Ultrabook Head to Head: Acer Aspire S3 vs. ASUS UX31E
by Jarred Walton & Manveer Wasson on December 21, 2011 5:40 AM ESTAnd Then We Get to the LCDs…
Sadly, as much as some areas of the laptops are improved over other offerings, the displays in general are nothing to get excited about. The Acer LCD is a bog standard model while the ASUS goes for a higher HD+ resolution and one of the brightest backlights we’ve tested on a laptop; unfortunately, contrast ratio along with color quality and gamut are all in the dumps. Let’s not dwell on it too much before we see the charts.
Of the laptops we’ve reviewed recently, the UX31E has the brightest LCD by far…along with the highest black level by far. The result is a contrast ratio that places near the top of our selection of eight mediocre displays. The Acer S3 on the other hand has middling white and black levels but the lowest contrast of the eight tested laptops. Continue on to color accuracy and gamut and things go from middling to lousy. The ASUS’ incredibly bright backlight results in very poor post-calibration Delta E of 3.67, with some colors in the double digits. Turn to the color gamut and we find part of the reason for that: the gamuts of both these ultrabooks are very poor, which means several of the test color patches are outside of their color range.
Viewing angles are typical of TN panels, with the vertical shots showing major color shifts. The ASUS panel does a lot better than the Acer, though neither one is great. We’ve got excellent 10.1” IPS panels now shipping in $400 tablets; why can’t we get a similar panel in 13.3” trim in a $1200 laptop? I’m probably preaching to the choir, but seriously: first IPS panel in a 13.3” laptop for under $1000 gets an Editor’s Choice award (as long as the rest of the laptop doesn’t completely suck).
In the grand scheme of things, though, how much do the LCD test results really matter? That’s a more difficult question to answer. Some users will never know what they’re missing, while others like to edit photos or watch movies and will immediately notice the poor contrast and colors. The color quality is a potential deal breaker for me, but if you’re just surfing the web and working in office applications, it really doesn’t make that much of a difference. For a go-anywhere laptop, the ASUS’ ultra bright LCD is definitely a plus—I took it outside and maxed out the backlight intensity and was still able to view the display contents without complaint, which is more than I can say for the laptops that max out at 200-250 nits.
When we look at the target the ultrabooks are trying to take down—Apple’s MacBook Air—the LCD results in particular are unacceptable. The MacBook Air displays are by no means perfect (I'd like a color gamut of at least 70% AdobeRGB for example), but notice how out of the tested laptops they place at the top in every test other than maximum brightness? That's what we'd like to see from the competition. ASUS at least made some effort to be different by going with a 1600x900 LCD with a high maximum backlight intensity, but Acer could have literally picked up any other 13.3” LCD and put in a similar showing. Take the price and OS out of the equation and the MacBook Airs are the superior “ultrabooks”, for two reasons: build quality and display quality. Acer improved their build quality over most of their budget offerings, and ASUS is right there with Apple in terms of build quality, but >500:1 contrast with >350 nits maximum brightness is the minimum I’d like to see, and really we’re talking about $1000+ laptops so it’s not too much to ask for an extra $50 to improve the displays.
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djpavcy - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
Jarred,Can you comment further on the touchpad of the UX31? You seem to like it, but Anand in his original review of the UX21 found it to be horrible. For that matter, so do I: I own a UX31 (the 256GB/core i-5 version) and the touchpad is bordering on useless: crappy cursor control, random and erratic shifts of the cursor, etc.
My suspicion is that the touchpad on Anand's review sample and on my laptop are ones made by Sentelic but the one in yours is made by Elan which seems to be much better. Do you know anything about this? Is it a luck of the draw whether you will get a sentelic or an Elan touchpad or is it model dependent?
snuuggles - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
I owned the same model, and had an equally horrible time with the touchpad. I can't confirm the manufacturer, as I've already returned the unit based on this issue, and more importantly, what I suspect is a flawed keyboard design (though since some people seem to be ok with it, I'll admit it *could* be that I had a bad unit).But the touchpad was, indeed, horrible.
PS I followed up by purchasing a 13" MBA and installing win7. It was awesome, and I would have kept *that* except within the 2 week refund window I heard that there would be a huge number of ultrabooks introduced at CES this jan.
I just stuck an old SSD in my current laptop and am waiting till spring.
JarredWalton - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
I know Anand didn't like the UX21 he initially reviewed, but I had no problem with the UX31 touchpad. As I noted in the review, our sample is using Elan hardware/drivers, so if some are using Sentellic that would be a serious problem. Frankly, the worst touchpads I can recall using had Sentellic hardware.SirKronan - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
"We’ve got excellent 10.1” IPS panels now shipping in $400 tablets; why can’t we get a similar panel in 13.3” trim in a $1200 laptop? I’m probably preaching to the choir, but seriously: first IPS panel in a 13.3” laptop for under $1000 gets an Editor’s Choice award (as long as the rest of the laptop doesn’t completely suck)."I couldn't agree more. It makes no sense. They'd certainly look a lot more attractive sitting on display in the store with a good LCD. I guarantee that's one of the main reasons Apple's laptops grab so much attention from passers-by. Their screens are bright, contrasty, and display a good range of colors. If you set the Asus or Acer next to the Macbooks, along with their $1000 Ultrabook price tags, they won't look nearly as impressive. Performance and battery life are fine and dandy, but like you said, would it REALLY be soooo dang hard to put in a good screen at that price point?
Toughbook - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
What is so frustrating is that if Apple can do it, why can't the others? It's not like Apple makes a damn thing, it's all 3rd party work.Death666Angel - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
The power plug looks similar to my Acer one and I disagree that it is inferior to the old 2 cables with one PSU in the middle design. Those things always gave me trouble because I never had a good place to stuff the PSU, it would sometimes hang or be on the edge of something and fall down. It also has more connections to get loose and is more unwieldy in my experience (harder to store when on the go). :-)JarredWalton - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
My problem is the cable ends up being shorter, and the plug takes up more of your electrical outlet real estate. Not everyone will mind, but I certainly wouldn't call it an improvement over standard laptop power bricks.Death666Angel - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
You keep mentioning how great the MBA is compared to these in some areas, but you fail to mention any negative aspects of it, which distorts the picture quite a lot. I realize this is an article about 2 ultrabooks, but then either don't mention the MBA at all or include it fully.And if you say that the MBA can also run Windows, show it in the graphs as well.
The way you do it seems like just a promotion for Apple tbh.
JarredWalton - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
I linked our MBA review; unfortunately, I haven't had nearly as much time with a MacBook Air, and we didn't run all of our Windows tests on the MBA13 I don't think, but it's still mostly comparable. The one issue with MBA under Windows is that the keyboard keys are "mislabeled". I personally wouldn't buy an ultrabook or a MacBook Air -- the Dell XPS 15z is probable the best overall laptop for my personal usage habits -- but for those in the market I'd at least look at all the ultrabook style devices before plunking down money on one of them.vision33r - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
Today's world of $299-499 13-15" notebooks. People in general have gotten used to seeing Dell and HPs for under $500. While these are ultrabooks, people in general still have problem buying a $1000 Windows notebook unless it's a premium brand like Sony or Apple.What will end up happening is these will drop down to $699 and some parts getting cheapen and quality goes down. The Alienware m11x is the perfect example, the quality gotten worst with the m11x R3 versions because the price went down.