Acer recently launched thin, light and long-lasting laptop Acer Aspire S 13. The laptop has pretty much everything you want in an ultra-portable laptop. This 13-inch notebook features a speedy Core i5 processor, a fairly spacious 256 GB SSD and a colorful full-HD display into a handsome chassis that’s only 0.57 inches thick. The Aspire S 13 also offers robust Dolby sound and a comfy keyboard, although the touch-pad can be pretty finicky at times. Overall, this Acer is one of the best values in its weight class which is priced for US $ 749 that is Rs 50,000 approx.
Design
The Aspire S 13 stands out with its obsidian-black color and textured nano-imprint cover, which gives the notebook a sleek and impressive look. The area around the keyboard is made of aluminum and the bottom has rubber paint with a nice soft-touch feel. The laptop features diamond-cut edges around the deck and touch-pad.
Image Source: Techradar
Measuring 12.9 * 9 * 0.57 inches and weighing 2.9 pounds, the Aspire S 13 is light enough for handling. It’s a bit lighter than the 13-inch MacBook Air (12.8 x 8.9 x 0.11-0.68 inches, 3 pounds). The 2.8-pound HP Envy 13 t is about the same size as the Acer, while the Asus UX303UA weighs a heavier 3.4 pounds. The XPS 13 is the lightest and most compact of the bunch, at 2.6 pounds and 12 x 7.9 x 0.3-0.6 inches.
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The Aspire S 13 has all the ports you need for today and tomorrow. The left side houses a USB 3.0 port, SD Card slot and headphone/mic jack, while the right side has the power port, HDMI port, another USB 3.0 port and a USB Type-C port.
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Display
The Aspire S 13 comes with both touch and non-touch 1080 p display. We’d prefer you to with non-touch, as you’ll get more battery life and it is plenty colorful and bright. The viewing angles could be a bit wider, though, as colors gets shifts at about 35 degrees off-center.
Image Source: The Inquirer
The Aspire S 13’s screen performed well on various lab tests, including a color gamut of 106.8 percent which is better than MacBook Air (66 percent) and non-touch XPS 13 (92 percent) and HP Envy 13 t (103 percent). However the Asus ZenBook UX303UA was even better, at 116 percent.
If you’re required to work for a longer period time on Aspire S 13, you can toggle the Acer Blue Light Shield setting, which is designed to lower blue-light emissions to reduce eyestrain and prevent fatigue.
Keyboard and Touch Pad
The S 13’s keyboard offers a comfortable typing experience. However, its offering just 0.87 mm of travel of the keys which is comparatively very less as 1 mm of travel of the keys is preferred.
Image Source: Pc Advisor
The Aspire S 13 features a 4.1 * 2.5-inch touchpad which is quite precise while using. While, the two-finger scrolling was fairly smooth and can be well executed on Windows 10 gestures (such as swiping three fingers up to see all apps), the cursor stuttered a bit while navigating the desktop.
Performance
Aspire S 13 is powered by a 6th-Gen Core i5-6200U processor that features 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB SSD storage. As per the Laptop Mag, the laptop works quite well even with 16 tabs in Chrome and works very efficiently while multi-tasking.
On the Geekbench 3 test, which measures overall performance, the Aspire S 13 scored 6,331. The Asus UX303UA, which has the same processor as the Acer, notched a slightly lower 6,290, while the Dell XPS 13 non-touch (6,391) and HP Envy (6,306) — also with the same CPU — were neck and neck with the S 13. The MacBook Air was far behind, at 5,783.
The SSD on the Aspire S 13 is fast in data transfer giving a transfer rate of 167.7 Mbps. This speed is faster than Asus UX303UA (159 Mbps) and HP 13 t (77.1 Mbps) but is slower than Dell XPS 13 (231.3 Mbps) and MacBook Air (358.4 Mbps) are considerably faster.
Battery Life
As per the company claims, The Acer Aspire S 13 has the battery life to last for about 10 hours. On the Laptop Mag Battery Test, which involves continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi (at 100 nits of screen brightness), the system lasted a strong 9 hours and 8 minutes. That run time smokes the HP Envy 13 t (5:48) and also beats the Asus UX303UA (8:27) and the ultra-portable category average (8:10). However, the more expensive Dell XPS 13 and 13-inch MacBook Air lasted much longer, at 11:54 and 14 hours, respectively.
Verdict
If you’re looking for a great student laptop or a machine for frequent travel, or if you just want a lightweight laptop that can go the distance, the Acer Aspire S 13 is one of the best bargains around. For $749, you get a speedy Core i5 processor, a 256 GB SSD, a colorful full-HD display and more than 9 hours of battery life. Overall, the Aspire S 13 is one heck of a value and one of our favorite ultra-portable laptops.
Source: Laptop Mag
