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The world could also be drowning in tablets, but Acer hasn’t forgotten its PC business — the 13-inch Acer Aspire S3, previously leaked under the Aspire 3951 moniker, is likely one of the world’s first ultrabooks, a slim and robust breed of computers being pushed by chip manufacturer Intel. It’s out in October, and may cost somewhere within the region of £700 for the most cost effective model. But for those who care?We’ve gone hands-on with the S3 on the IFA tech trade event in Berlin, so we’re ready to reply to that query for you. Read on, young Padawan, and take a look at our snaps of the S3 just above.
What is an ultrabook?
Ultrabook is a brand new madeup word applied to a forthcoming set of laptops built to be slim, light, powerful and never too expensive. Manufacturers has been promising laptops that tick those boxes for years, however the ultrabook rush is a part of an initiative by chip manufacturer Intel, who came up with the name and has pumped $300m into helping PC companies push things forward with a brand new breed of machines.
The Acer S3 is an ultrabook, and ultrabook means thin.
It’s a breakthrough for laptops, provoked definitely by the recognition of Apple’s amazingly slim MacBook Air, and the S3 is Acer’s effort.
Meet the S3
You needn’t be some roughly walking gadget encyclopedia to peer the motive force behind the ultrabook craze — the S3 looks almost just like the MacBook Air.
Its lovely big trackpad supports multi-touch scrolling.
The keyboard is paying homage to Apple’s chiclet key layout, and prefer the Air the S3 has an aluminium body. Happily that does not make it feel too weighty though — Acer reckons the S3 weighs lower than 1.4kg, and having performed a couple of bicep curls using this slim laptop we reckon it’s easily light enough to hold around all day.Of course, it’s slim as well, measuring just 13mm across. Acer’s stuck all of the ports across the back, that is a little bit inconvenient but does save on space. You will get two USB ports, HDMI output and a multi-format card reader, but — just like the Air — no Ethernet socket, so you will be reliant on wireless Internet connections.The trackpad struck us as impressive. It is not as slick because the Air’s massive, smooth trackpad, but it’s close — this felt markedly better than most laptop efforts, with both click buttons built right into a single rectangle, and multi-touch scrolling actually working quite well, something kind of unprecedented on Windows PCs.We didn’t get an excessive amount of time to try the display in great detail, but this can be a 13.3-inch LED panel. We’ll be in search of a bright, colourful lead to the entire review.Acer is making an attempt to ensure the S3 boots up really fast — it reckons this laptop will resume from sleep mode in 1.5 seconds, and resume from a separate sleep mode called ‘Deep Sleep’, which the S3 enters after a user-defined inactive period (apparently holding charge as much as 50 days), in 6 seconds.
Hardware
The S3 is packed to the gunwales with tech. Although there’s just one size option (13 inches), there are choices of Intel’s second-generation Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 chips. Acer hasn’t said how much RAM will come as standard, however the demo model we were toying with had a hearty 4GB.
Round the back you’ll discover a few USB ports and HMDI for hooking it as much as an HDTV.
This being a slim, speedy laptop, it wouldn’t do to lumber the S3 with a clunky mechanical harddrive. As such, you will get a 240GB SSD drive, though in case you desire higher capacity you’ll be able to go for a 320GB or 500GB HDD with an embedded SSD integrated to the mainboard, devoted to quick start-up and preserving battery life.
Is it pretty much as good because the MacBook Air?
We’re not likely to lie, the S3 doesn’t feel anywhere near as classy as Apple’s gorgeous MacBook Air. But that does not mean it cannot be a hit — packing similar components and connectivity options, the trade-off could be in price. We think the most cost effective version of the S3 to sell at around £700, that is £150 cheaper than the lowest-priced Air.Is that enough of a reduction to make this worth plumping for? We are not yet sure. Within the full review we’ll be hoping to look some blindingly fast performance, an elegant, usable design and long battery life. Y’know, everything Intel wants ultrabooks to have.
Outlook
The Acer Aspire S3 clearly takes a leaf from the MacBook Air’s design guide, and being one of the crucial first ultrabooks it’s stressed to prove PCs can also be just as portable, powerful and long-lasting as Apple’s kit. It looks tempting, but we’re keeping our eyes narrowed in suspicion until we get the S3 in for a whole review.
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