Acer Aspire S5 Ultrabook Review: The Steady March of Progress
by Dustin Sklavos on July 9, 2012 7:40 PM ESTConclusion: Almost There
This is the most impressed I've been with an Acer notebook in some time. Most of my usual whipping boys have been taken care of, and I'm left with an ultrabook that's for the most part very usable.
We're pretty fond of the saying "there's no such thing as a bad product, only a bad price" around here, and that holds very true with the S5. The performance and features are largely here: a fast, ultra low voltage processor, coupled with USB 3.0 connectivity, HDMI, and even Thunderbolt. However skeptical you might be of striped SSDs (and I certainly am), you can't deny that the end result is a remarkably fast storage subsystem. The chassis' portability is something to be excited about as well. Building a good notebook is always a balancing act, trying to figure out what you're willing to sacrifice and what you have to have, and this is where I think Acer dropped the ball.
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The Aspire S5 isn't a bad looking notebook, but in some ways it's lackluster compared to the competition. The more you look at it and use it, the cheaper it feels. Couple that with the awful display, and suddenly you begin to feel like the majority of the price bloat you're paying is going towards the motorized trap door and the Thunderbolt connectivity. The door is a cool idea and Thunderbolt may very well become incredibly important as time goes on, but why couldn't Acer have just gone whole hog and spent the extra $40 or $50 a unit to put a halfway decent display inside?
As it stands, it seems we may yet be continuing to search for the perfect ultrabook. The ASUS Zenbook Primes are less expensive than the S5 and feature much better quality displays, but you lose out on Acer's stellar cooling performance and Thunderbolt connectivity. More than that, Acer's design is going to be a hair thinner and lighter than anything their competition has come up with. We'd hoped the ultrabooks to buy would be in this generation, but so far it looks like we're just not there yet. In the meantime, though, if you're willing to make the compromises and the price tag doesn't scare you off, the S5 might be one of the most forward-looking ultrabooks yet available.
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magreen - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
agree 100%.anyone for going back to the Atari 2600's 160x192 5:6 resolution for the next premium laptop?
seapeople - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
The next step for Asus is to cut out the USB 3.0 and include USB 1.1 instead and subsequently cut the laptop price from $1400 to $1397.Mumrik - Wednesday, July 11, 2012 - link
You mean Acer I hope...frakkel - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
Completely agree that the screen is an important factor. But as far as I have understood Anandtech first calibrate the screens before comparing to each other. How many ordinary people does this?To have a 200 dollar screen that is not calibrated is in my opinion the same deal braker as havíng a 50 dollar screen which is also not calibrated.
As long as you have to do the calibration by your self it simple does nok make that much of a difference if the manucture put in a 200 or a 50 dollar screen. The color accuracy of a non calibrated 200 dollar screen is still terrible. And since most people dont do the calibration I understand why Acer put in thís mediocre screen.
Impulses - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
Color accuracy is the worst of their problems... ASUS' UX31 is cheaper and has a higher res 1080p display that gives you a larger work space. Not only that, its an IPS display with superb viewing angles that dont wash the display out when viewed off center, and like when the guy in the plane seat in front of you decides to recline all the way and your own seat is busted.Impulses - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
The least of their problems rather...JarredWalton - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
Not to mention the contrast. Your brain will basically interpolate so that even if the color accuracy is off, it's "okay" for most people (look at all the tablets that are >10 dE and have no way to calibrate, and some are 50+ dE). For laptops, I think the relative cheapness of the display is easy to determine by looking at where it falls in the following list. (Note that matte vs. glossy is essentially a separate issue; you can have bad matte screens just as easily as bad glossy screens, though I continue to prefer matte over glossy.)[Worst]
Low contrast, low resolution (DPI)
Low contrast, higher resolution (DPI)
High contrast, lower DPI
High contrast, higher DPI
High contrast, higher DPI, better color gamut
High contrast, higher DPI, better color gamut, non-TN
[Best]
Generally speaking, there really aren't any non-TN displays with good characteristics that are still low-resolution, which is good as the last thing we need is 1366x768 IPS displays shoved into 13.3" and larger laptops.
Steveymoo - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
I mean, seriously? They're so damned expensive for what they are!!They're under-performing, 99% of them have terrible screens, and the only practical use I can think of for them, is general office productivity, and internet browsing... Sure they do that pretty well, but why would a company pay over the odds for what is essentially a collection of cheap components, in an expensive (albeit slim,) package.
mrdude - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
It seems that every time I read an ultrabook review I see the same things being uttered: crappy display, not-so-great battery life, too expensive and way way too hot. The form factor is far too thin given the heat output of the processors at 17W TDP and that's not going to change as Haswell will have the same TDP. The components themselves cost more due to the nature of the design and the margins for ultrabook makers is actually below 7%! No wonder the displays are so damn crappy. Even given that super inflated price tag, Acer is almost certainly penny-pinching to barely break even.Why in the world would I want one? Why in the world is Intel pushing these? You can grab a Toshiba Portege with an equally crappy display and have none of the heat issues, better battery life, swappable components, much better performance and all this at the same weight as an ultrabook. The TimelineU M5 seems like a much better format considering the size but even for that thick a laptop (compared to this), Acer had to use a ULV i5 rather than a regular 35W chip and even that laptop suffers from heat and throttling issues (an important point that gets overlooked in every Anandtech review... Can you guys please start checking for throttling during gaming and heavy CPU/GPU work?)
Something needs to change. Either Intel needs to loosen the requirements or tighten them even further. As I see ultrabooks today, they're stuck in some sort of halfway super-portable laptop that just doesn't make sense given the drawbacks and the just-as-portable-but-not-crappy alternatives.
Impulses - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
So you skipped both Zenbook articles?