What is an Ultrabook?
Wikipedia defines the Ultrabook as “a computer in a category of thin and lightweight ultraportable laptops, defined by a specification from Intel The name Ultrabook is an Intel trademark. By this marketing initiative and an associated $300M fund, Intel hopes to stimulate the market for Intel-based laptops similar to Apple’s MacBook Air, against rising competition from ARM processor-based tablet computers”
It is the latest trend in the portable computers. Manufacturers have noticed the success of tablets and netbooks and have decided to develop some new machines that have the power of laptops or notebooks, but are much more easier to carry. Intel estimates that by the end of 2012, 40% of the consumer laptop market segment will be Ultrabooks.
The objective is the creation of a portable computer which is light to carry, powerful and with reduced consumptions. This is an alternative to the development of netbooks that required an Internet connections to use some serious computing power or to the Google Chromebook that is seen mainly as a cloud computing client
The Ultrabook platform has been officially presented on May 2011 and the first machines should be on sale by Christmas with second generation Core processors known with the name Sandy Bridge. They plan to have on the market in the next six months Ultrabooks based on the third generation Core CPU known with the name Ivy Bridge.
The Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook
Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook
The Acer Aspire S3 is Acer’s first foray into the world of the ultrabook. It aims to offer power to support all your computing needs without taking up space in your backpack.
The Acer Aspire S3 is immediately recognisable as part of the ultrabook crowd, due mainly to its super-thin design. At only 16mm thick at its thickest point, it’s certainly svelte; with a width of 321mm and a depth of 217mm, it will easily slide into a backpack or a leather briefcase without problems.
The lid of the Aspire S3 the S3 is made from brushed aluminium and looks very well built, . Most of the body — including the wrist-rest and keyboard surround — are made from a magnesium alloy that feels strong. It’s quite difficult to distinguish from regular plastic just by looking.
The Acer Ulltrabook Keyboard and trackpad
Under the lid there is a keyboard that uses rounded, isolated keys that offer a pleasing typing experience. This is thanks to them being set just about the right distance apart and at the right height to allow us to type comfortably at speed without making too many errors. Only the arrow keys up have been squashed into a tiny little space in the bottom right-hand corner and require some attention.
The Acer Ulltrabook Ports
Acer has crammed the two USB 2.0 ports and the HDMI port around the back of the laptop and an SD card slot on the left-hand side, Unfortunately there is not a USB 3.0 for ultra-fast data transfer,
The Acer Ulltrabook Screen
The Aspire S3 uses a 13.3-inch screen with an average resolution of 1,366×768 pixels. It’s still a good screen and you’re not likely to find yourself desperate for more pixels. It’s bright and coped well under our office lights, albeit with a few reflections creeping in. Colours and contrast are handled pretty well.
The Acer Ulltrabook Battery
It’s small and light enough for you to carry around with you all day, so you’d be absolutely right to expect that the battery can last long enough.
In some heavy battery tests the S3 managed to survive 1 hour 39 minutes before conking out. With an average usage it should last more.
The Acer Ulltrabook Performance
With the top specs on board, the model provided some excellent scores on some benchmark tests. The PCMark05 test produced a very pleasant score of 9,780, which is plenty of grunt for any office tasks and enough power for a spot of media editing if that stuff floats your boat. On the Geekbench test, it scored an admirable 6,731.
Conclusions
The machine looks like a good attempt to satisfy the Ultrabook specifications.
It can be bought online and you will find good offers at Amazon
Click here for the Acer S3 Ultrabook offers at Amazon UK
Click here for the Acer S3 Ultrabook offers at Amazon US
Click here for the Acer S3 Ultrabook offers at Amazon IT
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