Ultrabook Head to Head: Acer Aspire S3 vs. ASUS UX31E

Ultrabook Wrap-Up

We’ve now looked at three 13.3” ultrabooks, plus the MacBook Air 11 and 13, and the ASUS UX21E. I’ve also had some hands on time at a local store with a Samsung Series 9, so that covers much of the ultrabook market right now. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to see any of the Lenovo IdeaPad U300/U400 offerings or any other ultrabooks in person (yet), so I’ll have to leave them out of consideration.

Taken as a whole, the one thing these laptops are doing right is making really slim and amazing looking devices. For those in the generic Windows laptop world that don’t get to many coffee shops where the cool people hang out, the first encounter with an ultrabook is almost invariable one of amazement. “Wow! That’s an amazing looking laptop. Is it any good or does it just look cool?” I had several (non-techie) people come by while I worked on this review, and that was basically the reaction from every one of them. I agree on the first point: these ultrabooks really look sleek. The question of whether or not they’re good isn’t quite so clear.

Understand first and foremost that the target market for an ultrabook values aesthetics and portability over performance. There are dozens of laptops that cost less and offer more performance, but that’s not the point. The purpose of ultrabooks is to provide a fast, light business laptop that can last through most of a day’s workload and not weigh you down while you carry it around. If that’s what you’re after, the Acer S3, ASUS UX31E, and Toshiba Portege Z835—and very likely the Lenovo U300 and any other forthcoming ultrabooks—should keep you happy. Buy whichever one has the best price or most appealing look and you’re good to go. If you’re looking for other features, however, you’ll want to consider exactly what you get a bit more. Personally, I’d rather have a slightly bulkier laptop with a 1080p display, more connectivity options, and a discrete GPU for some moderate gaming—the Dell XPS 15z is still one of my favorites for walking the fine line between price, features, performance, and quality. But let’s assume you’ve decided you want an ultrabook; which one should you get?

For best build quality right now and aesthetic, out of the units I’ve seen I’d place the Apple MacBook Air and the ASUS Zenbooks at the top of the list. The aluminum unibody construction of the MBA makes for a very solid feeling laptop and the ASUS Zenbooks are right there with it. If you value screen quality over other elements, the MacBooks once again get a recommendation, but I also have to give props to the Samsung Series 9 13.3” model—it has a beautiful matte panel with a great contrast ratio, and colors look far better than on the ASUS, Acer, or Toshiba offerings. On the other hand, ASUS offers a very bright display and is the only 1600x900 resolution in a 13.3” ultrabook right now—at least a baby step over the status quo laptop LCDs.

Some people still value wired connectivity; for such users, Toshiba is the only ultrabook I’ve seen so far with an integrated Gigabit Ethernet port—and yes, I missed having GbE on both the Acer and ASUS; would it have killed them to at least include a 2x2:2 MIMO WiFi adapter? Acer lacks USB 3.0, so connectivity folks will likely want to go elsewhere. If you’re after a good keyboard, my initial experience is that all of the ultrabooks (including the MacBook Air) don’t have a lot of key travel, which may or may not bother you. Subjectively, however, I think the Samsung Series 9 was the most comfortable keyboard for me to type on, followed by the MacBook Air, with the others all rating as slightly behind those two; also worth noting is the MBA and Series 9 both have backlit keyboards. Finally, for best battery life, so far ASUS comes out quite a bit ahead of the others, thanks to a larger 48Wh battery and good power optimizations.

That covers most recommendations, but there’s still one more point to consider: cost. While the Acer S3 doesn’t place first in most areas, it’s still an ultra thin laptop that looks decent, and the 256GB C400 SSD is better than most of the other SSD options. ASUS got the 128GB SF-2200 SSD right in the UX21E, but the 256GB SanDisk U100 doesn’t look like it can even keep up with the second tier SSDs; considering the cost, I’d avoid ASUS’ 256GB models. Apple meanwhile charges the most by a fairly sizeable margin—shocking, I know—but if you look at the previous paragraph you’ll find that they warrant consideration on most categories.

The most reasonable conclusion is that you have to choose what’s most important, as you simply can’t get it all. You can get an $1100 ASUS UX31E that has similar or slightly better performance compared to the base model $1300 MacBook Air 13, you get a higher resolution and brighter LCD panel, and you get USB 3.0 support along with Windows 7. For $200 more, you get a higher contrast LCD with a 16:10 aspect ratio, Thunderbolt, a backlit keyboard, and OS X. If you already prefer OS X, the choice is very simple, but some Windows users might actually be willing to spend the additional money for an MBA13 ($300 extra when you factor in the Windows license). If I were to recommend just one ultrabook right now, the $1100 ASUS UX31E-DH52 gets my vote, but if you want more performance without breaking the bank, the Acer S3-951-6432 has everything you need except for a good LCD and USB 3.0 priced at $1230. If you want the MacBook equivalent of the Acer, you’ll have to pony up $1700 to get the same CPU and a 256GB SSD, though I’d say the LCD and improved build quality are worth at least $200.

The ultrabook market is still relatively new, and there are additional models coming out from other companies. As SSD prices drop, we’re likely to see better prices as well, and really we’d like to stick closer to $1000 for a 128GB SSD and a Core i5 CPU. We’d also like to see more attention to detail, particularly on the LCDs. For a 13.3” laptop, 1440x900 or 1600x900 is my preferred resolution, but along with that I’d like something that can handle the full sRGB color space and offer close to a 1000:1 contrast ratio—and an anti-glare surface would be icing on the cake. We’ll see if any of the upcoming ultrabooks can surpass the current offerings, which unfortunately end up looking very much like a revised take on attractive but expensive ultraportables. They're not bad, but they're also not the type of product we can universally recommend without pointing out some of the potential drawbacks.