Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook

What first strikes me about the Acer Aspire S3 is that it is a very thin and light laptop. I've not compared it measure for measure with a Apple MacBook Air but I'd guess it's very close to it. Turn the S3 over and it looks a bit too much like the first generation Air, but open in up and start using it and there's no doubt this is a Windows ? PC. Basically, this is a PC that you can easily carry around with you almost anywhere and it's not going to be a bother.

The Acer Aspire S3 we had for testing was the higher-end model with Intel Core i7 2637M 1.7GHz processor, 4GB RAM, and 120GB Intel SSD. The graphics are Intel's Sandy Bridge processor graphics, HD 3000, and the computer runs Windows 7 Home Premium. All this achieved a WorldBench score of 102, which is not very impressive, but in actual use everything was quick and snappy. I didn't do anything heavy like process video with the S3, and it's not really the sort of computer you would do much of that with anyway. Keep in mind though that this was the S3 with Core i7 processor. The Acer Aspire S3 lineup starts with a Core i3 processor.
One thing that particularly impressed with the Acer Aspire S3 was wakeup and reboot times. When the system is running and you close the display and want to get back into windows, it takes just over a second for the Windows login screen to appear. Even a reboot is very quick and not something you have to loathe anymore.

 
The outside of the very glossy 13.3-inch display (1366×768 pixels) is brushed aluminum but the main part of the Acer Aspire S3 is made out of something else, magnesium alloy I suspect. Although the two materials are very close to each other in appearance and touch, I would have preferred Acer to stick to one of them throughout, it would give the S3 a classier appearance as well as feel, I think.
Acer has decided to put Dolby Home Theater on the Acer Aspire S3 with two speakers on the bottom, one on the left and one on the right. Although the sound is not bad for this type of computer I'd say it's nothing to boast about. If you really care about great sound from the S3 you will get external speakers or headphones anyway. Also on the outside we find two USB ports on the rear next to HDMI port, AC adapter port and the exhaust from the processor fan. On the left side there's a 3.5mm audio jack and on the right side you find a SD card slot.
In terms of battery life the Acer Aspire S3 shut itself down after almost exactly five hours of Wi-Fi work on battery saving mode. I was on the web, writing, chat, Twitter, etc. doing my normal work without anything taxing the system and I got a warning about battery running out after about four and a half hours. Then at just about five hours, Windows shut itself down. That's not bad considering the specifications and size but if Acer could tweak that to get another hour out of the S3, that would be really good. As it stands, the S3 is at least a credible option for a full day's worth of work for many of us.
My main complaint about the Acer Aspire S3 is the keyboard and trackpad. The keyboard feels "swampy" (what an expression!), with little to no click to it, which I don't like, and the way the arrow keys and page up and down are organized is just a recipe for hitting the wrong key. Same goes for the return key, which is partnered up with "\" and I can't tell you know many times I typed "\" instead of return. The trackpad I kept hitting by mistake and it clicked, scrolled and did all sorts of things even after I had turned off almost all the gesture options; to me it seems there was clearly something wrong there. I was told by an Acer representative that these were both pre-production, and that at least the trackpad will be improved before shipping and I hope that's true.

Windows 8

Windows 8 is beginning to take shape. At a developer conference at the start of June, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer showed off some of the features that will be included in the next version of Windows. It’s not due for release until next year, but we’ve now got a pretty good idea of what to expect from what may prove to be the last ever Windows operating system.
Both Apple CEO Steve Jobs and former Microsoft big-wig Ray Ozzie have said that we are entering a 'post-PC' world. So the challenge for Windows 8 is to prove that desktop computing as we know it is not consigned to history.
We’re far from sure that Windows as we know it is done with yet, but the details we’ve seen so far suggest Microsoft has rethought how we interact with technology in a far more substantial way than ever before. Software will be written in programming languages more applicable to the web, while Explorer menus and even windows themselves look set to be shown the door. Not everything will be radically different, of course, but there’s enough that is to pique even the anti-Microsoft brigade’s interest.
Here, we look at some of those features in detail, outline what we’d like to see in Windows 8, and report on what’s still missing.
We also take a look at the alternatives to Windows, from Apple’s brand-new OS X 10.7 Lion to the most user-friendly version of Linux to date, and the OS that perhaps offers the clearest indication of where desktop computing is heading.

Dell XPS 15 L502X

Although we've seen the Dell XPS 15 L502X before the P11F is a slightly different ? laptop that comes with a touch screen. As an entertainment-focused laptop the touch screen offers a different way to watch DVDs, for example, letting you select options on-screen rather than use the touchpad, making the experience ever-so-slightly easier. However, when navigating around Windows it really isn't much of an advantage.

Although Windows 7 was designed to support touch screens, there are still too many fiddly menus to navigate, and pressing the screen of a laptop feels slightly odd in comparison to pressing the screen of a handheld device. It takes some getting used to, but ultimately you'll still probably find yourself using the physical keyboard and touchpad for most tasks. Bear in mind, though, that Windows 8 will be much more touch-friendly and is likely to be released in around a year's time. So if you're prepared to wait and make the upgrade to the next-generation of Windows when it comes the Dell XPS 15 L502X P11F could come into its own.

The touchscreen on the Dell XPS 15 L502X P11F seems to be little more than a gimmick. There's no stylus provided, meaning you'll be using your fingers, and the screen's glossy finish shows up greasy fingerprints a treat. It's also a pain to use in bright conditions, the reflective finish meaning that you need to be careful where you place the laptop in relation to any light sources.
If you want to watch movies on your laptop the Dell XPS 15 L502X P11F is a pretty good choice, although far from perfect. The screen doesn't support full HD (though you will find variations of this model available with a resolution of 1920x1080, albeit without touchscreen functionality) and the standard optical drive doesn't read Blu-ray Discs, but again you can pay extra for this feature should you want it. It's the audio quality, provided by the JDL speaker system, that really make the entertainment experience – you won't need to worry about rigging the Dell up to external speakers in order to get high quality surround sound.
Gaming, too, is well catered for – the Dell XPS 15 L502X P11F managed minimum frame rates of 31fps in the FEAR graphics test on maximum settings, suggesting that you'll be able to run most games without too much trouble. The 1GB GeForce 525M graphics card seems to be a strong performer, and you do have the option to upgrade this component too.

 

Overall performance is good, though not outstanding, a WorldBench 6 score of 117 indicative of a system that will deal with everyday tasks easily, though might lack the grunt to deal with high-end applications. The battery life was short of five hours, which is slightly disappointing and could prove problematic if you can't access the mains for any period of time. At just under 2.8kg it's too heavy to carry around for long periods.
There's 4GB of RAM, expandable to 8GB should you want, and the Dell XPS 15 L502X P11F's hard disk will provide you with 500GB of storage. The high-speed USB 3.0 interface is catered for, there's HDMI (though no VGA) and a mini DisplayPort too. You'll also find a combo USB 2.0 and eSATA port.
The design of the Dell XPS 15 L502X P11F is fairly smart, though suggests an entertainment-focused laptop rather than an office worker's tool, and it feels fairly sturdy too. The keyboard is slightly odd, with a wide but short Return key and a Caps Lock key that is far too big and easy to accidentally hit when you're gunning for the A. The touchpad is nice and big, and very easy to use, which only adds to our doubts about the usefulness of a touchscreen.