Acer claims first Core-i7 Ultrabook

At IFA in Berlin today, Acer took the wraps off its first Ultrabook, the Aspire S3. At 1.3kg and 13mm thick it falls well within Intel’s 18mm max to claim this slimline performance computing marque. Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook Also requisite is an Intel Core-i Sandy Bridge ULV CPU, with Acer making claims to be the first to …

[Gotno iShit Wantno iShit]

Fashion victim?

Looks nice. Does it have a letter box or a useful screen?

[Piro]

Acer..

Reliability™

[Anonymous Coward]

First to market, after apple

...which makes it second to market, unless my counting skills have a serious dose of fail just now.

You may now all congratulate me for being the first person to make a comment* on the reg.

* With this particular combination of words.

[zb]

Battery

I wonder if you can swap the battery without taking it to a shop.

[Anonymous Coward]

what is new?

So what is the difference between this and stuff like the Sony Vaio S or Z that have been around for a while?

(Not taking anything away from it being a nice bit of kit... just wondering where is the innovation?)

[Anonymous Coward]

Eww

Ports on the back are never nice, especially USB...

[Bassey]

Re: Eww

"Ports on the back are never nice, especially USB..."

I would normally agree but not in this form factor. These ultra-slim laptops have few ports so it is common to have either a docking station or even just a USB hub back at base - in which case having the USB port at the back, to slide into the docking station, makes perfect sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it include...

...a DVD/Blu-ray drive?

[Gordon 10]

How come

Apple have been making these sort of laptops for years but yet the rest of the laptop makers need a hefty kick from Intels marketing dollars to even show an interest in competing?

And secondly for those prices how many people are going to pay for an Acer when they can get a MacBook Air?

Fail.

[dogged]

"how many people are going to pay for an Acer"

Business. Everyone with locked-down Active Directory policies. Everyone who doesn't want to buy into the Cult of Mac.

Quite a few people, I expect.

Also, with the "Aluminium = MacBook Air ripoff" attitude, I was expecting a Tony Smith byline.

[slith]

Uh?

First Core-i7 ultrabook? isn't the macbook air an ultrabook? The high end 13-inch can be configured with an "1.8GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7"...

[Synonymous Howard]

So can the 11" MBA

Mine has a 1.8ghz dual core i7 in it .. the wife loves it and has appropriated it !

Acer clearly didn't see the announcement from Apple back in July ... unless its a different core i7 that is i7++ or some other minor difference like a different intel model number.

I so much of an Apple clone though .. watch out for their lawyers.

[Mondo the Magnificent]

MacWannabe?

To quote the article "prices ranging from €799 to €1199 and will presumably be much the same in sterling"

So, this means a cheaper (and more costly) alternative to the Jobsian 13" offering, even though the top end models has a higher spec than the 13" MacBook models.

It sure mimics the MacBook Pro look and feel, but at the end of the day it's an Acer running Windows, and that in itself doesn't quite justify the somewhat steep premium in my book...

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

Acer running Windows?

Not when I have finished installing Linux.

Only I wouldn't because it seems to lack a good enough video board for my kind of OpenCL and CUDA code. Shame that.

Mine is the one with the OpenCL reference card in the pocket

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice

Nice.

[Dean_]

Finally

Finally a laptop with some I/O at the back. Lately, manufacturers have been putting the hinge/battery at the back with the I/O on the sides, this makes it incredibly awkward to use a mouse with something plugged into the side, getting in the way.

[Rupert Stubbs]

"... hard to use a mouse..."

If you have to use a mouse, then the trackpad isn't done right. Apple's is.

[Anonymous Coward]

Get ready...

for a call from Apples legal team... that looks exactly like a MacBook Pro.

[Peter Mc Aulay]

Hmmm

The claims in the PowerPoint slides do feature an awful lot of asterisks, which usually means "* Not actually true; ** Bald-faced lie", etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh god...

...I see the Apple fanbois are out in force here today.

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is...

...Tony when we need him? :-)

[Giles Jones]

Slim = compromised

This obsession with slimness is a bit of a pointless exercise. It just means smaller batteries, shorter battery life and lower clock speeds as a result.

Weight is the real killer with a laptop.

[jai]

50 days?

there ought to be a law against using pointless statistics to advertise products.

50 days in deep-sleep mode? my car gets a billion miles to the gallon when it's parked in my drive way!

[Anonymous Coward]

except your car hasn't done any miles

but yes point accepted. 50 days in sleep mode ? who gives a ****.

I'd accept that your car doesn't use any fuel whilst sat parked on your driveway (bar maybe some evaporation/leaks, but with a petrol/diesil cap on that would be really small) .So something like it's using 0 gallons / day would be okay...

sorry for being pedantic, I'm a computer programmer !