One of the best crafted laptops from 2012 was the Acer Aspire S7 ultrabook with a 13.3-inch touch-enabled display. The company has recently refreshed the flagship ultrabook with the Intel “Haswell” processors, officially called 4th Generation Intel Core, a larger capacity battery, improved keyboard, optionally above 1080p-resolution display, and some newly added features. Now, the new version is available for pre-order in form of two models: the Acer Aspire S7-392-6832 and S7-392-9890. The former comes with the 4th Generation Intel Core i5-4200U dual-core processor at 1.6GHz or with Turbo Boost activated up to 2.6GHz, and a 128GB solid state drive, whereas the latter sport the Intel Core i7-4500U at 1.8GHz to 3.0GHz and a 256GB SSD.
These CPUs should bring only a slight computing performance boost over the corresponding previous generation “Ivy Bridge” i5 and i7 for ultrabooks, but Intel “Haswell” has improved energy efficiency as the main positive characteristic. When you add the fact that Acer has included a bigger battery with a capacity of 6280mAh versus previous 4680mAh, a longer power autonomy of the new S7 is inevitable. According to Acer, the battery life on the Aspire S7-392-6832 and S7-392-9890 lasts up to 7 hours on a single charge, a 1/3 improvement the previous generation.
Optimization of the old keyboard on the S7 consists of adding more travel to the chiclet keys, which by the way have backlight beneath them for easier typing in dim light.
Regarding the display, the S7-392-6832 and S7-392-9890 have a 1920-by-1080 pixel panel with IPS technology for wider viewing angles and better overall picture quality. The screens support 10-finger touch input for ultimate Windows 8 experience and on-screen drawing/painting creativity. The 2560×1440 resolution option will be available at a later date.
The list of improvements doesn’t end here. Acer has additionally provided Intel Wi-Di technology for wireless streaming of content to external HDMI-enabled screens.
Externally, the 2013 S7 looks almost the same like the 2012 one. It has aluminum base in silver color, while the white lid is covered with scratch resistant gorilla glass. The weight of both versions is decently light 2.9 pounds, while the 2013 model is slightly thicker at 0.51″ up from 0.47″ because of the bigger battery inside it. Changes are also noticeable along the sides, where ports and slots are located. The updated ultrabook has the new Acer Converter port for easy connectivity of external displays, storage devices, networking equipment, and other stuff. For instance, there’s a Converter cable with support for VGA video, USB, and Ethernet LAN connections, but it is not known if it’s included in the S7-392-6832 and S7-392-9890 packages. Another change is replacement of the micro HDMI port with a full-size one. Other bits on the sides are an SD media card reader and two USB ports.
The S7 retains stereo speakers, Dolby Home Theater audio, Bluetooth, and 720p webcam.
The Acer Aspire S7-392-6832 costs $1,400, whereas the S7-392-9890 wears a $1,650 price tag.
