Saturday, 11 August 2012

Samsung Series 9 NP900X4C User Review

By John Ratsey, NotebookReview Staff | Wednesday, August 01, 2012 | 13108 Reads

Reviewer Rating:

Pros

Exceptionally thin and light for a 15-inch notebook
Excellent battery operation time
Robust and stylish construction
Exceptionally large trackpad

Cons

Non-premium display in a premium notebook
Needs special dongles for the network and display devices
Weak Wi-Fi performance and fairly noisy fan when under load (for me, not everyone)
Expensive

Shop Series 9 NP900X4C

$1,262.28   CostCentral.com
$1,299.00   ABT
$1,323.55   ANT Online

Quick Take:

The Samsung Series 9 NP900X4C is one of the few large screen notebooks in the Ultrabook format and offers a 15" matte display with 1600 x 900 resolution in an exceptionally thin chassis.

The 15-inch Samsung Series 9 NP900X4C is a larger-than-average Ultrabook with a thin profile, beautiful design and excellent battery life. Is that enough to make it a great laptop? Keep reading to find out what one owner has to say about this Ultrabook.

Overview
Readers of my review of the 13.3" Samsung NP900X3B will recall that I was uncertain how that notebook would cope with my usage pattern. In the event the two biggest constraints proved to be lack of storage capacity (fixable now that larger mSATA SSDs have reached the retail chain) and the computer temporarily freezing once the 4GB of RAM was full and Windows needed to dump RAM contents to the SSD while concurrently trying to load more data. I hadn't anticipated this as being a major constraint but with the RAM being non-upgradable then I needed to look around. Given that I was well satisfied with the build quality and general usability of the NP900X3B, want better than HD resolution and dislike a glossy display then the logical upgrade was its larger sibling.

The NP900X4C next to the smaller NP900X3B
Build and Design
The 15-inch NP900X4C bears a strong family resemblance to the smaller 13.3-inch version. The "4" in the model number indicates that Samsung considers it to be the equivalent of 14-inch notebooks rather than those with the larger 15.6-inch displays. In reality, the width is in the same range as the older 15.4-inch notebooks (see, for example, my review of the Samsung X60) and the height (and pixel size) is about the same as on a 14.1" 1440 x 900 pixel display but an inch wider. The whole machine (with the exception of some plastic between the hinges where the antennae are located) is built from aluminium alloy. The main chassis is very rigid and, while it is possible flex the display slightly, one has to push very hard to cause ripples on the screen. I expect the metal display back will provide much better protection than the carbon fibre alternative (my Lenovo T420s has developed light patches on the display due to, I suspect, pressure on the back of the screen during transport).

The NP900X4C next to the old Samsung X60: 15" displays have shrunk!
The NP900X4C is noticeably heavier than its smaller brother. The increase in weight is more than proportional to the increase in size and most likely reflects the need to strengthen the structure to maintain the same rigidity for the increased size. However, in spite of having to beef up the strength, the total thickness is about 15mm while the display is little thicker than a matchstick.


The tape measure is in centimetres, not inches	Matchstick resting on top edge of display

Fortunately, thinness hasn't come at the expense of robustness and everything feels very solid. The hinges are smooth and firm with no hint of wobble. They feel stiffer than for the 13.3" model, but there is a bigger display to be held in place. Magnets hold the display in place when it is closed and opening the display can be a bit of a struggle. One small, but effective, detail is a thin strip of rubber around the sides and top of the display bezel which rests against the palm rest when the display is closed.
The colour scheme is the same "mineral ash black" (black with a hint of dark blue) eggshell paint finish as on the NP900X3B. Samsung have, however, provided some contrast to the black paint by providing three shiny metal highlights. The keys are black. One is a narrow strip around the generously sized touchpad (which is very slightly recessed into the palm rest), another is a strip wrapping around the front and sides of the chassis and a third is a matching strip around the edge of the display. There is also a shiny metal "Samsung" on the display back. The overall impression is one of quality without being ostentatious. Those people who prefer silver to black should search for the NP900X4D.


Left: NP900X3B on NP900X4C	Right: Base of NP900X4C

As with many ultrabooks, there is no official provision for user access to the inside. The metal base is secured to the main chassis using 10 small screws and this most likely helps the structural rigidity. The intrepid owner may, however, choose to carefully remove the screws and lift off the base. I couldn't resist taking a look inside to see how a computer can be squeezed into so little space.

Half of the inside is occupied by the battery
The inside is dominated by the lithium-polymer battery, each side of which is a loudspeaker (which look very similar to those on the smaller Series 9). However, unlike the smaller sibling there is only one cooling fan and there are two normal memory slots, so 16GB RAM is a feasible upgrade option. The two Wi-Fi antenna are in the yellow area between the hinges, the SSD is to the left of the fan, the the Intel Wi-Fi card is to the right of the fan, the CPU in the middle and the two memory slots on the right side. The various ports, with the exception of the power socket, appear to be directly mounted onto the board. However, closer examination shows that the board under the SSD is separate from the main board.
Ports and Features
As is often the case with ultrabooks, the NP900X4C is not generously endowed with ports. Altogether there are one USB 2.0, two USB 3.0, an audio socket, a gigabit ethernet port (for which a dongle is provided) and micro HDMI and VGA ports (which needs a special dongle). There is also an SD card slot. Even the power jack uses an unusually small plug.

Front side: No ports and just a small recess in the center to help with opening the display	Back side: Two air vents between the hinges
Left side, left to right: Power jack, USB 2.0, audio, micro-HDMI and ethernet (via dongle)	Right side, left to right: SD car slot, mini-VGA (via dongle), audio and two USB 3.0 ports

There are three unsatisfactory compromises associated with the port arrangement: (i) the need to buy a special dongle in order to connect a standard VGA display; (ii) the power plug blocks many USB devices from fitting into the adjacent USB port so users may need to carry a USB extension lead; and (iii) the two USB ports on the right side are very close together (it would have been beneficial to put the less-used VGA port between them). One improvement from the NP900X3B is that the tip of the power lead now has a 90° bend so there is less bending force on the plug tip, less obstruction of the adjacent USB port and the power cable can run to the back of the computer instead of sticking out at the side.

Port congestion: Wider flash drives won't fit with everything else
Screen and Speakers
While the display of the NP900X4C is above average for a notebook LCD panel it is a disappointment compared to Samsung's PLS panel in the NP900X3B with its excellent viewing angles and contrast. The strengths of the 15" display are the higher than average 1600 x 900 pixel resolution with a matte finish so there are no annoying reflections (I have stopped buying glossy screen notebooks because of this problem). Samsung claim that it is an exceptionally bright 400 nit panel which makes it usable outside. I find a much lower brightness (5 out of 8 steps) to be appropriate to indoor use. That's in the same brightness range as my Lenovo T420s (230 nit) at full brightness. There is no obvious "screen door" effect that I had to get accustomed to on the T420s display.
I wasn't very happy with the colours of the screen (partly because it was sitting alongside the NP900X3B) but now have a solution to that problem: A couple of months back I bought a Spyder4Express display calibrator. Since I had already calibrated the displays of my other notebooks I considered it fair to give the NP900X4C the same treatment before making comparisons. Photographs of the display before and after calibration are shown below and the .icc profile is here for anyone with the same display who wants to try it. It can be seen that initially there was a strong blue tint.


Display colors before calibration	Display colors after calibration

In the comparison below I put the NP900X4C between the NP900X3B(left) and Lenovo T420s (right) and compared the viewing angles with the displays at similar brightness (Samsung panels on 5/8 brightness and the T420s on full brightness).

It can be seen that the display is typical of the TN type of LCD with reasonable horizontal viewing angles but washing out when viewed from above and darkening when viewed from below. There is not much difference between the displays on the NP900X4C and the T420s but the NP900X3B with Samsung's PLS panel shows its wide viewing angles. Samsung provide the facility for automatic control of brightness but, as with every other notebook I have used that has this feature, I find the unexpected changes in brightness to be annoying and disabled the feature.
The speakers appear to be the same as on the 13.3" Series 9 and are located on the tapered edges of the base near the front corners. The specifications say 2 x 2W and the volume is adequate for a small room although distortion occurs at full volume. The downward-facing speakers appear to benefit from the computer being on a table top so that the sound can be reflected upwards. However, while I have come across many worse speakers in larger notebooks than this, the bass is still lacking.
Keyboard
The keyboard is of the increasingly popular separated key type. Travel is limited due to the slim profile of the computer but one quickly gets used to the reduced travel. The basic layout is similar to the smaller Series 9 but with the addition of a dedicated set of navigation keys on the right side of the keyboard which offsets the overall layout to the left. I would have preferred to have small depressions on the top of each key to help center my fingers, rather the smooth surface, although hitting the edge of a key still causes it to register. As is normal for a European keyboard, the left shift key is small to make space for one extra key.

The keyboard has subdued backlighting which is effective under poor lighting or in darkness. Unlike some backlit keyboards, the keys do not shine brightly but the lighting makes the letters legible when they otherwise wouldn't be. There is an indicator light on the Caps Lock key and also on the F12 key which is used to turn the wireless devices on and off. As on the 13.3" keyboard there is also an Fn Lock key with its own indicator light, but this key is effectively redundant. The Fn key controls are the same as on the NP900X3B.
Touchpad
The Elan touchpad is even larger than the large pad on the NP900X3B. There are no separate buttons but the bottom part of the pad can be used for both moving the pointer and be pressed as a button (left part = left button, right part = right button). The pad supports one, two, three and four finger gestures including scrolling and zoom although the provided control panel offers a relatively set of options compared to the long list of settings in the registry.
Wi-Fi Performance
Regrettably, the Wi-Fi performance has proved to be less good than on my NP900X3B (which in turn is less good than the Dell E6410 and Lenovo T420s that I have tried in the same location at the point in my house most remote from the router. I had to set the power to maximum to be able to hold a connection at the other end of my house. Even then, the speed is disappointing. I have tried all the Wi-Fi options I can find in the search for improvements. The antennae arrangements in both notebooks are similar and are located at the back edge of the chassis between the hinges where the casing is plastic, not metal. However something has changed for the worse, at least on my computer (other NP900X4C owners are not complaining of this problem). The new model has the Intel 6235 Wi-Fi/ Bluetooth combo card while the older notebook has the previous Intel 6230 card with similar features. I hope that a driver update will improve the situation but wonder if the antenna module is sub-standard.

The Wi-Fi antenna module
Software Features
One of the features is the Intel Rapid Start Technology which claims to get Windows booted in less than 10 seconds and also enables faster resume from hibernation. However, behind the overall impressions there are some limitations. While Windows appears to have loaded, right-clicking on a program results in no response although a left-click will start a program. In reality a lot of functionality is still loading in the background. Nonetheless, the Windows startup is faster than on the previous generation of notebooks.
The other feature of the Intel Rapid Start Technology is an improvement of the sleep / hibernation / resume process. Without the Rapid Start feature hibernation / resume involved writing / reading the full RAM contents to a file. The new technology uses a separate hibernation partition which is mapped to the system memory and during normal use this partition is kept updated in the background. Hibernation involves only the final updating of the data in the partition while resume is designed to first load whatever was in use with the rest of the RAM contents loading in the background. Samsung's installation of this technology is incomplete because it does not load Intel's control that allows the user to set the time delay between the computer sleeping and hibernating. Some tips on how to get this control working are given here. One serious flaw in the Rapid Start technology is that it by-passes both BIOS level and Windows level passwords. The security-conscious people will need to remember to lock their Windows prior to closing the computer. Notwithstanding all the above reservations, the Rapid Start Technology does improve usability, when it works.
Samsung provide their Easy Settings program as the user interface for controlling a range of hardware and software features. One improvement I have noticed compared to the previous version is that the wireless devices can be set to maintain their current settings through a reboot. Previously, both automatically turned on upon reboot.

Acer Aspire S5 review

Acer Aspire S5 review: is this innovative Ultrabook worth $1,400?

By Dana Wollman

posted Jul 20th 2012 5:00PM

Review

With dozens and dozens of Ultrabooks on parade, you'd be forgiven if one skinny laptop with an ultra-low voltage processor started to look like the next. Even so, it's tough to forget the Acer Aspire S5: of all the ultraportables we've seen these last nine months, this is the only one with a motorized port cover. Yeah, that one. It's an intriguing product, to be sure, and the stakes are especially high given that $1,400 price: you'd have to really enjoy that form factor (and everything else) to choose it over some less expensive ultraportable. So is it worth it? Is that drop-down door anything more than a gimmick? Questions for the ages, and ones we'll tackle in our full review after the break.

Acer Aspire S5 review

Hardware

Acer Aspire S5 review is an innovative Ultrabook design worth $1,400

The S5 feels durable, but lacks the design flair you'd expect from a premium machine.

Back in January when it was announced at CES, the S5 was touted as the "world's thinnest" Ultrabook, at 15mm (0.59 inches) thick. Nearly seven months later, we're not sure the S5 still qualifies for that title (the 13-inch Samsung Series 9 widens to 0.5 inches), but no matter: it still cuts a skinnier figure than most of the Ultrabooks we've tested. In contrast to last year's Aspire S3, which costs about half the price, the S5 marks an improvement in craftsmanship, with magnesium alloy now covering the lid, bottom and palm rest.
No doubt, it feels sturdier than the S3, but the build quality is still unremarkable compared to other Ultrabooks, especially other high-end ones. You might argue, for instance, that the S5's plastic keyboard deck and bezel are part of the reason it weighs a light 1.35kg (2.98 pounds), but the Series 9 is made of unibody aluminum and still weighs about four-tenths of a pound less. Ditto for the new MacBook Air, which weighs 2.96 pounds, or the metal-clad ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A, which comes in at 2.86 pounds. We could go on, but you get the point: the S5 feels durable, but lacks the design flair you'd expect from a premium machine.
Obviously, the conceit of the S5 is that most of its ports are tucked behind MagicFlip, that motorized drop-down door on the laptop's rear edge. Ignoring for a moment how annoying it is to have all the key sockets located back there, it's a pretty good selection of ports: in addition to two USB openings, it has Thunderbolt and full-sized HDMI sockets, both rarities for Ultrabooks (heck, Thunderbolt ports on PCs are rare, period). Not all the openings are hidden, though: on the notebook's right edge, you'll find a 3.5mm headphone jack, while the power button and memory card reader sit on the left. Thought you'd find the power button on the keyboard deck? That space is home to the button controlling the drop-down door (much more on that later, of course).

Keyboard and trackpad

Since Acer released its first Ultrabook last fall, the company has unveiled two more models, each of them marking a step up in overall quality. But one thing's remained constant: that flat, cramped keyboard. The keys here are quite lacking in travel, though they're easy enough to master. All told, they're no shallower than the ones on the Series 9, which we neither loved nor hated. The problem is, unlike Samsung's layout, which is fairly well-spaced, the S5's arrangement gets mighty crowded, especially toward the periphery where many essential buttons lie. The Tab key is tiny, for instance, as are Caps Lock and the four arrows, which you could easily miss if you tried to hit them without looking. Also, this keyboard isn't backlit, though you'd probably expect it to be on a machine this expensive.

As much as we wish Acer would re-think its Ultrabook keyboards, the company at least got the trackpad right. The large pad responds smoothly to one-finger navigation, as well as multi-touch gestures like two-finger scrolls and pinch-to-zoom. Occasionally, the cursor would stop short on the screen before we got to whatever it was we meant to click on, but we mostly carried on without many incidents. We'd also add that the built-in touch button is easy to click and makes a quiet, low-pitched sound when pressed.

Display and sound

Given how pricey this machine is, you'd expect Acer would have gone all out (or at least met us halfway) when it came to display quality. A high-resolution screen would seem to be in order. IPS quality, too, or perhaps one of those Shuriken panels with the narrow bezels. Instead, what we have here is a run-of-the-mill, garden-variety TN screen with 1,366 x 768 resolution. Everything about this display is common, from the standard resolution, to the reflective finish, to the width of the bezels. It would've been fine on an $800 system, but given that you can find lovely, higher-res screens on the MacBook Air, HP Envy Spectre 14, Samsung Series 9 and the entire ASUS Zenbook Prime family, we don't understand why Acer cut corners here. (Actually, we do: this could be a trade-off to going with a more complex design and a RAID 0 SSD configuration, but we're not sure either of these was worth settling for a mediocre screen.)
The sound coming out of the Dolby-enhanced speakers is a bit tinnier than we're used to, which is quite the feat. Aside from a metallic sound, we were able to make out a faint, buzzing distortion even at medium volumes.
One other interesting thing to note before we sign off on display and sound quality: the S5 is one of the few Ultrabooks we've tested recently that does not include Intel's Wireless Display technology. If you had no intention of streaming 1080p video to a big screen, carry on, but it does seem like an odd omission from what's supposed to be a high-end machine.

Performance

	PCMark Vantage	3DMark06
Acer Aspire S5 (1.9GHz Core i7-3517U, Intel HD Graphics 4000)	12,895	5,071
Samsung Series 9 (13-inch, 2012, 1.7GHz Intel Core i5-3317U, Intel HD Graphics 4000)	8,624	5,155
MacBook Air (2012, 1.8GHz Core i5, Intel HD Graphics 4000)	13,469	5,827
ASUS Zenbook UX31E (1.7GHz Core i5-2557M, Intel HD Graphics 3000)	10,508	4,209
ASUS Zenbook Prime UX21A (Ivy Bridge Core i7 processor, Intel HD Graphics 4000)	10,333	4,550
Lenovo IdeaPad U300s (1.8GHz Core i7-2677M, Intel HD Graphics 3000)	9,939	3,651
Samsung Series 9 (15-inch, 2012, 1.6GHz Core i5-2467M, Intel HD Graphics 3000)	10,580	4,171
Lenovo IdeaPad U310 (1.7GHz Core i5-3317U, Intel HD Graphics 4000)	8,345	4,549
Lenovo ThinkPad X230 (2.6GHz Core i5-3320M, Intel HD Graphics 4000)	8,234	4,891
Sony VAIO T13 (1.7GHz Core i5-3317U, Intel HD Graphics 4000)	8,189	3,847
Note: higher scores are better

At $1,400, the S5 comes with some top-shelf specs to match its lofty price tag, including a 1.9GHz Intel Core i7-3517U CPU, 4GB of RAM and -- here's the kicker -- dual 128GB, LiteON-branded SATA III SSDs arranged in a RAID 0 configuration. Cutting straight to the chase, this is the speediest disk performance we've logged on any laptop, of any size. We actually ended up running ATTO more times than usual because we initially couldn't believe the scores: at their best, the two SSDs reached peak read speeds of 875 MB/s and writes as fast as 700 MB/s. In real-word use, those numbers are matched by a 12-second boot-up. And yes, our scores landed in this ballpark every time we ran these tests. No flukes here, kids.
For those of you who are curious, Acer confirmed to us that you cannot switch to a RAID 1 configuration: in the BIOS, you'll see options for RAID, along with IDE and AHCI.
When we switched to our other standard benchmarks, the S5 still notched some stellar numbers, though this time they fell a little more in line with other top-performing Ultrabooks. For example, its score of 12,895 in PCMark Vantage falls less than 600 points short of the 2012 MacBook Air's high mark -- hardly a dramatic difference. Likewise, its score of 5,071 in 3DMark06 is among the highest we've seen from an Ivy Bridge machine. Not that that's saying much: even with the default settings (read: 1,024 x 768 resolution) Call of Duty 4 chugged along with frame rates in the twenties -- just good enough to be playable.

MagicFlip

In practice, pressing a button to expose key ports is more tedious than innovative.

In practice, pressing a button to expose key ports is more tedious than innovative. Imagine, for instance, that you want to connect a portable hard drive. You can't just plug it in; no, you need to press the button, wait a second or two for the door to open and then reach around to the back of the laptop to find the USB socket. If you can't do it by feel, you'll have to turn the laptop around so you can see the ports -- an awfully big hassle just to plug in a peripheral.
One thing we weren't aware of when we first got hands-on with the S5 is that the motorized door will open on its own to expose the vents when the machine gets too hot. And yes, we mean "when," not "if." We first experienced this within minutes of unboxing our system -- installing a program and running Chrome was enough to trigger the overheating mechanism. It happened again about 30 seconds into a game of CoD 4. The good news is that the machine stayed tepid enough that we could use it comfortably for extended periods of time, but in exchange for cool operation you'll have to put up with a good deal of fan noise.
To be fair, once the ports are fully exposed, it shouldn't have much bearing on your ergonomic experience and obviously, we'd all rather our machines not overheat. Still, as brief as this interruption is, it can be distracting to feel your computer rise beneath your fingers while you're trying to work. And there is, of course, an easy solution for that: just build the ports into the sides of the laptop and not worry about laying claim to the "thinnest Ultrabook" title.
When the S5 was first announced, one of the most common responses from our readers and editors alike was, "What happens if the motor gives out?" Acer rates the door for 15,000 cycles, tested with 50 pounds of pressure -- a claim we naturally didn't have the time or automated equipment to test. We will say that the motor makes a grating sound that doesn't inspire much confidence in the resilience of the various underlying parts. On the bright side, we appreciate that the door automatically closes when you shut down the computer or close the lid, even if you forgot to press the button to do it manually.

Battery life

	Battery Life
Acer Aspire S5	4:35
Samsung Series 9 (15-inch, 2012)	7:29
Lenovo ThinkPad X230	7:19
Samsung Series 9 (13-inch, 2012)	7:02
MacBook Air (13-inch, 2012)	6:34 (OS X) / 4:28 (Windows)
HP Folio 13	6:08
HP Envy Sleekbook 6z	5:51
Toshiba Portege Z835	5:49
ASUS Zenbook UX31E (2011)	5:41
Sony VAIO T13	5:39
MacBook Air (13-inch, 2011)	5:32 (OS X) / 4:12 (Windows)
HP Envy 14 Spectre	5:30
Lenovo IdeaPad U300s	5:08
Samsung Series 5 Ultrabook (14-inch, 2012)	5:06
Dell XPS 13	4:58
Lenovo IdeaPad U310	4:57
Samsung Series 9 (13-inch, 2011)	4:20
ASUS Zenbook Prime UX21A	4:19
Acer Aspire S3	4:11

The S5's three-cell battery is rated for up to 6.5 hours of battery life, which is shorter than what many other 13-inch Ultrabooks promise. Indeed, its runtime is as uninspiring as the performance is fast. In our standard video playback test, it barely made it four and a half hours -- a poor showing compared to the 13-inch Series 9, which lasted seven hours, and the new MacBook Air, which managed six and a half. Even middling ultraportables can outlast the S5 by at least an hour. In fact, this is, quite literally, the shortest runtime we've recorded on a 13-inch Ultrabook since we tested Acer's own S3 laptop last fall.

Software and warranty

Acer Aspire S5 review is this innovative Ultrabook worth $1,400

Though it might not be the worst offender, the S5 does come with a good deal of bloatware. Pre-installed programs include CyberLink's MediaEspresso media converter, an eBay shortcut, Evernote 4.5.2, Fooz Kids (a children's gaming platform), Norton Online Backup, Skype 5.5, Nook for PC and a trial of McAfee's Internet Security suite. And, like other Acer machines, the S5 comes with the company's clear.fi media streaming software.
Additionally, it's worth mentioning that the S5 is the first Acer laptop to support AcerCloud, the company's recently launched service that backs up your photos, music, videos and documents online. It's free, and storage is unlimited -- well, limited only by how much you can store on your local machine. You can, of course, access all this stuff remotely, provided your computer isn't completely powered off. In particular, with the help of a mobile app you can see your files on an Android phone, even if the two devices are not connected to the same WiFi network. Rather, AcerCloud attempts to create a peer-to-peer connection whenever possible and, failing that, uses a security token in the laptop to play middleman between your notebook and phone. For now, this service is only available in North America and China, but it's expected to roll out to other markets worldwide sometime in the fourth quarter.

Getting AcerCloud set up involves creating an account, a mercifully brief process that only requires you to give your name and email address, and to create a password. (Interestingly, as we progressed through the setup, McAfee popped up, asking if we wanted to grant AcerCloud access.) After creating our account, verifying our email address and using check boxes to confirm what we wanted to back up, we were up and running.
As for the warranty, the S5 is covered by a one-year plan, which is pretty standard for a consumer laptop, regardless of the price.

Configuration options

Though Acer usually offers its laptops in various pre-configured versions, the S5 is only available for $1,400 with the specs we tested here (a Core i7 CPU, 4GB of RAM, the 64-bit edition of Windows 7 Home Premium and 256GB of solid-state storage). As is the case for almost every other Ultrabook we review, the drives, RAM and battery were not designed to be user-replaceable. Again, that's true of most every laptop in this class, but we'd rather remind you, lest anyone wind up disappointed.

The competition

The S5 suffers from some serious usability flaws, and nothing really justifies that $1,400 price.

You want high-end Ultrabooks? Let's talk high-end Ultrabooks. Even for a high-end machine, the S5 is pricey; we can think of several excellent alternatives that drip quality but still cost slightly less. For starters, there's the 13-inch Samsung Series 9 beginning at $1,300, which weighs just 2.55 pounds and has a higher-quality aluminum build. The Series 9 also leads the S5 (and every other 13-inch Ultrabook) in battery life. Its keyboard is equally flat, but better-spaced. And while its performance isn't rated quite as highly, it's also capable of 12-second boot-ups. If you're willing to consider a bigger screen, you might also want to check out the HP Envy 14 Spectre or even the 15-inch version of the Series 9, which measures just 0.58 inches thick.
Though we haven't yet tested a 13-inch equivalent, ASUS' Zenbook Prime lineup also looks mighty promising. We'll refrain from breaking down every specific configuration listed on Amazon, but suffice to say we're particularly excited about the UX32VD ($1,350 at Amazon), which combines a 1080p IPS display with an NVIDIA GT 620M GPU.
For the OS-agnostic, we'll include the new MacBook Air in the high-end category: its battery life is on par with the champion Series 9, its keyboard and trackpad are comfortable and the performance is some of the fastest we've seen, even from among Ivy Bridge machines. Regarding screen quality, a pain point for Acer's S5, the Air has the same 1,440 x 900 display as past generations. That's not the absolute best you'll find -- not with the Series 9 and Zenbook Primes on the market -- but it's still a step up from the S5.

Wrap-up

More Info

The Aspire S5 has some key ingredients that might have made it a great Ultrabook: a thin shape, an impressive port selection and blazing I/O performance. Unfortunately, though, Acer seems to have invested its energy in all the wrong places. Instead of a higher-resolution display or finer build quality, it focused on stuffing all the ports behind a door in the back -- a design choice that feels gimmicky at best, and tiresome at worst. In exchange for a skinny silhouette, it settles for a three-cell battery that barely lasts four and a half hours on a charge. Even the RAID 0 SSD configuration might well have contributed to the high price, and that's a shame since the S5 probably could have delivered strong performance even with a more standard setup. (875 MB/s read speeds? Maybe not, but that 12-second boot time? Quite possibly.)
As is, the S5 suffers from some serious usability flaws, and nothing really justifies that $1,400 price except, possibly, that screaming SSD setup. We look forward to possible redemption with the upcoming S7 series, but in the meantime we're certain you can find a better ultraportable for less money.

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