December 26, 2012 at 13:30Something original. Acer Aspire S7 Ultrabook Review
It seems that this is not the first time I have felt that I am holding in my hands what should become the indispensable gadget in everyday life. Tablets, smartphones, laptops - well, that is what I can use every day, not only for entertainment or work, but for entertainment AND work. The main problem with all the gadgets that I have had so far I found that they were ideally suited for only one thing: either for use for work needs, or for entertainment. Usually, if the border was not immediately noticed, it manifested itself on the second or third day of use. Tablets are not convenient at work. And the laptops on the couch are Bolshevat.
And now, finally, I found something that I was comfortable using anytime, anywhere.
This is an ultrabook. Touch Ultrabook Acer Aspire S7. Down with the trade-offs and division of spheres. All in one! Hurrah!
Chipset: Intel HM77
Processor: Intel Core i5-3317U, 1.7 GHz
Memory: 4 GB, DDR3 1600 MHz
Disk: SSD 128 GB (RAID0)
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000
DVD drive: no
Ports: 2xUSB 3.0, microHDMI, adapter for RJ-45
Wireless technologies: Wi-Fi (b / g / n), Bluetooth 4.0
Screen: 13.3 inches, 1920 x 1080, Active Matrix TFT Color LCD matrix, LED-backlight, glossy
Battery: 4680 mAh , 4-cell
Weight: 1.24 kg
Dimensions: 322 x 224 x 12.3 mm
Price: from 49,990 rubles
The moment I opened the Aspire S7 box - I realized - it's all grown-up.
Everything is neatly packed in the box and everything lies in its place.
Even the case comes complete. By the way, the cover is very high-quality, either leather or suede. Gray with Velcro.
The ultrabook goes there perfectly, it even remains possible to carry a couple of contracts or forms in a case. Convenient - no need to carry extra bags.
We have not forgotten about such an important thing for a laptop as a mouse. Not everyone loves touchpads - for such frivolous ones - a beautiful white mouse. The advantage of the mouse is that it works using bluetooth technology (the usb port will not be occupied), as well as the laser sensor here (in addition to high accuracy, there is no red light from the bottom of the mouse).
The charger is small, white, with a narrow connection pin. There are Velcro for winding the wire.
Also, in the box, I found a USB-Lan adapter and micro-HDMI-D-Sub. Both are stylish, white, beautiful.
And so, we came to the most important thing - the most ultrabook Aspire S7.
In a nutshell: he is beautiful. I'm already used to the fact that Apple has been dictating fashion for a long time. On smartphones, it's the iPhone; on laptops (and ultrabooks), it's the MacBook. So I expected to see something metallic, gray and dull (um, no, nothing personal, it’s just become boring). So: this did not happen. Opening the section of the box where the ultrabook was lying, I was stupefied.
Glass white panel of the top cover, white plastic housing, aluminum hinges ...
Opening the ultrabook, I also saw aluminum and glass. The keyboard keys are plastic, but yes it doesn’t matter. It is important that all this looks very lively and original. Case materials are very good. The assembly is beautiful, does not creak anything, does not bend.
I took the ultrabook in my hands and realized - it is very thin (in fact it turned out to be thinner than macbook air) - 12.3 mm! It is very cool! Weight 1.24 kg for 13 inches is a feather. Despite the materials, the engineers managed to keep the ultrabook light! The dimensions of the device are as follows: 322 * 224 mm. More A4 sheet, well, that's 13 inches! In addition, the glass that was used in the design turned out to be Gorilla Glass 2! And this means that it is not just beautiful, it is very durable! This adds a hundred points to the notebook under the “strength” item! And on the item "style" - a thousand!
The luminous logo constantly reminded me of something, but I still didn’t understand that ...
If you go through the thin spots of an ultrabook, you can find: on the left side is a charger connector, a micro-HDMI port, a headphone jack and a power button.
The right side placed two USB 3.0 ports, as well as an SD-MMC card reader.
On the back side there are ventilation grills and that's it.
At the bottom of the laptop, in addition to rubber legs, there are two speakers, an air intake grille, as well as cover bolts.
In addition, I found two interesting mounts (threaded connections). Googling a little, I found out that for an ultrabook there is one interesting accessory - an additional battery. It is attached to the bottom and performs four functions at once: the first - actually - increases the operating time, the second - makes the ultrabook tilt angle steeper - easier to print, the third - makes it easier to take the ultrabook, and the fourth - allows air to enter the ventilation system more easily and not get blocked dust.
The keyboard here is also unusual. That is, how - the keys are ordinary (16 * 16 mm), gray. There is a backlight for the keys (for some reason, green), with automatic adjustment.
The unusual thing is that the keyboard does not have a number of F-buttons. Their functions are transferred to ordinary numeric keys.
In addition, the Caps Lock button is truncated; due to its reduction, the “~ (ё)” button is located next to it. A strange decision, but in my life it did not stop me. I have long been accustomed to the long Enter and slash over it, as well as to the small arrows.
But the touchpad here is what you need - 60 * 116 mm, glass, multi-touch, everything is like people have!
Well, okay, what are we all around, and about we go? The main advantage of an ultrabook is not at all in all of this! And in the touch FullHD display!
Yes, you were not mistaken: the display is finally FullHD. Resolution for 13 inches is more than enough (let apple lovers keep silent for now). In some places I even had to torment myself: to increase the font in the browser and in the system. Everything is too small. But this is rather a plus - more is possible - less is not.
Secondly, as you already understood, the Active Matrix TFT Color LCD display matrix means excellent viewing angles (178 degrees), brightness, color and contrast. The screen didn’t hit me. But the screen quality is very good. At least I forgot about the terrible TN 1366 * 768 as a nightmare. The display has a very small frame (Frameless), and it is also very thin (that is, there is no gap between the glass and the display), everything looks more lively and feels nice.
Thirdly, yes! Touch screen! 10-finger multi-touch. That's cool! Cool that coupled with Windows 8 gives almost perfect work in any way using an ultrabook. After all, as we already learned, if you don’t like touchpads and touch screens, then there’s a mouse for you.
Also, so that you can fully experience the capabilities and advantages of the touch screen, the lid of the laptop opens to ... about 190 degrees (more than completely).
A camera and a light sensor are located above the screen (adjusts the keyboard backlight).
The filling on the ultrabook is appropriate. Here you have the latest Intel processor - core i5 3317U, and the fastest SSD. All that Windows showed the maximum rating ... which, unfortunately, she could not do.
Well, it doesn’t matter. In my opinion, these indicators are quite good for themselves. 5.4 - and that, only because of the graphics (it is built-in Intel HD4000 here).
If you twist the synthetics, then PCMark gave out about 4700 parrots, and 3dMark - 616 marks. Is it a lot or a little? I do not know. But for my tasks, this is good.
The read and write speeds of SSDs reached 907 and 363 MB, respectively. But in reality, this meant a reboot in seconds and a half seconds of getting out of sleep.
Of course, when you see the thickness, weight and filling, you involuntarily ask yourself: how long will it last? The answer will be this: I did not receive the 11 hours certified by the manufacturer, but when I surfed the Internet I got 5.5 hours. And under load (the benchmark was spinning without stopping at maximum brightness) the ultrabook sagged for 1.5 hours! This is not that good - it is very good in my opinion!
Unfortunately, under load, I found a lack of such a good device. The processor heats up, the cooler turns on ... and buzzes. Buzzes loud enough. The film, of course, does not drown out, but when you work in silence it is heard very much. But, fortunately, he quickly copes with the task and falls silent. The system, although loud, is very effective.
The operating system is Windows 8. I think readers have long been familiar with it. I’ll tell you that Acer, as usual, did not stuff the system with all sorts of nasty things, but installed only an antivirus and a couple of its proprietary utilities.
Office, unfortunately, is not installed. Only a link to the trial. Well, yes I can do it myself!
For the sake of interest, I downloaded some benchmark from the Windows store and drove it away. What do these numbers mean? I don’t know yet.
In general, I was very pleased with the ultrabook. Unless the cooler is annoying on the cooler side, I caught a small software glitch: Wi-Fi sometimes disappears on the home network (TP-Link router) for a minute. He himself appears. I didn’t notice this at work. Yes, and the ugly keyboard is certainly a minus to the device.
As usual - about the price at the last moment. From 50 thousand rubles - in my opinion an ultrabook costs this money, but at least there are plenty of competitors for this price (and each will have its own disadvantages and advantages).
And now, finally, I found something that I was comfortable using anytime, anywhere.
This is an ultrabook. Touch Ultrabook Acer Aspire S7. Down with the trade-offs and division of spheres. All in one! Hurrah!
Main characteristics
Chipset: Intel HM77
Processor: Intel Core i5-3317U, 1.7 GHz
Memory: 4 GB, DDR3 1600 MHz
Disk: SSD 128 GB (RAID0)
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000
DVD drive: no
Ports: 2xUSB 3.0, microHDMI, adapter for RJ-45
Wireless technologies: Wi-Fi (b / g / n), Bluetooth 4.0
Screen: 13.3 inches, 1920 x 1080, Active Matrix TFT Color LCD matrix, LED-backlight, glossy
Battery: 4680 mAh , 4-cell
Weight: 1.24 kg
Dimensions: 322 x 224 x 12.3 mm
Price: from 49,990 rubles
Equipment
The moment I opened the Aspire S7 box - I realized - it's all grown-up.
Everything is neatly packed in the box and everything lies in its place.
Even the case comes complete. By the way, the cover is very high-quality, either leather or suede. Gray with Velcro.
The ultrabook goes there perfectly, it even remains possible to carry a couple of contracts or forms in a case. Convenient - no need to carry extra bags.
We have not forgotten about such an important thing for a laptop as a mouse. Not everyone loves touchpads - for such frivolous ones - a beautiful white mouse. The advantage of the mouse is that it works using bluetooth technology (the usb port will not be occupied), as well as the laser sensor here (in addition to high accuracy, there is no red light from the bottom of the mouse).
The charger is small, white, with a narrow connection pin. There are Velcro for winding the wire.
Also, in the box, I found a USB-Lan adapter and micro-HDMI-D-Sub. Both are stylish, white, beautiful.
Get to the point
And so, we came to the most important thing - the most ultrabook Aspire S7.
In a nutshell: he is beautiful. I'm already used to the fact that Apple has been dictating fashion for a long time. On smartphones, it's the iPhone; on laptops (and ultrabooks), it's the MacBook. So I expected to see something metallic, gray and dull (um, no, nothing personal, it’s just become boring). So: this did not happen. Opening the section of the box where the ultrabook was lying, I was stupefied.
Glass white panel of the top cover, white plastic housing, aluminum hinges ...
Opening the ultrabook, I also saw aluminum and glass. The keyboard keys are plastic, but yes it doesn’t matter. It is important that all this looks very lively and original. Case materials are very good. The assembly is beautiful, does not creak anything, does not bend.
I took the ultrabook in my hands and realized - it is very thin (in fact it turned out to be thinner than macbook air) - 12.3 mm! It is very cool! Weight 1.24 kg for 13 inches is a feather. Despite the materials, the engineers managed to keep the ultrabook light! The dimensions of the device are as follows: 322 * 224 mm. More A4 sheet, well, that's 13 inches! In addition, the glass that was used in the design turned out to be Gorilla Glass 2! And this means that it is not just beautiful, it is very durable! This adds a hundred points to the notebook under the “strength” item! And on the item "style" - a thousand!
The luminous logo constantly reminded me of something, but I still didn’t understand that ...
If you go through the thin spots of an ultrabook, you can find: on the left side is a charger connector, a micro-HDMI port, a headphone jack and a power button.
The right side placed two USB 3.0 ports, as well as an SD-MMC card reader.
On the back side there are ventilation grills and that's it.
At the bottom of the laptop, in addition to rubber legs, there are two speakers, an air intake grille, as well as cover bolts.
In addition, I found two interesting mounts (threaded connections). Googling a little, I found out that for an ultrabook there is one interesting accessory - an additional battery. It is attached to the bottom and performs four functions at once: the first - actually - increases the operating time, the second - makes the ultrabook tilt angle steeper - easier to print, the third - makes it easier to take the ultrabook, and the fourth - allows air to enter the ventilation system more easily and not get blocked dust.
The keyboard here is also unusual. That is, how - the keys are ordinary (16 * 16 mm), gray. There is a backlight for the keys (for some reason, green), with automatic adjustment.
The unusual thing is that the keyboard does not have a number of F-buttons. Their functions are transferred to ordinary numeric keys.
In addition, the Caps Lock button is truncated; due to its reduction, the “~ (ё)” button is located next to it. A strange decision, but in my life it did not stop me. I have long been accustomed to the long Enter and slash over it, as well as to the small arrows.
But the touchpad here is what you need - 60 * 116 mm, glass, multi-touch, everything is like people have!
Trump cards
Well, okay, what are we all around, and about we go? The main advantage of an ultrabook is not at all in all of this! And in the touch FullHD display!
Yes, you were not mistaken: the display is finally FullHD. Resolution for 13 inches is more than enough (let apple lovers keep silent for now). In some places I even had to torment myself: to increase the font in the browser and in the system. Everything is too small. But this is rather a plus - more is possible - less is not.
Secondly, as you already understood, the Active Matrix TFT Color LCD display matrix means excellent viewing angles (178 degrees), brightness, color and contrast. The screen didn’t hit me. But the screen quality is very good. At least I forgot about the terrible TN 1366 * 768 as a nightmare. The display has a very small frame (Frameless), and it is also very thin (that is, there is no gap between the glass and the display), everything looks more lively and feels nice.
Thirdly, yes! Touch screen! 10-finger multi-touch. That's cool! Cool that coupled with Windows 8 gives almost perfect work in any way using an ultrabook. After all, as we already learned, if you don’t like touchpads and touch screens, then there’s a mouse for you.
Also, so that you can fully experience the capabilities and advantages of the touch screen, the lid of the laptop opens to ... about 190 degrees (more than completely).
A camera and a light sensor are located above the screen (adjusts the keyboard backlight).
Formative Power
The filling on the ultrabook is appropriate. Here you have the latest Intel processor - core i5 3317U, and the fastest SSD. All that Windows showed the maximum rating ... which, unfortunately, she could not do.
Well, it doesn’t matter. In my opinion, these indicators are quite good for themselves. 5.4 - and that, only because of the graphics (it is built-in Intel HD4000 here).
If you twist the synthetics, then PCMark gave out about 4700 parrots, and 3dMark - 616 marks. Is it a lot or a little? I do not know. But for my tasks, this is good.
The read and write speeds of SSDs reached 907 and 363 MB, respectively. But in reality, this meant a reboot in seconds and a half seconds of getting out of sleep.
Of course, when you see the thickness, weight and filling, you involuntarily ask yourself: how long will it last? The answer will be this: I did not receive the 11 hours certified by the manufacturer, but when I surfed the Internet I got 5.5 hours. And under load (the benchmark was spinning without stopping at maximum brightness) the ultrabook sagged for 1.5 hours! This is not that good - it is very good in my opinion!
Unfortunately, under load, I found a lack of such a good device. The processor heats up, the cooler turns on ... and buzzes. Buzzes loud enough. The film, of course, does not drown out, but when you work in silence it is heard very much. But, fortunately, he quickly copes with the task and falls silent. The system, although loud, is very effective.
The operating system is Windows 8. I think readers have long been familiar with it. I’ll tell you that Acer, as usual, did not stuff the system with all sorts of nasty things, but installed only an antivirus and a couple of its proprietary utilities.
Office, unfortunately, is not installed. Only a link to the trial. Well, yes I can do it myself!
For the sake of interest, I downloaded some benchmark from the Windows store and drove it away. What do these numbers mean? I don’t know yet.
Summary
In general, I was very pleased with the ultrabook. Unless the cooler is annoying on the cooler side, I caught a small software glitch: Wi-Fi sometimes disappears on the home network (TP-Link router) for a minute. He himself appears. I didn’t notice this at work. Yes, and the ugly keyboard is certainly a minus to the device.
As usual - about the price at the last moment. From 50 thousand rubles - in my opinion an ultrabook costs this money, but at least there are plenty of competitors for this price (and each will have its own disadvantages and advantages).