Acer Aspire S3 full review – simple, elegant and cheap
Published in: Ultrabooks on January 24, 2012 by Daniel Iuhasz
I can hardly hear the word “laptop” these days because of the craze which is around the ultrabook phenomenon. These light, portable and powerful devices have managed to fill in a gap between the heavy laptops and the small and light netbooks.
The Acer Aspire S3 is said to be light, powerful and yet not that cheap, but does it really manage to rise up to the Tips Avenue expectations?! Well, we’ll have to look into that in this article because we don’t really believe everything computer manufacturers tell us. After all, you are here for some good and to-the-point computer tips, right?!
Design, body and build
The Macbook Air looks pretty Wait…what? Did I say Macbook Air?! Well, that’s probably because the Acer S3 resembles the Macbook Air a lot. It seems like Acer has taken so many details from the Macbook that the two are now pretty similar. Good thing they forgot not to take the Apple’s logo too…
Nevertheless, the S3 is pretty thin and portable: it measures 0.51 inches at its thinnest side and 0.69 inches at its thickest side, weighing in a good 2.98 pounds.
Even if the exterior seems to be made out of aluminum, it’s actually plastic with a think aluminum cover. It looks stylish and ready for your next business trip, but not that reliable compared to other devices on the market which have a full-aluminum body. Then again, it’s cheap.
Keyboard and touchpad
Let’s put it this way: if you look at the keyboard without comparing it to other ultrabooks, it’s good and you can do your job perfectly with it. On the other hand, if you put it side by side to the one found on the MacBook Air, things start to take a sudden turn for the worse. The keyboard feels a bit cheap, with plastic keys that don’t really impress when you start typing. I would suggest giving them a test-run before settling for a buy if you really need the Acer S3 ultrabook for typing.
Moving on to the touchpad, it’s decently sized and good in terms of responsiveness and accuracy. Still feels cheap, but actually better than the keyboard.
Screen, hardware specs and overall performance
Hardware wise, the S3 still manages to give you a thrill when you look at its specs. The 1.6GHz Intel Core i5 Sandy Bridge Processor coupled with 4GB of RAM and Intel HD 3000 graphics manage to withstand your everyday graphics, this making it a good all-rounder. Games, entertainment, and multimedia – this ultrabook can do it all.
A nice feature of the S3 is the good booting time, managing to wake up from sleep in just 1-2 seconds. The cold start takes a bit longer, but it’s still impressive to see a computer start up that fast. The 20 GB SSD found on this S3 Acer makes the ultrabook run much faster compared to the older computers which used a single HDD for storing both OS and data. Don’t worry; you’ll still be able to store a lot of movies on the secondary 320 gig HDD.
Looking at the screen you’ll see a 13.3-inch display with a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels. It’s pretty decent for an ultrabook and the good thing about this display is the brightness which makes it easy to watch movies or read a book in bright sunlight. A big minus which has to be mentioned in this S3 review is the glossy screen which is a real pain in the elbow when it comes to direct sunlight.
Battery Life and Ports
3 hours 30 minutes – 4 hours. That is the official battery life of the Acer S3 in normal usage situations. Plug in a USB 3G modem and you’ll wipe off another 30 minutes from the battery life of the S3. Frankly, not impressive for an ultrabook but considering its price, it’s the best the guys from Acer could do. I would like to point out that the battery life is probably the S3’s biggest downside, so make sure to consider it before buying.
When it comes to ports, the Acer Aspire S3 has everything you need: two USB 2.0 ports (unfortunately no USB 3.0 ports on the S3), HDMI output and a 2-in-1 digital media card reader. You also get WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 in the package, but those are pretty standard on ultrabooks these days.
Price and availability
Considering what you get in the package, the Acer Aspire S3 is cheaper than many alternatives found on the market. You will get a $850 price tag for on the Acer Aspire S3 by following the this link.
If you have been searching for a cheap ultrabook, then the S3 is probably the best options you have on the market today. Other super-slim notebooks are more expensive, but the things you lose by buying the S3 don’t account for the price difference.
Conclusion
To sum up this Acer S3 review, I want to tell you that this ultrabook is an attempt to combine a low price with some decent specs. Sure, it has some disadvantages and doesn’t manage to rise up to the expectations of the most demanding users, but if you are on a tight budget then there is probably no better option on the market these days.
If you feel that there is something more to say about this amazing gadget, feel free to comment in the section below. I am eager to find out what you guys think about it.
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