Acer Aspire S3-391-9606
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Average of 1 scores (from 1 reviews)
Reviews for the Acer Aspire S3-391-9606
Source: Comp Reviews

Acer's updated Aspire S3 ultrabook receives a number of needed improvements that really help it boost its performance to equal to or better than many other models at its $1000 price point. This is primarily achieve through its Core i7 processor and switch to a solid state drive away from a hybird hard drive. The addition of USB 3.0 ports also corrects a major flaw with the original design.
Single Review, online available, Short, Date: 09/03/2012
Rating: Total score: 60%
Comment
Series:
The Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook was one of the first ultrabooks to hit the market. The idea of the Ultrabook was introduced by Intel but not much of marketing had been done by them. As one of the firsts, all it had was the ‘Macbook Air lookalike’ identity. This isn’t that good to start with for the Aspire S3 as it doesn’t look as thin as the Macbook Air. The Aspire S3 also has the option to use a mechanical hard drive which gives it a significant disadvantage due to the inferior performance offered by a solid state drive offered by other manufacturers. The asking price is another unjustifiable issue. The Asus Zenbook and Dell XPS 13 are also priced around the same price range but they have much more to offer. Another issue with this ultrabook is its plastic-feel construction compared to the aluminium chassis on the Zenbook and carbon fiber feel of the XPS 13. The lack of a USB 3.0 port and backlit keyboard puts it behind most 13 inch ultrabook out there.
Being one of the earliest Ultrabook certainly has its downside. However, it’s not all bad. The Aspire S3 has a display that can tilt far back, more than any other ultrabooks that we’ve seen. It looks very much like the MacBook Pro but is much lighter and has the excellent boot time of Ultrabooks. It can wake up from sleep mode in about less than 2 seconds.
Intel HD Graphics 4000: Processor graphics card in the high end Ivy Bridge models. Offers a different clock speed in the different CPU models (ULV to desktop quad core) and therefore a different performance.
Non demanding games should be playable with these graphics cards.
» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Graphics Cards and the corresponding Benchmark List.
Intel Core i7: The Intel Core i7 for laptops is based on the LG1156 Core i5/i7 CPU for desktops. The base clock speed of the CPUs is relatively low, but because of a huge Turbo mode, the cores can dynamically overclock to up to 3.2 GHz (920XM). Therefore, the CPU can be as fast as high clocked dual-core CPUs (using single threaded applications) but still offer the advantage of 4 cores. Because of the large TDP of 45 W / 55 W, the CPU is only intended for large laptops.
3517U: Fast Ivy-Bridge-based ULV-CPU in Q2 2012. Offers a core clock of 1.9 - 3.0 GHz and an HD 4000 GPU (350 - 1150 MHz). The TDP is rated at 17 W.» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Processsors.
13.30":
Above all, this display size is used for subnotebooks, ultrabooks and convertibles. For all three types, this size is quite large. The biggest variety of subnotebooks is represented with this size.
Large display-sizes allow higher resolutions. So, details like letters are bigger. On the other hand, the power consumption is lower with small screen diagonals and the devices are smaller, more lightweight and cheaper.
» To find out how fine a display is, see our DPI List.1.4 kg:
This weight is typical for big tablets, small subnotebooks, ultrabooks and convertibles with a 10-11 inch display-diagonal.
Acer: The company was founded under the name of Multitech in Taiwan in 1976 and renamed to Acer or Acer Group in 1987. The product range includes, for example, laptops, tablets, smartphones, desktops, monitors and televisions. Gateway Inc. and Packard Bell also belong to the Group and sell their own laptops.
While Acer still had the third largest global market share in the notebook segment in 2008, it ranked 6th in 2016 with a market share of 6% after they had continuously lost market shares.
There are dozens of Acer laptop reviews per month, the ratings are average (as of 2016). Gateway, which has an own laptop line-up, has also belonged to the Acer Group since 2007.
60%: Such a bad rating is rare. There exist hardly any notebooks, which are rated worse.
» Further information can be found in our Notebook Purchase Guide.