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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C'DaleRider - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
With all the complaints about the display in the article.....what'd you expect from Acer? An Apple quality display? Seriously? From the bottom-of-the-barrel PC maker? LOL!jabber - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
Isn't Acer the firm that is telling Microsoft it shouldn't try to get into making tablets and laptops?Well Acer, I don't think they could do any worse could they?
Dug - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
For the price, yes.ThreeDee912 - Thursday, July 12, 2012 - link
Eh, a high-end 13" MacBook Air is $100 more, and although you get a slightly slower CPU, you get a significantly better 1440x900 panel, more battery life, backlit keyboard, built-in SD card reader, and faster 1600MHz DDR3 RAM.And yeah, looks like the review forgot to mention the keyboard isn't backlit, but other sites seem to mention it.
Or for $200 less you can get a low-end 13" Air and still get all that, but with less SSD space.
Only thing you don't get is a built-in HDMI port as Apple's pushing the Mini-DisplayPort/Thunderbolt combo.
nickod - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
Would be good if the laptop tests explicitly said if HDMI and display port displays could be used together.Dustin Sklavos - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
They can.Penti - Wednesday, July 11, 2012 - link
I guess the Thunderbolt supports DisplayPort which at least mean it can output higher resolutions then the HDMI's single-link sub 3GHz 1920x1200. It's a big plus if it actually can drive your 27 or 30-inch monitor, if you have one of those and also won't stop you from getting one. I think it's sad to see just HDMI or VGA on laptops today, Displayport is essential. At least for any serious use. Everybody do not like to be sitting there stuck with 1920x1080 TN-screens.seapeople - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
Why did PC makers "decide" that 4-5 hours of battery life is good enough? They keep pumping tech into laptops, making them thinner and thinner and lighter and lighter... and simultaneously dropping the battery size, taking away one of the potential benefits of such a system. It's not like old boxy 15" laptops got 4-5 hours of battery life because they decided that's the perfect amount of battery life to target, they got 4-5 hours of battery life because that's all they could get using full size components and not have the laptop be as thick as a phone book.Now, we have thin, low power components, and the opportunity to make something like a 20mm thick laptop with 12+ hour battery life, which is still pretty thin, but instead we get a tapered 15mm SUPER THIN laptop that doesn't improve on battery life.
I mean, isn't the entire concept of an ultraportable that you can take it places easily, which would thus make battery life of paramount importance? But no, it's as if PC makers are taking random stabs in the dark to get market share, saying "Look at us, we made a laptop thinner than Apple!" rather than actually putting out laptops that are well built and, most importantly, make sense for the market they're targeting.
mrdude - Wednesday, July 11, 2012 - link
Because Ultrabooks aren't about practicality or performance or even weight but about looks. They're made and marketed as an "Ooooh, look at me!" type of gadget instead of something that makes sense.JarredWalton - Wednesday, July 11, 2012 - link
The thing is, Ultrabooks make sense for a certain market; they're just not for everyone (or, dare I say it, even most people). If you travel a lot and/or are constantly wandering around your work place and you need to take your computer with you, a 3 pound Ultrabook (formerly ultraportable) is very convenient. Assuming you have it set to go into sleep mode when you close the lid, you typically only need around 6 hours of continuous battery life to last all day at the office, not to mention making it through any continental flights.Now if you're on international flights or you want to be able to have your laptop on and doing work for 8-10 hours straight, obviously you need more battery capacity. There are laptops that target that market as well, typically by offering sheet batteries or extended batteries. But while it's possible to build a 3-4 pound laptop that can last 12+ hours on a single charge, such laptops aren't for everyone -- just like the typical Ultrabook. FWIW, I know personally I rarely have need of more than six hours of continuous use battery life.