Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook Notebook Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2012-05-07
·
1,764 words · ~8 min read
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welcome to my probably one of my last from this generation of products
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Ultrabook unboxing this is for Acer's
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Aspire S3 so you can see the exact part number we're looking at here we've also
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got the specs here so it comes with Windows 7 Home Premium this guy's got a
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core i5 2467m 13.3 in screen with LED
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backlight HD graphics 4 gigs of memory 300 20 gig hard drive card reader HD
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webcam 3 Cell lithium ion battery and Microsoft Office 2010 pre-loaded so
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pretty much what you'd expect although I am really looking forward to having a
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closer uh experience with this
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particular Ultra Book than the pictures that I have seen
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before now the ones that I've already looked at are the ASUS nbook and the
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Apple MacBook Air the key differences between those two are obviously the
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operating system whereas with the Aspire
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S3 it has a distinct similarity with the
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ASUS unit because it is also a
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Windows-based Ultrabook now this one came from Acer this is a a demo eval
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unit so you can see that the seal was already broken on it but let's see if we
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can still have a fairly authentic unboxing experience and it looks like we
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probably will okay okay so here we will find the power adapter which is pretty
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much what you've come to expect a fairly large size power plug compared to the
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Zenbook from ASUS a very reasonable sized actual brick all right in there we
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find not a whole lot else let's take out the not notebook I think they're still
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called notebooks yeah and then there's we've got some documentation as well as
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your International Travelers warranty very very good to have and I think that
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pretty much does it for ex accessories so it doesn't include quite the same uh
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bells and whistles like the carrying case that comes with the Zenbook but
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it's also I don't think quite as Bare Bones as the apple one because it at
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least comes with the international warranty all right comes in a nice
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little protective sleeve here and there
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we are so the form factor is as you can
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clearly see fairly similar to the other two units but my sort of my my feeling
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on this one is that it feels a little bit thicker but not actually any heavier
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it's still a very comfortable sort of
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design so here let's have a look at the back so here we've got our rubber feet
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plenty of attention to detail on the bottom of the unit so nice finish which
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is something that Apple kind of started with their with their MacBooks and
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paying attention to the bottom and not just putting plastic all over it so Acer
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has definitely gone with that for their
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S3 unit we can also see it's it's got a nice brushed finish on the top that
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looks really good there's a couple fingerprints on it from whoever was using it before but what I'll do is
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before I do my full video on my ncx channels I'll see if I can get them off
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and that way I will know already before I talk to you guys about it sort of more
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formally how easy it is to remove fingerprints from it cuz one of my
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gripes about brush metal finishes is that they can be a bit of a bear to
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remove fingerprints from in terms of the overall keyboard layout we can see that
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it's fairly standard we you have a fulls sizee shift fulls sizee shift plenty
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fulls siiz backspace and we've got a bit of a smaller eyes oh oh okay Slick's
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hiding from the reflective screen so I'm just going to go like that so that he doesn't have to do that okay and then
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we've got an enter where we've put our backslash above it I don't mind this
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design because I very rarely hit this part of the enter key in fact I'd say
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never and this is the part that I usually go for we've got our arrow keys
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and they're proper formation although they're quite small but you shouldn't use them too much and I love seeing
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dedicated page up and page down keys in a convenient location because think
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about it actually look at how wide this one opens check that out check out that
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hinge so that's the maximum H maximum
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opening so this could be very easily used for reading you know page up page
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down you got your buttons right here right and then you've got it open pretty
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much like a like a newspaper or like a magazine and uh yeah that's that's
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actually outstanding now I'm not going to be able to compare this to the other
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two units very easy easily in terms of performance because this is a hard drive
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based model so it's a lower pric model but I just wanted to look at it in terms
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of the form factor so why don't I just grab the MacBook Air really quick here
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and I'll be back in a sec hold on sorry guys and let's just compare them really
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quick because they do have the same size
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screen similar sort of battery
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specifications similar CPU specs so
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there there we have it so the first thing H there we
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are let's have a look at the overall thickness here because it seems to me ah
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yes okay the S3 is a little bit thicker
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so there yeah my uh my gut feeling on
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that one was not incorrect however what you guys will probably notice is that at
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its thickest point the MacBook Air is pretty much the same um and then once it
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tapers down that's where the difference really comes in so the Acer unit is more
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of more of a consistent thickness
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throughout rather than being really really thin at one end and not that thin
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at the other so let's see what that translates to in terms of IO so we've
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got our headphone Port here we've got that that looks like for a carrying
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strap although I really I really can't imagine carrying around a laptop on a
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wrist strap like that but is that not what that looks like to you guys okay so
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yeah I'll have to see if Acer has any comments on that not much on the front
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as we pretty much expect and then on the other side we've got our SD card reader
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and then on the back is where we're going to find the majority of the io so
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we have our power input our HDMI as well as our usb2 ports and finally our
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exhaust for the internal fan so that's
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where Acer has really differed from what their competitors are doing in that
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they've instead of gone going with a hinge design like this where the entire
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back of the notebook is taken up by the hinge they've gone with a hinge design
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that feels very robust but still allows
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all of these IO options to be built into the
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back uh let me have a look here at what else there is to say you know what let's
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compare them in terms of the size here
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so yes they're both 13.3 in notebooks
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but the Acer oh check this out the Acer probably due to that hinge design is
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actually a little bit what would you call that not wider but
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shorter narrower sure let's call it narrower so it's not quite as large as
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the MacBook Air this way even though it is a bit thicker so that's probably why
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they weigh very similar even though the MacBook Air is
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uh is significantly thinner let me see so the touchpad is
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smaller but I do see one major advantage
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on the touchpad versus the ASUS unit and that is that it can be used at the very
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bottom on the clicky spaces so you can oh Pull It Forward a bit push it down a
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bit Ah okay oh that one too okay here we go so you can use the bottom part of the
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touchpad in order to navigate and then you can also click on it the ASUS unit
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actually cuts off about here and is not sensitive on the parts that are
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clickable so I would definitely give Acer a big thumbs up for uh for that
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particular design Choice other than that I don't see too much here to
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mention um so yeah I'll wait till I do my
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NC video about it but yeah thanks for checking out my unboxing of the Acer S3
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Ultra Book so far this one's actually looking really really sharp keyboard
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feels good form factor feels good the weight
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feels good build quality feels very good this is a metal top so that's not like a
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brushed plastic or anything like that don't forget to subscribe to L Tech
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tips for more unboxings reviews and other computer videos okay sck told me
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what he wanted me to do when he was sort of gesturing at me and he wanted me to
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show the hinge comparison between the MacBook Air which goes to here and the
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S3 which goes to here that seems totally
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insignificant at first but it comes down to how you're going to use it these
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things are so light that you can carry them around with one hand and like I was
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sort of saying before like you can actually operate the computer semic
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comfortably like this so you grab it like this you go okay yeah yeah page
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down page down I'm reading oh I'm going to fold it up I'm going carry it around
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I'm going to throw it you know down the sleeve of my backpack or whatever the
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case may be and hey check this out resume times even though it's using a
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hard drive
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Kow already open can you tell I watched
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Cars 2 last night okay I'm done actually