ACER Aspire S7 11.6 inch Touch Enabled Ultrabook Review

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

The ACER Aspire S7-191-6640 has been one of my better experiences with an ultrabook. Over the past few months I’ve had my hands on the Cyberpower Zeus M2, and the Dell XPS14. Each of those had their own strong points and their own week points. The ACER Aspire s7-191-6640 really didn’t seem to have much in the way any weak points, at least not in my experience. Of course there could always be more performance from the processor, but hey, that’s pretty much true of any system out there. If you need more performance or more storage, there is always the option to get the next model in the series up. Within the S7 product stack, there are two different sizes available. The S7-191 like we are looking at today features the 11.6″ IPS display, the S7-391 features a 13.3″ IPS display panel. Either system you choose is going to be great. I wouldn’t object to the 13.3″ display to look at, but as I sit here typing this, I’m adjusting to the 11.6″ screen as I go.

I haven’t made the switch to Microsoft Windows 8 on the office computer just yet, so I have had relatively little experience with it. My first experience with it was on the Dell XPS14. I wasn’t enthused about the latest operating system, the overall feel of it wasn’t very smooth and felt rough to use. The ACER Aspire S7-191-6640 uses Windows 8 as well, but this time around the experience was a worlds better. What made the difference? The touch enabled display on the S7-191! It was much easier to navigate the home screen, access the charms, overall it was a much better experience into Windows 8. This is certainly the way that Windows 8 is meant to be used! While I realize this isn’t meant to be about Microsoft’s latest delve into our wallets, it does however show that the ACER Aspire S7-191 is designed with Windows 8 touch interface in mind, and building the S7 around the touch interface worked wonders.

The performance of the ACER Aspire S7 is pretty much on par with our previous endeavors into the world of Ultrabooks. The Aspire S7-191-6640 and the Cyberpower Zeus M2 both use the Intel Core i5-3317U dual core processor, so performance is pretty well expected to be head to head between those two. The Dell XPS14 on the other hand, uses an Intel Core i7 3517U dual core processor that runs a bit faster at 1.9GHz. Though each of the systems uses a different memory configuration. Cyberpower used a pair of 8GB Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz memory modules, Dell used a single memory module running at 1600MHz, though only in single channel. The ACER Aspire S7 is running in dual channel mode, though only at 1333MHz. One area that the ACER S7 easily excelled at was the read and write performance of the storage system. The S7 is using a Lite on 128GB SSD that is in a RAID 0 configuration. This put the sequential read speed at 823.1MB/s, 79.4% faster than the single SSD configuration in the Cyberpower Zeus M2.

One of the things that really gets me going about the ACER S7-191-6640 is the price and value offered. At only $999.99 right now you’re getting a great piece of hardware. The top shell of the S7-191 is magnesium, inside there is an Intel i5-3317U processor, 4Gb of Ram, and 128Gb of storage in RAID 0! You’re getting a lot of bang for your buck with just that. Let’s look at the bundle and the value it adds. The ACER S7-191-6640 includes a Bluetooth mouse, RJ45 to USB adapter, mini-HDMI to VGA adapter, and a carrying case! The bundle alone could easily set you back $100 or more, it’s just an added bonus. All the previously mentioned features aside, the best feature is by far the touch screen on the ACER S7! My previous experiences with Windows 8 weren’t great. Once I was able to play with the ACER S7-191-6640 with a touch screen it’s a totally different experience!

Legit Bottom Line: Everything about the ACER S7-191-6640 Touch enabled Ultrabook screams quality! If you’re in the market for an Ultrabook, the ACER S7-191 is a great option with a lot of bang for the buck at only $999.99!