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Acer Aspire S7 review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £985
inc VAT

Looks great, but it has poor keyboard and battery life

Specifications

13.3 in 1,920×1,080 display, 1.3kg, 1.7GHz Intel Core i5-3317U, 4.00GB RAM, 128GB disk, Windows 8

http://www.kikatek.co.uk

With its sleek, ice white exterior and razor thin chassis, the Acer Aspire S7 is a beautifully designed Ultrabook. It stands little higher than 12mm tall when closed and weighs a paltry 1.3kg, making it perfect for mobile computing. Sadly, it’s a bit fiddly to open because the lip of the keyboard tray extends past the hard, moulded edges of the lid.

Acer Aspire S7

Its 13.3in touchscreen has a high 1,920×1,080 resolution, which means you can watch Full HD movies at their full resolution. The display’s colours were rich and vibrant in all of our solid-colour image tests. Contrast and brightness levels were also excellent, although we did notice a perceptible dark shadow running across the bottom of the screen, with the worst affected area being the bottom right-hand corner. It’s quite easy to spot in everyday use, too.

Our biggest gripe, however, was with the accuracy of the screen’s touch controls. Tasks that require a certain degree of precision, such as tapping individual files and managing internet tabs, can be difficult to perform.

The display’s glossy finish made it slightly reflective when we were working under bright lights or in direct sunlight. It’s not perfect, then, but at least we didn’t have any trouble finding a comfortable viewing angle thanks to its 180-degree screen tilt.

Sadly, we weren’t impressed by its keyboard. The Chiclet-style keys were well-spaced and had an LED backlight to illuminate them in poor light conditions, but had such little travel that it was almost like typing on a flat surface. This offered little to no tactile feedback, and the hard, sharp edges of the keyboard tray also dug into our wrists, making it difficult to type on the Aspire S7 after a long period of time. We also didn’t like the position of the Pg Up and Pg Dn keys (placed right above the left and right arrow keys) because we regularly hit them accidentally.

Acer Aspire S7

The all-in-one touchpad had its fair share of problems, too. It was accurate, but its smooth finish made moving the cursor across the screen more tiresome than it should be due to its lack of friction.

If you’d rather not have to deal with the touchpad, there’s always the option of using the bundled mouse, which connects to the Aspire S7 wirelessly via Bluetooth. It was a little small for our hands, but we certainly preferred using the mouse than the touchpad.

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Basic Specifications

Rating ***
Processor Intel Core i5-3317U
Processor clock speed 1.7GHz
Memory 4.00GB
Memory slots 0
Memory slots free 0
Maximum memory 4GB
Size 12x323x224mm
Weight 1.3kg
Sound Realtek HD Audio
Pointing device touchpad and touchscreen

Display

Viewable size 13.3 in
Native resolution 1,920×1,080
Graphics Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000
Graphics/video ports micro HDMI
Graphics Memory 128MB

Storage

Total storage capacity 128GB
Optical drive type none

Ports and Expansion

Bluetooth yes
Wired network ports 1x 10/100 via adaptor
Wireless networking support 802.11b/g/n
PC Card slots N/A
Supported memory cards SD, MMC
Other ports 2x USB3, headphone, microphone

Miscellaneous

Carrying case Yes
Operating system Windows 8
Operating system restore option restore partition
Software included N/A
Optional extras N/A

Buying Information

Warranty one year RTB
Price £985
Details www.acer.co.uk
Supplier http://www.kikatek.co.uk