Ultrabook reviews - Ultrabook is probably the newest word which has just entered in the
IT industry. It does not symbolize a new market area. It is the name for
the ultraportable laptops.
Ultrabook reviews - Acer has released their new portable
device at IFA Berlin 2011. It comes with a really nice design because of
his case made of aluminium. The keyboard, unfortunately, does not look
very good. It is made of cheap plastic. The LED HD display with 13.3
inch display does impress, though: it has a good contrast and the colors
seem to be natural. The 1366x768 pixels resolution is very good, having
in mind that we are talking about this new class of machines.
Acer
Aspire S3 Ultrabook comes with an Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 platform
(SandyBridge generation). The amount of memory on the machine we had on
this review was 4 GB. The available HDD's for this laptop have an amount
of 320 GB or 500 GB. An impressive feature which could be ordered on
the new laptop is the availability of an SSD drive, in an impressive
amount of 240 GB.
This laptop has the standard connectivity
configuration: Wi-Fi, bluetooth, HDMI port, 2in1 card reader, and an 1.3
MP web camera.
The 13,3 inch machine promises that it will wake
up in just 1.5 seconds from its sleep mode and it will connect to the
internet in just 2.5 seconds, after you have pressed the Power button.
And it kept its promises in our review, too, with the exception that we
recorded 2 seconds for waking up, instead of 1,5 as the manufacturer
states. But, honestly, there is no way it could bother you that extra
half a second.
The weight of this laptop is 1.3 kgs and it is 1.3
cm thick. The official battery life is seven hours. But we managed to
drain in three-four hours with a mix of office and entertainment
applications.
We didn't appreciate on this Aspire S3 Ultrabook
the fact that the connection components (like USB ports) are placed on
the back side of the laptop. It is somehow hard to plug-in an USB stick
in that area. The advantage that Acer wanted to achieve is the fact that
the free sides of this ultraportable device look very good, now. Also,
even you have HDMI connector and USB connectivity, the number of the
ports is still reduced, because in the limit of less than 2 centimeters,
the Taiwan based manufacturer didn't have too much options. Another bad
ergonomics we have observed here is the placing of the microphone. You
can find it near the keyboard, and if you will use it while typing, be
sure that the noise made by the keys strokes will be captured, too.
In
our review, we tested this machine in gaming, too. Even if we did not
expect too much from it, as it comes with a default Intel GMA HD3000,
and just 128 MB dedicated memory, we must admit that it managed to
surprise us in a positive way. While playing Torchlight in maximum
details, the laptop scored between 45 and 60 frames per second, which we
consider excellent for this kind of device with a common graphic
accelerator.
