Acer Aspire S3 Review

The Acer Aspire S3 looks very nice in the product photos, and it is often associated with Ultrabooks because this type of design, which is inspired from the Macbook Air, has been used by many PC manufacturers in their recent designs. I like the new look very much, and I have been pretty bullish about Ultrabooks, at least much more than I ever was about Netbooks. Although Ultrabooks often share a similar hardware platform from Intel, they differ more than one may think, and depending on how they were designed, the end-user experience can be very different from one model to the next, so don’t let the superficial resemblance fool you. In this review, I will tell you how it felt to use the Acer Aspire S3 and we will look at what I felt was its strengths and weaknesses. Ready?

Technical highlights

13.3” WXGA (1366×768)
Core i5 2467M (dial-core) 1.6Ghz, 4GB RAM
GPU: Intel 3000
Windows 7 Home 64
320GB HDD (283GB formatted), 5400rpm, 8MB cache, 3Gb/s
WiFi B/G/N, Bluetooth 4.0
3-Cell battery 3260mAh
0.7 x 12.7 x 8.6”
2x USB 2.0
Acer Aspire S3 official specs

Industrial design

Our unit had a custom paint job

The Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook has an agreeable design. It is thin, compact, and light. The loaner unit that we have even has a custom paint job that was done for Intel. The case seems to be built with a Magnesium alloy, which is a classic material for laptops and notebooks. Overall, it feels rigid enough, but there is a little bit of “flex”, especially with the display – it’s not as flexible as the Toshiba Ultrabook Z830 whose screen is *very* flexible, but we’re definitely not in the rigidity territory that the Macbook Air or Asus Zenbook are in.

In the back of the computer, you will find one HDMI port, two USB 2.0 ports, and the power connector. This is a good placement if you mainly use the computer on a desk as there won’t be any cables popping out from the sides, but if you need to plug and unplug things regularly, this may be a bit annoying. For example, we often use a 3G USB modem, and with the USB port in the back, it is possible (or probable) that backwards tilting would apply pressure to any USB device. You’ll have to think about this a little, and decide what works for you.

Because most of the ports are in the back, the sides are left clean with just a 3.5mm audio jack (left) and a full-size SD slot on the right (see photo gallery at the bottom).

Overall, I found the build quality to feel a bit “plastic”, and I think that Acer should improve upon this, because with its XPS 13 Ultrabook ($999 with 128GB SSD), Dell has a much nicer (partial) carbon-fiber construction and a better “soft touch” finish wherever carbon-fiber is not used. TheHP Envy 14 Spectre (see Envy Spectre 14 demo) is also extremely nice, and the build quality is even higher than the XPS 13. However, it is much more expensive, and at 4+lbs, it is heavier.

Keyboard (average, no back light): for the most part, the keyboard is decent and there are no major complaints. The only thing that should really be different are the arrow keys. They feel tiny, because they *are* tiny. I don’t know for you, but if you type a lot of text, chances are that “Shift/CTRL + arrow” is a pretty big deal because that allows one to quickly navigate within a sentence. Also, I wish that there was a backlit keyboard, but this is not the case. Again, some people care, while others don’t. Find out in which category you stand.