Aspire S7 392 - 2nd Generation Perfection Unboxing & Overview
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
1,730 words · ~8 min read
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buy a qualifying Intel product and get entered in the Intel Dynamic ticket
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giveaway for a chance to win great prizes visit Intel gamingpro tocom to
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learn more welcome to one of the unboxings that I am most excited about
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we've actually got quite a few products in the unboxing queue right now but this
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one yeah this one jumped the queue because uh I am stoked to check it out
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now I saw this all already once at computex 2013 but this is the next
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Generation haswell-based Acer Aspire
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s7392 now you might be saying lus really
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you're getting excited about an Acer notebook no that was the old Acer the
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Acer that didn't build things that were absolutely drool worthy for a long time
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I was afraid that if I needed a notebook I was going to have to buy a Macbook
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because there was no one else building anything that was very compelling not
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true anymore the original S7 has been my companion for the last few months but I
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did have some complaints about it number one battery life ain't that hot you had
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to use an extended battery life to get what I'd really consider to be
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acceptable sort of 7 to 8 hour maybe 9 hour sometimes battery life out of it
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not that impressive it's also quite loud the keyboard has an extremely short key
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travel which you have to kind of understand because it's extremely slim
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and the touchpads a little bit thin Fini key all right all of those
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complaints they're addressed so this is officially in my mind at least uh from
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sort of from my usage case because I don't need the power this is as good as
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it gets for me so ah okay let's open this up so first
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of all it comes with a little uh sort of
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you know fake leathery carrying case so
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this looks like it actually hasn't changed since the last gen there you go
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side by side comparison looks pretty similar all right next up we've got a
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little quick start guide whatever Windows 8 okay if you haven't used Windows 8 before I do actually recommend
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checking it out we've got the notebook itself which is actually Slimmer than
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the old one even which is kind of cool the power adapter has actually been
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changed quite a bit so it comes first of
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all with the the final run the thin DC wire that goes into the notebook itself
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which has been altered so the older one had a very fragile connector and a very
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sort of small uh plug this one has the same small fragile connector but a
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slightly different shaped plug so that much has been changed at least also the
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shape of the power brick itself has been altered too so it comes with little
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adapter pieces that you can go ahead and plug into that as well as into the wall
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piece here which is quite large the older one just had a standard wall plug
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so not quite so bulky and then had more of a flat pack style power brick the the
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only problem I had with the old one though was that this was didn't connect
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very well at least on my sample anyway so it uh sometimes would come out but uh
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at any rate so they've changed that sort of more tubular design all right and
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that's pretty much it in terms of included accessories there's a quick start guide your Windows Kaa and then on
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to the notebook itself so the old one
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actually included an extended battery because Acer must have known that the
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battery life just wasn't good enough on its own the new one does not need to
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include any such thing so Acer uses Gorilla Glass on the top of the notebook
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itself they're actually the first ones to make Gorilla Glass anything other
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than aesthetic as far as I can tell um with the original S7 so Gorilla Glass
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offers improved rugged ability um less
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more resistance to damage from things like uh flexing or dropping or
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scratching anything like that then let's
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go ahead and have a look at the overall slimness so they've actually made it
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slightly Slimmer although when I pulled out my 391 at computex and held it up
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side by side with the 392 it was awfully
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hard to tell so here let's go ahead and put them side by side by side there wow
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they actually kind of start to add up in terms of weight once you start stacking
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them like that so anyway there you go so it is slightly Slimmer than the old one
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it uses the same aluminum unibody design which in addition to the gorilla glass
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gives it enough strength that you can't actually
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you can't actually flexx the thing too much in spite of its slimness and the
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hinge is what they're calling their dual torque hinge so I actually do really
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like the hinge on this notebook so you can see it opens up slightly more than
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180° which I did find myself using from
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time to time so you know just walking around holding it like this it's almost
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like a tablet in terms of its lightness as well as in terms of its uh of its
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size so it's a 13.3 in display it's 1080p in North America however it's 2560
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X4 1940 by default in Europe you lucky
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dogs which I would love to have once we open it up we actually find one of the
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other upgrades so right here I hope you guys are able to see this but I'm not
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sure if you'll be able to but the keys have a deeper travel so the aluminum
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around the keyboard is actually indented whereas on the old one it well actually
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it was indented but it was much less so that gives a more satisfying tactile
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response to the Keys in fact you can hear the difference
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and they have also revised the touchpad to be slightly less Twitchy when you are
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double clicking or whatever else you can also see that because they've reached
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the battery life Target set out by Intel the Ultrabook branding is now on the new
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S7 whereas the old one was not technically an Ultra Book even though it
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was a very very slim notebook it uses the same El back lit keyboard so it only
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lights up in situations where you need it and it has a very satisfying blue
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glow and in terms of IO they haven't really changed much to speak of so over
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here we've got a mini DisplayPort as
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well as HDMI fullsize HDMI Oh that's oh
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that's kind of cool okay they've changed a lot this is better uh one USB 3.0 port
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on this side a headphone microphone combo Jack then over on the other side
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we've got a an SD oh it has a card reader now oh no the old one had a card
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okay okay I forgot about that another USB 3 Port the onoff switch as well as
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the power input they've changed the cooling but I can already tell the new
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one runs a little bit warmer than the old one so basically Acer has tuned the
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cooling internally with what they're calling their twin air cooling design
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and because Haswell has lower power consumption because Haswell does run
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cooler they've also tuned the fans to be significantly quieter but it seems like
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it does run a little bit warmer particularly here right in the middle at
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the back the back uses a plastic composite material where you're going to
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find two stereo speakers as well as air intakes and other than than that it is
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extremely clean and simple looking just like the old one except that I have that
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uh add-on battery pack sort of strapped on there in terms of other upgrades to
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the specs so yeah it's Haswell and you can get it with either a 4200 U or a
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4500 U but they've also got either 4 gig or 8 gig RAM options they've got uh raid
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zero SSD it's funny to me to see manufacturers moving towards rate zero
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because it's just um I mean it decreases reliability however with solid state
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storage it's less likely to be damaged in a drop or whatever else like that like there's kind of arguments for or
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against but raid zero is a more complicated configuration and it um it's
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not something that I really feel that strongly positive about to be perfectly
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honest but either way it's got raid zero in either a 128 or 256 gig configuration
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and it will give better performance particularly for ssds and b-roll is
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leaning on my thing there it's got a dual array mic now so that means it
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should be able to pick out your voice when you're using it for voice
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communication or video communication or whatever else and it supports Wii now so
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Acer is quoting a 7 to8 hour battery life for this guy which puts it right in
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line with where the old one was maybe a little bit below the old one with the
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weird bulky battery wart that sticks out of the bottom so there you have it guys
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The Notebook that I personally like more
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than anything else that's out there don't forget to subscribe to lus Tech
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tips for more unboxings reviews and other computer videos let me know in the
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comments what you thought of the video what you think of the Aspire s Aspire S7
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392 is this the new Acer that you would
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consider using or do can you not sort of
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lose them in your mind as sort of that commodity machine Builder and last but
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not least like the video if you liked it and dislike it if you disliked
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it later