Acer Aspire S5 Ultrabook Review

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Software and Performance

Acer's S5 ships with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit although early adopters will be able to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for just $15 when it's available thanks to an ongoing Microsoft promotion. Fresh out of the box, the system booted into Windows and was fully ready to go in just 17 seconds – 1 second faster than Apple's flagship MacBook Pro with Retina display.

Inside Windows I found the typical array of bloatware including McAfee Internet Security, eBay Worldwide, Bing Bar and Fooz Kids, just to name a few. In total, I removed 12 pre-installed programs, which was actually fewer than I anticipated. The level of bloatware on the S5 isn't outrageous like we've seen on other systems but it's a trend I'd like to see done away with.

Benchmarks Results

Synthetic Tests	Aspire S5	TimelineU	Folio 13	MacBook Air

3DMark 06
3DMark Score	5263 3DMarks	11958 3DMarks	3472 3DMarks	5785 3DMarks

PCMark Vantage
PCMark Suite	13643 PCMarks	6743 PCMarks	8594 PCMarks	N/A

Application Tests	Aspire S5	TimelineU	Folio 13	MacBook Air

iTunes Encoding Test	1 min 15 sec	1 min 19 sec	1 min 44 sec	51 sec

File Transfer Test
Small files	10 sec	1 min 11 sec	1 min 2 sec	22 sec
Large file	10 sec	1 min 19 sec	45 sec	22 sec

The iTunes encoding tests consist of converting 14 MP3s (119MB) to 128Kbps ACC files and measuring the operation's duration in seconds. For file transfers, we measure how long it takes to copy two sets of files from one location to another on the same hard drive. On the small files test we transfer 557 MP3s, totaling 2.56GB. For the large file, these same MP3s were zipped into a single file measuring 2.52GB.

Gaming Performance	Aspire S5	TimelineU	Folio 13	MacBook Air

Far Cry 2
1024x768, Medium Quality	35.2 fps	69.0 fps	26.3 fps	37.3 fps
Native res, High Quality	21.9 fps	55.5 fps	24.9 fps	19.3 fps

StarCraft 2
1024x768, Medium Quality	21.8 fps	39.7 fps	14.4 fps	25.1 fps
Native res, High Quality	15.2 fps	29.9 fps	11.4 fps	16.1 fps