop to your phone.

Cellular connectivity for laptops is set to be a trend we’ll see again and again in 2018 and expect more of this around Mobile World Congress in late February including announcements of some more ARM-based Windows devices powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon.

The spec list apart from the size and cellular connectivity is pretty standard fare, but you can’t get away from the fact it looks fairly spectacular. You get 8GB of memory, 256GB of PCIe SSD storage and an Intel Core i7 from the last generation (that’s 7th gen Kaby Lake if you’re interested in that kind of thing).

Ahead of CES 2018 Acer also announced an update to the venerable Chromebook 11 with two USB-C ports in addition to two older USB-A ports. Again it’s Intel Celeron under the hood and there’s 2 or 4GB of memory and 16 or 32GB of storage.

Acer’s updated Swift 7 is once again the ‘thinnest laptop in the world’ and squeezes in 4G LTE too image 2
Acer

Now that USB-C is appearing in £249/$249 devices you know it’s here to stay. Google Play apps are now supported on Chrome OS, of course. It’s a shame the 11.6-inch screen remains at a rather poor 1,366 x 768 resolution.

There’s also an update to its £899/$700 Nitro 5 “casual gaming” laptop, with the latest AMD Ryzen mobile chips in addition to Radeon RX560 graphics.

Acer’s updated Swift 7 is once again the ‘thinnest laptop in the world’ and squeezes in 4G LTE too image 4
Acer

You can have up to 32GB of DDR4 memory in the Nitro 5, plus there's up to 512GB of SSD storage and a 15.6-inch Full HD display. It’s available from April.

Finally, the Spin 3 is an updated convertible laptop which will be available in the UK from February for around £479/$599. It boasts Intel’s latest processors and there’s a 14-inch Full HD display.

Acer has changed the Spin 3 from a 15.6-inch model previously.

We reckon Acer should probably have given it a new name because of this, but Spin 3 it is.

Check out all our coverage from CES 2018.