Finesse, Acer presents its Aspire XPS M1530 Ultrabook S7 as the ultimate touch and high-end Windows 8. Can we really rely on her look sexy? Is he able to meet all the expectations? Finger touch this Aspire S7 and analyze what it has to offer ...

Renew his computer is not an easy task at the moment. Many manufacturers are currently experiencing a revolution in this sector with the influx of hybrid or convertible. Windows 8 is ready for its new Touch GUI builders necessarily include them also touchscreens on their machines, like the Acer Aspire S7. We are therefore faced with a carefully Ultrabook that fills all the criteria for Intel (fineness, lightness, reactivity), but with a touch screen to draw more in the new operating system from Microsoft. Measuring 32.33 x 22.35 cm and which only 11.9 mm thick, it is a little thinner than the Apple MacBook Air. The weight is meanwhile in the average real Ultrabooks 13.3 "or 1.3 Kg

However, this involves some sacrifice on the altar of the fine, including ports present around the frame of the machine. At right, two USB 3.0 ports and an Toshiba PA3534U-1BAS card reader, and left the power supply, a micro HDMI output, headphone jack and finally the power button. We took the opportunity to talk a little of this button. This has caused us a few problems during our test. Of the same form as those found on smartphones and tablets, is directly accessible on the edge of S7. To locate, it is right in the extension of the tab keys and caps lock. When you take your computer in the hands to go into a meeting room for example, fingers inevitably end up on the button, which has the effect of turning off the computer ... Argh!

Small outside but big on the inside?

At the opening of Acer Aspire S7, it first locates the color aluminum keyboard, but the keys are actually plastic. They are quite large, but the layout is not usual because it lacks the row of function keys above. We also note the presence of an ALT GR key to the left of the space bar instead of the Alt key normally this place. Instead of the Alt Gr key is a key "right click" and a big "Del" key which have been incorporated. The directional pad is arranged differently, the size of half-keys for arrows and access keys to scroll pages just above.

Pressing the Fn key will unlock other functions of these keys to go to the beginning or end of the line. To make a #, you must press the Ctrl and Alt Gr on the left of the space bar and then the number 3 to get this special character. Not obvious at the outset when a password with special characters, or you use a lot of hashtags Tweeter, but you'll quickly get used to it. A last but not least, the chiclet keyboard mechanism sees its keys have a very short stroke. The Compaq Presario CQ62 buttons just above the base, which has the effect of interfering a bit hit and generate a lot of mistakes, especially at the beginning.

Below the keyboard, trackpad correct size will pass through both sides of the desk without worry. Additional settings in the control panel allow to extend the possibilities of multi-touch trackpad that. With two fingers, you can add shortcuts, with three fingers, you can navigate in the Modern UI applications open. By dragging the right edge, the bar is called "Charm" and left the Modern UI applications that are launched. On our test model, the trackpad had a slight defect. The tapping of the finger on the  Dell D630  touchpad, but without generating a click, a tiny unpleasant Thurs arose. It is likely that this defect is only present on our test unit, which has obviously already toured extensively before landing here.

The slab is finally mounted on a hinge which allows a 180 ° angle to obtain a machine entirely flat. In this configuration, one can imagine to share information with the caller quickly, easily use the touchpad or a few games of touch several games. Moreover, the touch layer is accurate and properly respond to our pressure, even in the office. Above the touchscreen, it has a 720p webcam classic swarming a bit during video chats. The  Inspiron 1525  is correct, it is positioned on the front, near the left speaker.

Speaking of sound, Acer has two speakers on each side at the front of the chassis. On your lap, the sound is a bit muffled. On a desk, it's a little better, the sound is expressed a little stronger and allows sound to a small room. However, if you do not activate the Dolby Home Theater v4 in the sound settings (also available in the status bar of the desktop), it is far too weak and unbalanced. In all cases, the sound produced by these speakers is not good with treble and bass crackling absent. To listen to music, as so often with laptops, it will opt for a helmet.

In the sound category, we will also discuss two fans on board. Acer said the cooling operation of the Pavilion dv6000 one simple pattern. On one side the fan draws cool air through the bottom and the hot spring at the back of the display hinge. But why use two turbines? Knowing that there is only one processor and no secondary chipset, Acer could very well happen one of them. But now, with two small fans and rising rapidly in the towers, the noise can be annoying while working with the computer. At the lower CPU utilization, both fans kick into gear and it is an army of mosquitoes invaded the room. Any game launched as The Cave, absolutely necessary to put a headphones on, otherwise it quickly becomes deafening.

A well stocked bundle

In the margin of S7 Aspire, Acer has been quite generous. The box contains a cover Ultrabook our simple, but gray faux leather class, dress conservatively machine to protect it during transport. This cover could be a little more accomplished for instance by replacing the big white scratch by a simple magnet discreet. But overall, it will be his office. HP Pavilion DV6 also adds two cables, one USB 2.0 port for adding Ethernet (10 Mb / s) and other micro-HDMI to offer a VGA output. They are both good quality and always good to take. There is also the charger, an essential accessory that is put in his bag. This can provide 65W, is small and produced by Lite-On. To recharge the 35 Wh battery Aspire S7, 1:14 hours it will take from 20 to 80% load.

Since we are talking about the battery, make it a point to use this Ultrabook Acer. The model tested Aspire S7 has the same processor as the VAIO Duo 11 we tested there is little or an Intel Core i5-3317U clocked at 1.7 GHz (Turbo 2.6 GHz), supplemented by a circuit Intel HD Graphics 4000. It also features 4GB of RAM that can not expand here, and a 128GB SSD a bit special. All the Latitude E6400 technology is concentrated at the back of the machine on a motherboard "rectangular", the remainder being occupied by the battery. If a capacity of 35 Wh just seems a bit, she explained in part by the fineness of the machine. Autonomy is not ideal but still acceptable, with 3:26 and 4:56 of video playback on desktop use with WiFi on and the screen at 30% brightness. Not extraordinary compared to other Ultrabooks a little thicker, but it will come out easily if we cross a regular electrical outlet.

SSD atypical

Performance S7 perfectly show the height of advanced office. By this we mean that it is possible to perform some Excel macros or to have many tabs open web, while pointing his e-mails. However, if the small Core i5 smooth out some dell batteries  retouching advances, it will start to snore all the heavy computing tasks. On the slab, which has the advantage of offering a definition Full HD 1920 x 1080 pixels, our measurements show that it provides a maximum contrast ratio is not bad (876:1), while Delta E is 5.8 on the sRGB color space. Not great, but we've seen much worse, especially in Acer. The maximum brightness of the slab is against a little weak, limited to 184 cd / m². Indoors, that's enough, but outside, it is not always enough, not to mention that is also playing with the reflections of the glossy ...

Always about the Dell Vostro 1520performance, we discuss the SSD Acer Aspire installed in the S7. We mentioned a few weeks ago already, Acer has made with the help of Lite-On, a disk NAND Flash atypical for this machine. MSATA format, Acer offers a RAID 0 two 64GB SSD controlled by two Marvell chips 88SS9175 and two memory chips 64 MB RAM and two chips provided by Toshiba for storage. Looking more closely at the references of each chip, there is ultimately no RAID controller on the SSD both sides. RAID would be managed by the motherboard and copper connectors of the single taken mSATA have changed. Usually pinch connectors on each side mSATA SSDs. Acer separated by two rows to manage the DSS over the top with it, and the SSD installed upside down with the bottom. Then the RAID chip on the motherboard does its job of aggregating two discs. To be sure that we can still change Pavilion DV7 in case we tried to connect a classic, and - good news - the BIOS recognizes normally under the username HDD0 while another identifier HDD1 is free.

From the point of view of performance, SSD produced by Lite-On could not be faster sequential read and write in CrystalDiskMark with 874 MB / s and 364 MB / s! In other words, it pulls. Random access with 4k blocks on tail length to 32, the result is pretty good overall, with better results than talking about the leak last December. It displays these conditions in 282 MB / s random read and 238 MB / s random write. With such a SSD, the Dell Studio 1555 system is reactive and starts in just four seconds. Loading heavy applications like Photoshop does also only a few seconds, much less than on other machines we've had hands. This is interesting even if it ultimately adding to the bill ...

The Ultrabook like?

Since we are talking about price, the Aspire S7 is currently available in shops 1300 €. It is therefore apparent that Acer is trying to séduir market high-end Ultrabook with her, in order to trace its reputation. Overall, this machine is pretty well finished, very fine, and has a well-stocked bundle. The point of view of the slab which is one reminds Full HD for a diagonal of 13.3 "reading comfort is good and the touchscreen is pretty accurate, even on the environment" Bureau "Windows 8.

But now, Acer has a few touches to correct its Ultrabook that it is really perfect. Examples include self a bit disappointing, keyboard perfectible, or a slab that should be brighter and proposed matt (even as an option). One final point needs to review Acer notable: the sound. Speakers installed below the S7 not grow strong enough to render immersive interesting. Without the plug-in Dolby is even more striking. Nevertheless, Acer scores points on the design, which has not always been a strong brand with a touch screen mounted on a hinge interesting 180 °, while innovating with its mSATA SSD RAID 0 on both sides which accelerates even more the system.

Tags:  DV4,  Latitude E6520, E6420 batteries