Acer Aspire S3-391-6899 13.3-Inch Ultrabook (Champagne)

I can’t believe that there are no reviews for this item and I was a little hesitant to buy it since it did not have any reviews. I was also looking at the Zenbook but the reviews were mixed and the price was high, I decided I could wait a few more years for them to work out the glitches. I have tried all major brands out there and they were just ok to absolutely horrible, and I really can do without a disk drive as I never really used them in my other lap tops and why bother paying for something you won’t use.

This is lightweight, the screen is great, the touch pad is large and all the connections are on the back which is a personal preference for myself. I bought this mainly to take with me on road trips and for dedicated use for personal stuff. My favorite feature is the bluetooth, I connected a stereo headset and found the sound quality to be crisp and clear, perfect for those times when I may want to listen to something without disturbing others.

I got an awesome deal with a amazon promotion so for the 550.00 I paid for this I found it to be an exceptional value given the size, weight and features!! A great item and price for students!!!

I’ve only had my new ultrabook for a month. So far, it’s been problem free. I thought it would be difficult to adapt to the very flat keyboard, but it’s great. I type VERY fast (over 140 wpm), and it hasn’t hampered my speed in the least. Someone commented that the screen shakes when you’re typing. I’ve found that if the laptop is on a stable surface (i.e., table), the screen stays rock steady. The other user might have the lid open too far, causing an instability. I’d recommend adjusting the screen angle, and then it’s good. Another negative comment I read was about the touchpad. I can’t really comment on that, since I don’t care for touchpads, and am using an external mouse. So far, it’s fast and reliable, without any problems.

My only reason for 4 stars, instead of 5, is that I wish the laptop had more USB ports and the USB port placement. It only has 2 USB ports, and if I need to get something off a flash drive, I have to unplug something else, since I’m often charging my iPad, while using a USB mounted IR mouse. Also, the USB ports are on the back of the laptop — not a great placement. But given the thickness of this laptop, that’s about the only place with room to mount the USB’s.

Overall, I’m glad I purchased this laptop, and I can recommend it.

Tried one of the zenbooks from Asus and was incredibly disappointed. This machine on the other hand is almost perfect. Fairly quiet, beautiful screen, good fit/finish and solid. Runs latest Linux mint perfectly. Suspend even works!

Would recommend to anyone.

I’m a stickler for light weight, so I really took to the Aspire S3 when I first saw it. Its a very sleek, light ultrabook, the size/weight specs alone really fit the numbers I was looking for. I’ve noticed several variants around the web for this very machine, with i3 cpus on up. I have an i5 quad core @ 1.6MHz, and its plenty fast for me. The display is large enough for when I’m traveling, but I often plug it into a 26 inch LCD I keep at home using the on-board hdmi port. Two USB ports are enough for me as well, I just plug in a usb hub if I need more, which is rare. Although this is my main machine now, I love it, I have two problems with it; first it would be nice to be able to add more ram to it, but Acer chose to solder the 4 gigs in. That was almost a show-stopper for me, Windows 7 runs best with at least 6, but since I wanted to run Linux on this machine anyway, and Linux can be very ram efficient, I decided I could live with the limit. 2nd, although the battery life is often stated as being 5.5 hours on a full charge, I’ve found that the real number is about 2. One caveat to this is this particular unit was actually an Office Depot demo, so I got it for a good price, but I suspect it was plugged in all the time, for months. I’ve ordered a replacement, so we’ll see how long it can ride with a new battery. Anyway, if you’re like me and place a high value on low weight with a decent sized display, you could do a lot worse than this machine.

-Light, very light!
-Great autonomy
-Fast: windows 7(purposefully not 8) and 64 bits help a lot. My Pale Moon browser flies in it. Surprising for a core i3.
-It supersedes expectations: the screen is wonderful for the size of the computer
-Integrated camera, microphone and speakers. All do nowadays, but not many are this slim.

Drawbacks:
-Don’t like the load of programs it comes with, although I understand it helps pay the bill. All do.
-It has no DVD reader. May not be so important for the state of the art technology on media storage and easy to fix with an external reader.
-It only has two USB ports. Again fixable with a multiple USB port jack

All in all certainly worth its price. I love it. It has the touch of the Mac-book with the benefits of windows 7.

PROS: For a college student like me, this ultrabook fit my needs perfectly: it’s light, fast (boots up fast, loads pages/programs/files fast), looks beautiful, and has a great, well-spaced out keyboard (extremely important for comfortable/efficient essay writing). To top it all, it is also decently priced.

CONS: The speakers are definitely not the best.. They’re not even as good as the ones on my EEE PC Netbook, which should really tell you something. So if quality speakers for a laptop are a priority for you, beware. However, when I plug my headphones in, the sound is loud and crisp, so this issue was easily fixed for me.

In order to test out whether this ultrabook could run any video games, I installed the Sims 3 on it. It actually ran very well and rarely lagged. However, after only about an hour and a half of playing the game, the ultrabook became extremely hot.. so hot that I was worried something might happen if I didn’t turn it off. Obviously, this laptop isn’t advertised as a gaming machine, but I just thought I’d throw that out there in case anyone was curious. It can handle (some) gaming like this, if only for a short while.

SO-SO: WINDOWS 8
There’s a lot of bad-mouthing going on regarding Windows 8 at the moment. I originally thought – if it’s not a touch screen laptop, what’s the point of having Windows 8 on it it all?
After using it for a little while though, I’ve gotten used to the interface fairly quickly. The Start button / menu with all those tiles basically works like a home screen for apps, most of which are pretty useless. You still have a desktop though, so don’t worry; switching between the two is quick and easy. Navigating your settings, control panels, etc, just takes a bit getting used to. Once you make shortcuts for them wherever you like, using Windows 8 becomes a breeze. I know it’s hard to get used to (what most of us think are unnecessary) changes to the Windows we’ve all known for years, but once you spend a little time getting used to the interface, Windows 8 will work just fine for you.

So basically, if you’re on a budget and want a laptop that is thin, light, looks great, has a great keyboard, and a decently sized track-pad, this is probably the ultrabook for you.