Ultrabook Head to Head: Acer Aspire S3 vs. ASUS UX31E
by Jarred Walton & Manveer Wasson on December 21, 2011 5:40 AM ESTAcer Aspire S3 Ultrabook
The Aspire S3 ultrabook is the first unit that I actually laid hands on, and initial impressions are quite good. If you’ve always wondered why no one seems interested in matching the thinness of Apple’s MacBook Air laptops, wonder no longer: these ultrabooks are extremely thin and light, striking an impressive pose. Outside of the Acer branding prominently visible on the Aspire S3, in most other areas you likely wouldn’t guess this is an Acer product. Considering their reputation as a purveyor of budget offerings, that’s generally a good thing. Let’s start with the specs.
Acer Aspire S3-951-6432 (LX.RSE02.146) Specifications | |
Processor |
Intel Core i7-2637M (2x1.7GHz + HTT, 2.8GHz Turbo, 32nm, 4MB L3, 17W) |
Chipset | Intel UM67 |
Memory | 4GB DDR3-1333 (onboard, dual-channel) |
Graphics |
Intel HD 3000 Graphics (12 EUs, up to 1.2GHz) |
Display |
13.3" LED Glossy 16:9 768p (AU Optronics B133XTF01.0) |
Hard Drive(s) |
256GB Micron C400 SSD (MTFDDAK256MAM 6Gbps, up to 500/260MBps read/write) |
Optical Drive | N/A |
Networking |
Atheros AR9485 802.11b/g/n (2.4GHz 1x1:1 MIMO) Bluetooth 4.0 |
Audio |
Realtek ALC269 HD Audio Stereo speakers Headphone jack |
Battery | 3-Cell, 11.2V, 38Wh |
Front Side | N/A |
Right Side | SD card reader |
Left Side | Headphone jack |
Back Side |
Exhaust vent 2x USB 2.0 HDMI AC power |
Operating System | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1 |
Dimensions |
12.7" x 8.6" x 0.62-0.79" (WxDxH – including feet) 323mm x 218mm x 16-20mm |
Weight | 2.97 lbs / 1.35kg |
Extras |
Webcam SD card reader 84-key keyboard |
Warranty |
1-year standard warranty (2-year on S3-951-6464) |
Pricing | Online starting at $1230 |
This isn’t the slimmest or lightest laptop in existence (our measurements above include the pads on the bottom if you’re wondering), but as far as the performance goes it will be on the higher end of the ultrabook spectrum. The i7-2637M has a base clock of 1.7GHz, which isn’t much more than the less expensive i5-2467M, but the maximum Turbo Boost is an impressive 2.8GHz (500MHz higher than the 2467M). The Micron C400 SSD is also a good choice and provides good performance at a price lower than the competition; the SF-2200 SSDs are still the king of performance, but the C400 is a reasonably priced alternative. The formatting/partitioning of the 256GB (240GB in practice) C400 is interesting, as Acer allocates an 8GB hibernate partition with another 16GB recovery partition—not exactly ideal, but perhaps the dedicated hibernation partition is part of what helps the system suspend/resume so quickly. Memory is also somewhat interesting in that there’s 4GB soldered onto the motherboard; that’s good for saving space but not so good for upgrades if you ever need more RAM.
The battery capacity might seem a little on the small side, but you can still get north of seven hours of battery life (and around six hours of web surfing). Acer also claims up to 50 days of standby time; I wasn’t sure initially whether they were talking about time in hibernate or time in sleep, as the former means a system is pretty much off whereas sleep is a low power mode where you can wake up and start working in a matter of seconds. I left the laptop unplugged and in sleep for a week at one point just to see what would happen, and the battery still had over and 85% charge when I opened it back up, so apparently they really do mean 50 days in suspend (i.e. sleep) mode, which is quite impressive.
One of the highlights of Intel’s ultrabook initiative is fast suspend/resume times as well as boot/shutdown times. The Acer certainly does all of those quickly; we clocked the boot to desktop time at 24 seconds with a shutdown time of seven seconds; POST time actually is a bit long at five seconds. Interestingly enough, there is no option for hibernate; the hibernation volume appears to be part of the magic of behind Acer’s ultrabook, providing for a hibernate-like state while still allowing for ultra-fast resume, so wake from sleep only takes about two or three seconds—fast enough that I can’t imagine anyone complaining. Overall performance is good, and the components and specs look fine, but the major differences between ultrabooks are going to be in the design elements. Let’s consider those areas before coming to a conclusion on where the Aspire S3 ranks.
The top panel has a nice brushed aluminum finish that gives the laptop an immediately higher quality appearance than most consumer laptops. Open the laptop up and you’re greeted by a decent Chiclet keyboard layout, all in a slate-gray matte finish. The bottom casing appears to be plastic as well, though it feels solid and doesn’t exhibit much flex—likely owing to the Magnesium-Aluminum frame. Overall it’s an attractive looking laptop, and it’s really thin and light, just as you’d expect from anything bearing the ultrabook moniker. But how does it fare in actual use?
Build quality is generally good but not exceptional. There’s some twist that’s particularly evident in the LCD lid, even with the aluminum cover. A thicker and more rigid aluminum sheet would have been good for eliminating this. Elsewhere, the laptop feels solid. The bottom chassis is made of a magnesium-aluminum allow, similar to what we find in many higher quality business notebooks, and unlike the LCD it feels very rigid. A couple areas that give me some pause as far as build quality. First is the LCD hinges; they work fine right now, but hinges are notorious for wearing out after a year or two and I could easily see that happening with the S3. My other complaint is with the seams around the chassis; they run all around the outside edges of the bottom chassis and the LCD panel and may catch some dust and develop some creaks over the long haul.
Also a little bothersome for me is that with the thinness of the laptop, the LCD cover weighs nearly as much as the bottom of the chassis, so if you open the display up beyond about a 135 degree angle, it can tip over. This is a minor consideration and comes with the ultra-thin territory, but I definitely feel we’re at the point where an ultrabook is as thin as I would ever want—and perhaps even too thin at times. Part of the problem with laptops getting ultra-thin is that it affects other areas once you try to use the laptop, like the keyboard.
Part of the ultrabook specifications is that the devices are no more than 0.8” (20mm) thick. As you can imagine, that means the key travel on the keyboard is inherently limited. I tried to measure how far the key travel is as a point of reference; obviously this is not the only important metric when looking at keyboards, but among many touch typists a slightly longer travel distance is preferred. The Acer S3 keys have around 0.06” of travel (1.5mm), where my Microsoft Natural keyboard has just over 0.12” (3mm). It’s a very noticeable difference, ad while I can certainly type on the Acer S3—I’m writing this portion of the review on it—it’s not my favorite typing experience. I also have occasions where key presses don’t register, probably due in part to the way the keys feel; I end up typing with a light touch but the keys could use a bit more force.
Besides the feel of the keyboard, the other elements are actually quite good. The layout works for the most part, with a decent amount of space between the keys, but I don’t understand why the Enter/Backslash keys are shaped the way they are; also, the tiny cursor keys with PgUp/PgDn crammed in takes some getting used to (and the UX31E cursor key layout is preferable in my book). The keyboard is still a healthy jump up from the previous Acer floating island keys, however, and I imagine anyone who likes chiclet-style keyboards will be fine with it.
The touchpad also works well enough, though at first it took some getting used to. It’s a single large clickable touchpad with Elan hardware/drivers, similar to what you’ll find on MacBook laptops. The bottom-left and -right corners register as left and right mouse clicks if tapped, and tapping on the surface also works as usual for Windows laptops. The difference is that you can also press into the touchpad and get a noticeable “click”, which is mostly useful for when you want to drag windows or other content around. It’s actually an interesting change and makes the single large touchpad design useable, but I do notice that when trying to drag across a larger area the “press” often gets lost. This mostly occurs near the top of the touchpad where the “click” doesn’t work as well; the middle and bottom depress quite easily but the top requires more force and doesn’t feel like it really goes in as much.
My biggest complaint with the Acer S3, not surprisingly, goes back to the old standby: the display. It’s okay for office use, but there’s nothing special about it relative to the competition. The contrast ratio is poor, the resolution is a bog standard, and that’s pretty much all there is to say. I don’t find 1366x768 panels to be the end of the world, particularly on 13.3” laptops, but at the same time given the opportunity for something like a 900p display or a higher contrast matte panel, I’d definitely be interested in paying more for the privilege. The Aspire S3 ends up being a decent representative of the ultrabook platform, and it’s also one of the less expensive ultrabook offerings if you eschew the larger SSD configurations. However, the lack of a dedicated SSD for most of your storage (I personally need at least a 120GB drive) limits the appeal of the entry-level models while the higher spec unit we’re reviewing clocks in at a hefty $1300.
81 Comments
View All Comments
twotwotwo - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - link
I had the same experience with the Eee Pad Transformer dock. I was surprised, because it looked a lot like the Eee 10" netbook keyboard, whose keys take very little pressure (in fact, between the small size and the light touch, you tend to get extra keystrokes on the netbook). I half suspect ASUS of angling for reviewer points for "feeling solid" when they made their more recent keyboards only work if you smack the keys. :)(I think ASUS did great overall. Software updates came out quickly, docking's nice, good price, etc., etc. But those keys: not so great.)
So--dear ASUS, premium means never having to smack the keyboard to type. Best wishes, two AnandTech commenters.
snuuggles - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
I suspect I am the (or one of the) people Jarred mentioned having returned my UX31 because of the keyboard. I had exactly the same issue you are having, and it was basically unusable to me--I simply couldn't do my work on the machine!Quick question, I found that pressing the bottom left corner of the enter key didn't register. This was repeatable and not because I was hitting it "too quickly", I could press the key all the way down and hold it with no response... can you replicate this? I'm guessing that this type of issue could become less and less of an issue as the keys "loosen up", but who knows, it could become *more* frequent!
I gave Jarred a hard time about recommending the UX31 in the holiday special, I was a little harsh, but I think my criticism stands: this is a mechanically flawed keyboard, and I'm not really sure how you can "look past" this issue and recommend it based on all it's other (great) features.
JarredWalton - Friday, December 23, 2011 - link
If I push on the very corner of the enter (and I mean the *very* corner), it won't register, but even an eighth of an inch in and it works fine. I will agree that the keyboard requires a bit more of a firm touch than on other laptops I've used, but it didn't bother me much. The Acer keyboard behaved similarly in my experience -- if you're a light typist, you'll miss key presses on occasion with either one. I'm sure other people will be fine with it, and some will probably even like it -- we've had people say they like Acer's floating island keys for example. I've seen the UX31E at Best Buy, so if you're picky about keyboards but are still considering the Zenbook, see if you can find some local store where you can try one out in person. Of course, that's my advice on most laptops if you're a discerning users. :-)twotwotwo - Saturday, December 24, 2011 - link
I forget that grown-ups might be reading while I snark. :) For the record, if the UX31's KB is like the original Transformer's, I wouldn't actually recommend someone avoid it just 'cause of that. Yes, checking seems reasonable.Toughbook - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - link
It's about time someone started to offer some brighter displays. In this day and time of technology it baffles me as too why they are all stuck on the 200-250 NIT rating. I am so spoiled by my 1100 NIT display that when I have to do some work on a 200 NIT machine I feel like I can hardly see it. Being able to have a port replicator would be nice a well on these. Another feature I use almost daily. Drop it in and your done.With all that being said... We still must remember what these machines are designed for. Ultra portability. It's like wanting more leg room or trunk space in a 2 seat sports car. Something has got to give.
I can't seem to under stand what Jarred means by the Windows sticker on the power brick? I'm am totally missing something here....
Great review Jarred, keep up the good work.
JarredWalton - Friday, December 23, 2011 - link
The power brick has the Windows Certificate of Authenticity (with the license key) on it. Usually those are on the bottom of the laptop or under the battery; obviously the latter isn't an option, but moving it onto the power brick doesn't really make a lot of sense to me.geotwn - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - link
Reading Anandtech for years I wonder why the Thinkpad X220 review is missing for long time. IMHO the IPS models beat all of the light-weight notebook hand down in terms of screen quality - it ought to be the standard to compete against if we are serious about display, but it does not get reviewed or even mentioned.JarredWalton - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
Because Lenovo won't send us one; it's as simple as that.twotwotwo - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - link
Via Gizmodo, I saw a detailed tablet display comparison today (search for "Tablet Display Technology Shoot-Out" to find two different comparisons). They argue the raw contrast ratio is "Only relevant for low ambient light, which is seldom the case for mobile devices," and they measure the intensity of mirror-like and other reflections from the screen. Only the Galaxy Tab, iPad 2 and (to my surprise) Nook Tablet came out under 11% mirror reflections.I knew something bugged me about raw contrast numbers and this is it: backlight bleed is often less of a problem than reflections. Would be interesting to see, if not a detailed mirror-reflection test like that site does, at least contrast measurements that factor in reflections under whatever "indoor" and "outdoor" ambient-light levels you define.
Know lots of work goes into the measurements and it's not easy to just throw another figure in. Does seem like factoring in how much reflection you'll be seeing could potentially lead to more useful numbers.
JarredWalton - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
This is why I point out the high maximum brightness of the ASUS -- that makes up for most reflections (unless you're looking at a dark scene/image/movie). Of course, in direct sunlight it's probably still not enough (I'd say 1200 nits would be needed for such use), but it's brighter and more usable outside than 99% of laptops.