We actually reviewed an Aspire S3 ultrabook a couple of months ago, but that was the Core i5 version selling for A$1,349. Since then, Acer has dropped the price on its entry-level Core i3 model, making the Aspire S3 951-2364G34iss the first ultrabook in Australia for under $1,000. The chassis is basically the same as the pricier model, with the main difference being that slower chip. Internally, you get Intel’s 1.4GHz Core i3-2367M low-voltage processor along with 4GB of RAM and a 320GB Hitachi hard drive.
There’s only integrated Intel HD graphics and no optical drive, but you still get Intel’s Rapid Start Technology and a built-in 20GB solid-state drive (SSD), which enables quick start times. Unfortunately, the battery isn’t user-removable and Acer describes it only as a ‘three-cell’ unit. Still, on our testing, it ran for 3 hours 19 minutes, which is a fair result given similar competition.
What we like most about the Aspire S3 is its sturdy build quality. It certainly looks and feels like a MacBook Air, although the only ports you see on the side are a headphone socket on the left and an SD card reader on the right. You get two USB ports plus HDMI on the rear. There’s no Ethernet port here, but 802.11b/g/n wireless and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity are included.
Unfortunately, the application performance matches the price — this low-voltage Core i3-based model scored 33.67 on our UserBench Encode media-encoding benchmark, whereas the Core i5 version scored 48.7. Based on that, we think the Core i5 version is slightly better value. If you only have $1,000 to spend and want an ultrabook, this will get the job done, though.
