Not an Apple clone
It can't be a Mac - it has a Del key!
It's almost impossible to view Acer's Aspire S3 - the company's first laptop built to Intel's Ultrabook spec - and not think of the MacBook Air. Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook Acer's S3: shades of the MacBook Air? There's the metallic look, the sunken keyboard, the sparse port array, the - a first time for a Windows machine? - …
"Acer is pricing aggressively - from €799 (£699), it suggested this week - so the S3 looks set to undercut the Air significantly"
Only $200 more for the entry MacBook Air is not such a huge premium for the original 'Ultrabook' and you get an actual metal body, not silver plastic. Rigidity and scratch resistance are really important for thin, very portable devices if you expect them to last very long.
"Acer is pricing aggressively - from €799 (£699) ... so the S3 looks set to undercut the Air significantly, though I'll bet you won't get a directly comparable spec, despite the discount."
Of course not. At the very least Acer supplied memory won't have the insane markup Apple apply to their RAM upgrades...
This looks like a nice little machine for the price, although I'd like to see the full specs and prices!
Only 2 USB ports mean you can't even hook up an external DVD drive (with their usual dual USB Y cables) and a mouse at the same time.
One more manufacturer following the current retarded hype over Apple products that are starved like fashion models into something less than useful.
I can't wait till all this apple hype is over, the lemmings go home, all the religious apple zealots go home and spare the rest of the world with their gushing.
Y-cables are for laptops with low-power USB ports - this one will, I suspect, have a full-power USB port.
FWIW, I have an LG external optical that runs of a single USB port on every machine I've used it with, from netbooks up.
http://www.reghardware.com/2008/12/01/review_external_dvd_writer_lg_gp08/
I believe the thinking with this (as indicated by them being at the back) is that you have a USB hub at home with everything plugged into the hub. Then, just plug the hub into one of the USB ports at the back leaving the other spare for anything requiring a decent pull of power. Certainly that is how I've done things in the past and it works rather well.
I find it a little strange that the new Ultrabooks keep getting compared to the MacBook Air
Apple's offerings extend beyond the external look of the system. Most [not all] people buy Apples due to there personal preference to OSX, some just want [to try?] something "different"
Sure, the new Ultrabooks do mimic the look and feel of the Air, but perhaps we need to be a little patient and compare Acer's offerings to those of Toshiba and Samsung once their products are out and about. The only common denominators currently are a thin brushed aluminium chassis with an Intel Core processor. It goes way beyond that.
Right now I do not believe we're really comparing "Apples with Apples"
You can't upgrade the RAM on a MacBook air. Looking at the bottom of this, it may not be that easy to upgrade this thing either Maybe it might be an idea to temper the frothing mac-hate with a smidgeon of reality once in a little while?
It is a clone and like most clones it will offer a cheaper product more cheaply manufactured so you pays your moneynand you takes your choice. People with good reasons to buy Airs (whatever those may be) will still buy Airs. Some other will buuy this. Some will buy tablets. Some will buy 'full fat' laptops.
In short, the story claims itself as a mountain, when in fact it's more of a molehill.