Acer Aspire S3-951-6432 13.3-Inch HD Display Ultrabook

I got this laptop as a designer since I'm always showing clients and others my works. It's always handy to have when I need to mock something up and design on my laptop, on the spot, and in front of them.

It's extremely fast, especially since Acer included it's "instant on" feature. My PC at home takes about 1 minute to load up before I can use it and start opening applications, on the contrary, this baby is on within seconds and ready to go. The core i7 processor also makes this a speed demon when you're opening up applications like photoshop, illustrator, indesign, or any CPU heavy applications you throw at it. It handles them all quick and easy unlike any other laptop I've ever used. The 240GB Solid State Drive or SSD is blazing fast, both read and write speeds. Large files can be transferred in seconds when before it may have taken minutes on another laptop with a standard 5400RPM or 7200RPM Hard drive. Though at only 240GB, you are limited. This isn't a laptop you'd store your entire music, movie, and entertainment collection onto. You can still fit a ton of stuff onto 240GB, but I'd install all necessary applications first, and then add the fun stuff for last so you know you have room on your hard drive.

The speakers sound surprisingly good considering how thin and small the body is. They aren't anything amazing, but better than most laptops built in speakers. A cheap pair for 2.1 stereo speakers for home use would be a lot better though, especially if you listen to music or plan to watch movies.

The webcam is really clear and I tested it with a video call on Skype. In lower light it tends to muddy and darken everything, but in a bright and well lit room everything seems to be fine and look as it should. I don't really ever video chat online, so webcams aren't too important on my list of things.

The built is exceptionally well for plastic. I thought it would be aluminum like the Macbook air. (Come on...well all know this is a pretty obvious mac clone haha) I bring this with me in my backpack everywhere, and it seems to be fine and not scratching up at all. I don't use any type of sleeve or case besides the laptop section of my back pack.

Battery life is decent, I can get maybe 3 hours of real usage out of it before I need to plug in the charger. Most laptops are advertised with an amazing battery life, but to actually achieve hours and hours, you'd have to have wifi off, your screen brightness super low, and not run any CPU intensive applications. Everyone's different with how they use a computer, so some might see decent battery life, others might see poor. Me? I'm happy with it, 3 hours is plenty for me, plus I always bring the charger just in case! If I am working with someone on my laptop though, I will have the charger plugged into it, even if I have several hours of battery life left.

One neat thing about this laptop is the fact that all the ports are on the back. In recent years, manufactures have moved all the ports to the left and right sides of laptops, but Acer pushed them to the rear side like the good old days. This leaves the sides sleek and stylish, clean looking too. The only thing on the side though is the SD card slot, but it's so thin, you barely notice it.

The touch pad is easy to slide your fingers across, it has no texture, meaning your fingers can slide and spin, like a skater in an ice ring. There are no separate left and right mouse buttons, but you can press down psychically on the touch pad on the bottom right and left corners to click. By default, you can also tap your finger anywhere on the touch pad to click.

I don't really care for the power button being on the screen itself. It's kind of awkward to push in my opinion, and you have to apply some pressure to it. It's not hard to push; it just feels like an odd spot to have been placed honestly. I wouldn't consider this a negative feature though.

It's a Macbook Air clone that runs windows, and it's made by Acer. Would I take a real Macbook Air over this? No. Remember, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." I highly recommend this laptop, even if you purchase the lower end models. It's beautiful, it's quick, it's portable, and it's amazing. I give it 5/5 stars!

This laptop was a replacement for my Macbook, which had reached the end of its usable life. I decided not to buy another Mac, because I am having to spend an ever increasing amount of time remoting into my office computer (PC) with a new job I took last year, and this process is seamless from a PC->PC but not so much from a Mac->PC. I was pretty bummed about being forced to leave the Macbook world, but I'm pleased to report that I got the best of both worlds with the S3: an Apple-like physical experience on a Windows computer.

Style -The S3 is almost IDENTICAL to the Macbook Air, so I really wasn't forced to carry around an ugly PC like I'd feared. Are there some minor differences in styling between the two? Sure, but they're pretty darn close. I'm obsessive about design/style/looks, and I am very very happy with the styling of the S3.

Durability -The S3 is pretty solid. Unlike other ultrabooks that I looked at, the S3 is sturdy and not at all flimsy. I don't feel like I have to baby it.

Portability -WOW! I can't tell you how much I love the thin, lightweight design. Pictures don't do it justice; you need to feel it in your hands to fully appreciate how insanely easy it is to carry this thing around or let it rest in your lap.

Performance -I run a number of resource-intensive applications (Photoshop, Illustrator, Visual Studio, Skype, etc), and it handles them all effortlessly. Also, the SSD drive is definitely worth the money. Boot time is crazy fast, sleep restore is near instant (

Buy Acer Aspire S3-951-6432 13.3-Inch HD Display Ultrabook Now