The 5 coolest laptops of IFA 2018

The massive, annual technology show in Berlin, Germany known as IFA 2018 is drawing to a close for the press, which means it's time to reflect on what we’ve seen. In particular, we’re looking back at the coolest laptops we’ve seen at the show.

Starting in descending order, we’re very excited to try out Asus’s new line of ZenBook laptops. This new flagships are being dubbed ‘the world’s most compact laptops’ by Asus and are aimed at general use.

All three of these laptops use the clever ErgoLift Hinge first found in the Asus ZenBook S launched earlier this year, tout a massive, 95% screen-to-body ratio and feature IR webcams for biometric login via Windows Hello. The 13- and- 14-inch versions of this laptop even feature a touchpad that can double as a numeric keypad. Asus hasn’t yet revealed pricing for these laptops, but stay tuned for when they land later this October.

• IFA 2018 is Europe's biggest tech show. The TechRadar team is in Berlin to bring you all the breaking news and hands-on first impressions of new phones, watches and other tech as they're announced.

First teased during its annual launch event in New York City, Acer finally showed off a working model of the Acer Swift 5 to the press during IFA 2018. Just like the Acer Swift 7 reigns as the ‘world’s thinnest laptop,’ the Swift 5 takes the title of ‘world’s lightest 15-inch laptop.’

The laptop uses a new magnesium-lithium shell to achieve its trademark lightness, otherwise cramming inside all of the latest technology you’d expect from a 2018 laptop.

Now, we finally know when to expect this beauty on our office’s doorstep, and how much it’ll cost you. Acer Swift 5 will start going on sale in January 2019 starting at $1,099 (around £900, AU$1,500).

The latest take on the mainstream 2-in-1 laptop from Dell doesn’t do a ton of things that are entirely new, but rather introduces features that we can only hope will come to the more premium Dell XPS laptops.

Specifically, Dell has managed to produce a laptop with both its trademark, InfnityEdge thin bezels as well as a webcam that sits above the display. This might not sound like a big deal to you, but when you’ve been following Dell’s love affair with the ‘chin cam’ on XPS laptops for the past few years, you might be as excited as we are.

The Dell Inspiron 13 7000 2-in-1 will go for starting at $879 (about £682, AU$1,196) when it launches along with the rest of the lineup on October 2.

It’s almost become an annual event for Acer to pull the curtain off of a wild and wacky PC that will release later on in the coming year. This time, Acer showed off the Predator Triton 900, a 2-in-1 gaming laptop.

The laptop’s screen sits within a frame of sorts with a swivel hinge that allows it to orient itself in truly 360-degrees of movement. To make room for the swiveling screen, the touch pad is pushed to the right of the keyboard – just like the Acer Predator 21X.

Unfortunately, there’s not much more we know about the Predator Triton 900, as it was merely behind glass during the show. Regardless, we’re rather hyped for such a device, so stay tuned for a full review as soon as we can muster it.

Image Credit: Tom's Hardware

Lenovo has reinvented its concept for the truly 2-in-1 laptop with the Yoga Book C930. Simply put, this version is better in every way, from bigger, sharper screens to more powerful processors. 

However, those improvements have driven the asking price way up to $999 (about £750, AU$1,300) at the start. So, no longer is this product about democratizing exciting technology so much as it is about delivering that tech in a more powerful, reliable and versatile package.

Price hike or not, we’d be lying if we said we weren’t intrigued by Lenovo’s sequel to one of the most exciting laptop developments of the past five years. The Lenovo Yoga Book C930 hits stores this October.

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