Acer Aspire S7-392-9460 Pro Reviews

Acer's little wedge of a laptop packs the wallop of a sledgehammer on our focus group. Yet we can't post a final value assessment without considering the three-pound elephant in the room: Apple's 13.3-inch MacBook Air. Apple prices the MacBook Air with a 1.7GHz Core i7, 8GB of memory, and 256GB of flash storage at $1,549—roughly the street price of our Acer review unit. Obviously, there are many differences in the details. For example, the Air ships with 802.11ac rather than 802.11n Wi-Fi and offers a Thunderbolt port—advantage Apple. But the Cupertino laptop is limited to a screen resolution of 1,440x900, which the S7 blows away with the far more media-friendly 1,920x1,080. Then again, the MacBook Air crushes the Acer in battery life with its 15.5-hour runtime in our tests. But hang on—there's the Aspire's touch screen, which we know adds about $100 to the retail cost of a laptop as well as offering tap-and-swipe convenience.Ignoring all debate about OS benefits, app libraries, Apple mystique, and so on, we'd say that the final balance tips just barely in Acer's favor. But even if you disagree, it's clear that across the board the S7-392-9460 is a remarkable, drool-worthy slip of machinery. In its class, this ultrabook is not unfairly priced. For those who need to balance style, ruggedness, speed, and productivity, the second-gen Aspire S7 deserves our hearty recommendation.