Living with the…Acer Aspire S5 Ultrabook

Ultrabooks. What are they exactly?

Ah, now there’s a question.

As far as I can make out the initial intention of Intel when they coined the phrase was that ultrabooks should be lightweight, powerful laptops at the premium end of the market. Ultralight even. Hence the name.

Another way of saying this would be – they should be PCs that look like Macbook Airs. Yep, that’s pretty much it.

Strange then that since their formal introduction the term has been used in rather ‘inventive’ ways by manufacturers. Some of the models that parade under the banner of ultrabook are heavy, cheap, and rubbish. In fact what they should be called are ‘laptops’, bad ones at that. Now there’s a novel idea.

A more honest form of Ultrabook though is a different proposition. The allure of a machine that can do serious work, while not giving the bearer a hernia in the process, is a sensible one which I wholly endorse. I don’t really travel as such, but do have quite pansy shoulders which buckle under any substantial, or if I’m honest non-substantial, weight. So a laptop that floats on a cushion of ibuprofen is my ultimate machine fantasy (not including the whole cyborg/Natalie Portman/Xbox thing), but in the meantime I’ll take whatever help I can get. Thankfully not all PC companies mock the ultrabook format in such outrageous fashion. Acer in fact have recently released the Aspire S5 and, even more amazingly, they were willing to let me borrow one. Surely we live in a time of wonder.

The Acer Aspire S5

The S5 is very light, very light indeed, and it’s also as slim as a supermodel’s dietary options. There’s power under the hood too, not to mention USB 3.0 and even a Thunderbolt port for all those hideously overpriced hard drives that nobody uses. So is it the machine that will finally avert my gaze, and subsequent financial ruin, from the Macbook Air?

Well, no.

There are some quite compelling features in the S5. The aforementioned lack of mass is certainly striking, and a hidden motorised compartment that houses all the USB ports is another. The latter actually made me feel like I was part of a Mission:Impossible style crack squad of computer hackers at times, but that probably has more to do with my worrying personality quirks than any intended design feature. The illusion was also compromised by the terrible noise the compartment made when opening, akin to an asthmatic cylon suffering with a severe bout of constipation. Ah, Tom Cruise will never let me back in the team now.

Mercifully the machine runs Windows 7, which gives it a head-start straight away when compared to my recent Windows 8 experiences (although I should note that I will finally get my hands on a touchscreen enabled laptop next week, so this remark may be quietly withdrawn when no-one is looking).

So why no love for the S5?

Two very important reasons. Keyboard and trackpad. To be fair the keyboard on this review model is actually some bizarre European (I’m guessing) version, which also features Z and Y keys that have been swapped around (although they still give the normal letter when pressed, so touch typing became a definite advantage). This means that a standard UK alternative might be a more pleasant experience, but I couldn’t escape the feeling that the keys don’t feel full sized, even though they actually are, which was a little disconcerting. Another issue is that the S5 keyboard also suffers from the unforgivable sin of a split enter key to presumably save space. This seems like a very ill thought out design choice and resulted in the constant miss-hitting of a key that gets a fair bit of use in the normal working day.

What do those do?

The trackpad also became a regular frustration as it detected palm movements randomly, meaning the cursor leapt about just when you didn’t want it to, and the buttons under the pad also lacked any certainty. At times it felt like the machine was waiting for me to utter some kind of secret password that would allow my choices to be registered. Not a game for those in a hurry.

Performance wise the S5 is actually quite impressive, with programs running smoothly and displaying no signs of difficulty while under strain. The display itself though is also a let down. I’ve not been overly impressed with many of the screens on the various ultrabooks I’ve tried, and the S5 just joins the unfortunate pile. Colours are bright but the definition is a little fuzzy, with a frosting appearance on the screen. Not terrible by any means, but it doesn’t draws you in with any great excitement.

It’s not a bad machine, even barring these annoyances, but it’s nothing special. With prices online settling around the £650 mark it certainly offers a fair amount of power and connectivity in an extremely portable form factor for a decent price, but the user experience is definitely lacking polish.

I had high hopes for the S5, as the price and technical specifications seemed very promising, but in the end I soon lost interest in the machine, preferring instead to reach for my cheap and cheerful Chromebook when typing needed to be done.

Free, free at last!

I have a confession to make.

Give me a minute to compose myself.

*deep intake of breath*

Ok, I’m ready now.

Due to work requirements I recently found myself in the position of having to load Windows onto one of my home machines. It’s been 7 years since I escaped the driver incessant, pop-up window collage that was XP, and hopes weren’t high when the first two attempts to install it ended in failure. Like a dark cloud floating in front of the sun the ominous feeling of doom that had followed me for so much of my early computer life returned.

Weary of spirit, but stout of resolve I soldiered on and eventually, via the kindness of a friend and the privileged position of being a tech journalist once more, I installed Windows 7 Home Premium and braced myself for impact.

Then it happened….

This Windows…it’s different. It’s…….nice.

 

Where were the demands for answers that Microsoft previously made on me every time I wanted to accomplish even the simplest tasks? What’s this Dock-like area at the bottom of the screen where I can helpfully pin my favourite apps? Could it be true that the paperclip of interminable cheeriness had  finally been put down?

This indeed was a different country.

The visuals were smart, but tasteful. The system was snappy and efficient. Even the built in security features seemed unobtrusive. What sorcery was this?

Briefly the amazement held, then I tried to play a DVD. Ah, there they are. Error messages aplenty. DRM, drivers, codex, all those old birds coming home to roost. Several downloads, updates, and restarts later left me no better off. My short lived euphoria was shattered. Windows, you cruel temptress.

But before I could safely consign Microsoft to the backwaters of my mind a thought occurred. In the past year I have dabbled heavily in Linux. If nothing else it’s taught me that open source software can often fix the ills of the technological world. And so it proved. After ditching Windows Media Player in favour of VLC the DVD played first time. Then I downloaded Chrome, giving me access to all the apps I tend to use now (Google Docs, Tweetdeck, Google+, etc.) and installed Thunderbird for my emails.

 

It all worked brilliantly, and behaved in many ways like my Mac and Linux machines had. In addition I now had access to Steam, with it’s plethora of cheap games, and was able to complete the work tasks that began the process in the first place. All within an environment that I actually found pleasurable to use.

So, Windows…we’re friends again. Which is nice, as I don’t like to harbor grudges or miss out on cheaper hardware.

As I considered this strange turn of events it had made me realise that since I moved from PC to Mac I’d pretty much thought that was the end of it. But thanks to open source software the world is available to me again.  Now I can do anything I need on almost any platform. Could it be that I’ve become OS neutral?

I can choose whichever machine serves my purposes and budget without the need to conform to the tribe to whom I’ve swore my allegiance. Surely these are the dreams of fools and madmen? But no…

I never thought that I’d make a profound discovery while musing on the Windows OS, but it seems that fate is tricksy and not devoid of a sense of irony.

The digital landscape is wider for me today, and I like what lays ahead. It’s…liberating.

Just as technology should be.

 

How do you use computers today? Are you dedicated to one platform or do you wander like a harlot? Let me know by leaving a comment below.