Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook, An Air-like Windows Laptop
After the success of the Apple Macbook Air, Intel and Windows laptop manufacturers put all hands on deck to produce the same slim form factor laptop at affordable price. They name it Ultrabooks with hope to revive the stalled laptop market.
Acer’s Aspire S3 is the first Ultrabook came out from that initiative. Measured about the same as the Macbook Air, the sub three pounder entry model is packed with an aluminum lid carried the 13” display and plastic body with aluminum color coating. The inner includes the Intel 1.6GHz Core i5 processor , 4GB RAM and a “hybrid” 20GB of SSD plus 320GB of spinning disk, the combo is represented as a single drive space to the user. Two USB 2.0; HDMI, audio jacks and SD card reader are present.
The combo SSD and hard drive helps to speed up the wake-up time from sleep mode to 2 seconds flat. After 8 hours in sleep mode, or after the period you set, the notebook enters deep sleep, conserving battery life for up to 50 days… yet when you come back, your Aspire S Series turns right on and everything looks exactly as you left it!. Other than that little performance gain is noticeable during normal operation.
Battery is said to be the 6-7 hour range for normal use, but your mileage might vary.
If you need a svelte Windows machine and do not mind the cheap plastic feel of the whole bottom part of the S3, the Acer may fit the bill. The S3 costs $900. The similar size Macbook Air costs $1,300. Apple has the smaller Macbook Air (11”) with price starting from $1,000.
Alternative products: Sony VAIO Z; Samsung Series 9 and Toshiba Portege R835
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