Acer’s Aspire S7 reviewed: a touch-enabled Ultrabook that checks a lot of boxes

One of these is a Caps Lock light, with no discernible way to pick up that your capital lock button is on outside of the applications. Some apps in Windows will tell you when it’s on, but not all, so without a small LED on the computer, we’re left hoping we didn’t accidentally press the shrunken Caps Lock that now shares a space with the tilde key.

Another is the backlighting, which hardly feels like a win at all. At least it’s here, something we really desired on the S3, but even at its brightest, its so dim that you wonder why Acer bothered. For the most part, you’ll find the bright screen is enough company in the dark, which is more than we can say for the backlit keys.

Acer’s choice in storage options is a tad underwhelming too, with only 128GB of solid state storage, on a laptop where you’d expect 256GB. It might seem like a decent chunk of space, but out of that, you’ll only find roughly 70GB for you to use once you start using the laptop, dividing that relatively small number between apps, documents, photos, music, movies, and more.

And even though the multitouch on the screen is very impressive, zooming and scrolling as fast as anything we’ve seen on the iPad, the gestures on the ultra-wide trackpad provided by Acer could be better.

You’ll probably end up using the screen anyway to zoom and scroll, because it’s just way more intuitive to do it this way than with your mouse, but if you do need to use the touchpad, be aware the drivers aren’t as good as they probably should be, and there will be jagged movements and slowdowns.

The SD card slot is barely a half height slot, so don’t expect to ever travel around with a card inside the computer, unless you’re sure you want to break it relatively quickly.

Battery could be a little better, too. Sure, it’s a first generation touch-enabled Ultrabook, so really we’re just seeing the first attempts at nailing battery life, but with WiFi turned on and moderate use of the touchscreen, you’ll find yourself grabbing roughly four to five hours out of the Aspire S7. That’s not bad, but it could easily be better, considering the six to seven hour mark expected out of these transit-friendly machines.

Standby time seems to be very decent, and we had no need to charge the machine with sporadic use over a period of several days, but you generally won’t find a way of reaching over six hours unless you turn the screen brightness all the way down and switch wireless connectivity off.

The power pack could probably be improved, too. At least it’s smaller than the typical plug packs we’re used to seeing from computer companies, but it lacks that lovely design finesse we see from Apple, among other companies, and it really would have completed the package for us.

Conclusion

For the first Windows 8 machine we’ve seen, and Acer’s first attempt at a machine for the operating system, the company has done a bloody impressive job with the Aspire S7, producing a machine that not only checks a lot of boxes, but damn near nails them.

It’s hard not to admire the amount of work Acer has thrown into the S7, pushing its Aspire S range into the next generation with a better build, keyboard, display, and overall feel than we saw with the last – and first – Acer Ultrabook to hit Australia.

Acer’s S7 isn’t perfect, but it’s some part of the way there, especially for the first Windows 8 laptop Acer is putting out. If you’re considering a Windows Ultrabook this year, this is definitely one you should look at.