The Ultrabook promise was always thin and light but without the price tag of older ultraportables, but to date, there’s not been a lot of aggressive ultrabook pricing out there. Acer’s just announced its first salvo aimed at the more cost-conscious end of the market.
$999 will buy you an Acer Aspire Ultrabook with a Core-i3 1.3GHz processor, 320GB hard drive, 13.3 inch Aspire S3-951 laptop, bringing it under that crucial thousand dollar price point. The rest of the Aspire range sits above it; $1,199 buys you the Core i5 version, $1,299 the Core i5 model with 500GB hard drive, $1,599 gets you the Core i5 with a 256GB SSD and the top of the range model has a Core i7 1.7GHz processor and 256GB SSD.
I know there’s some resistance to Ultrabooks given the use of integrated graphics within them, but it seems unlikely to me that we’ll see Acer alone in the sub-$1,000 space for long. That puts pressure on not only the ultrabook market but also the general notebook market as well — and that’s got to be good for everybody. [Acer]
TSH
Monday, November 28, 2011 at 2:17 PM… you can get an 11″ MBA w/ i5 and SSD speed for an extra $100. I know, I know, horses for courses. But you’d think Acer could do a bit better than that…
Christian
Monday, November 28, 2011 at 2:20 PMis that a 64GB SSD?
Andrew
Monday, November 28, 2011 at 4:59 PMYup. Smaller screen, less RAM, tiny amount of storage.
By the time you start comparing like with like, the price diferential is quite significant.
PHuZ
Monday, November 28, 2011 at 2:31 PMit’s a damn shame that this is NOT reflecting Australian Pricing (add an extra $500).. SHEEEESH
Alex Kidman
Monday, November 28, 2011 at 2:39 PMThose *are* the Australian prices quoted above, direct from Acer Australia…
Christian
Monday, November 28, 2011 at 5:13 PMwas in Officeworks before, had a play with it on display – yeah $999
It is light and thin! my gosh feels like it might snap in half so thin, not sure I could trust myself to use it though, scared it might break…
but otherwise it is pretty nice, two usbs on the back hdmi on the back and some sd card reader on one side and I think head phones on the other.
Like a fancy ebook? or mini bare basic snazzy laptop
Kyle
Monday, November 28, 2011 at 2:54 PMThese things are just netbooks 2.0, the thinner version. waste of money.
Ozoneocean
Monday, November 28, 2011 at 3:02 PMTrue , but then so are the current crop of Apple inspired tablets. In both cases though you have something a lot better than what inspired them.
light487
Monday, November 28, 2011 at 4:16 PMI just don’t trust Acer any more… too many of my friends/family have had problems with their laptops over the last 18 months. Screens, batteries, keyboards.. each individual case showing a failure within the first few months of purchase. They are really going to have to lift their game in terms of quality to compete.
Christian
Monday, November 28, 2011 at 5:14 PMhave you played with one yet Alex?
spk
Monday, November 28, 2011 at 5:21 PMIf they are relatively cheaper than the air counterparts, and assuming they have an on-board HD2000/3000 graphics. Helloooo Hackintosh..
Corey
Monday, November 28, 2011 at 9:37 PMThis ultrabook is awful Ive had a go of it the software is fine its windows and intel but the build quality sucks
BenDTU
Monday, November 28, 2011 at 10:28 PMSo basically they took out the SSD, the only thing making this thing worth a buy, to keep the price competitive.
Well done Acer. Well done.
Luke
Monday, November 28, 2011 at 11:12 PMOk just pointing out, as per Intel’s specification an Ultrabook must have an SSD not a HDD as the storage device. So Acer shouldn’t be allowed to promote this as something it’s not. The performance will be crippled without the SSD.
Anyways, I don’t think anyone is under any delusions as to the low quality of Acer’s laptops. If your in the market for an Ultrabook, and will not consider the MacBook Air for whatever reason, then don’t cheap out with Acer’s offering. Asus & Lenovo have the best 2 Ultrabook’s on offer so far and both brands have a much better reputation for reliability. Acer’s have the highest rate of faults out of the big name brand laptop makers.
Daniel
Tuesday, November 29, 2011 at 11:19 AMPut down the Mac Airs as much as you want, but those things are speedy as hell and put any Windows Ultrabook to shame in the speed in which it opens applications and wakes up. You may not get as much ram or hard drive space, but that is because Apple engineer those computers to run better with less. Shame Microsoft can’t do the same yet…