- Conclusion Get the lowdown
- Features How it compares
- Performance Real world benchmarks
- Differences Technical showdown
- Reviews Word on the street
- Competition Others to consider
- Discussion Answers and opinions
Acer Aspire S S3-951
- 13.3"
- Core i7 1.7 GHz Dual core
- 4 GB DDR3-1333
- 240 GB SSD
First seen on December, 2011
Rated 100% by by J.F.I'm happy with it, 3 hours is plenty for me, plus I always bring the charger just in case!
Features Key features of the Acer Aspire S S3-951
1.7 GHz
Intel Core i7 2637M
Rated 60% by by Gregg-A.-Lebovitz--glebovitz (Mar, 2012)It really makes my travel bag easy to carry.
screen size
13.3"
17.3"
15.6"
Aspire S S3-951 by Mark-Twain (Mar, 2012)I was concerned that the 13.3" screen on the Acer would feel too small, but that has not been an issue.
Aspire S S3-951 by Alan-H.-Waitt (Jul, 2012)Done the tablet thing, didn't find them practical and notice that nearly everyone with a tablet puts a keyboard on it, as i did, but then the screen size of 10.1 was too small to do any heavy work.
screen resolution
Aspire S S3-951 by Gregg-A.-Lebovitz--glebovitz (Mar, 2012)Bright - the screen is easy on the eyes even though the resolution is only 1366x768.
cpu speed
| 0 GHz | 2.9 GHz   | 3 GHz |
Aspire S S3-951 by Gregg-A.-Lebovitz--glebovitz (Mar, 2012)Fast - I was running a Dell 6520 with an i7 processor prior to this.
processor
Aspire S S3-951 by J.F.The core i7 processor also makes this a speed demon when you're opening up applications like photoshop, illustrator, indesign, or any CPU heavy applications you throw at it.
Aspire S S3-951 by Mark-Twain (Mar, 2012)The primary reason I bought the Acer S-3 i5 with Solid State Hard Drive (SSD) is for the speed, weight, and form factor.
memory
| 0 GB | 8 GB | 8 GB |
Aspire S S3-951 by M.-Svensson--MSven (Nov, 2011)Overall, satisfied with the purchase and am much happier having the added RAM, processing speed, HDMI out, and SSHD that cheaper ones don't have.
Performance Real world tests of Acer Aspire S S3-951
battery life
10 hour
5 hour
5 hour
Aspire S S3-951 by J.F.Most laptops are advertised with an amazing battery life, but to actually achieve hours and hours, you'd have to have wifi off, your screen brightness super low, and not run any CPU intensive applications.
Aspire S S3-951 by Cooperstown39 (Apr, 2012)I have not yet stressed the battery life but a first go around looks like it will be approximately 5 to 6 hours.
Our analysis How does it stack up against its top 10 competitors
pros
-
1.3 MP -
0.1 ms (SSD) -
10 hour -
1,347 g -
SD -
DDR3-1333 -
24 Mbit/s (Bluetooth v4.0) -
18 mm
cons
-
13.3" -
240 GB -
1.7 GHz -
57 MB/s (USB 2.0)
Reviews Word on the street
 |    Rated by 39 users at amazon.com Rated 100% by by Austin-D. (Feb, 2012) Rated 100% by by J.F. Rated 100% by by william (Aug, 2012) |
|---|---|
Screen
Acer Aspire S S3-951 13.3", 1.7 GHz, 4 GB, 240 GB SSD | Rated 100% by by Mark-Twain (Mar, 2012)Coming from a 15.6" screen laptop that weighed almost 7 lbs, this unit is refreshingly light and appealing to the eye.
Acer Aspire S S3-951 13.3", 1.7 GHz, 4 GB, 240 GB SSD | Rated 100% by by Cooperstown39 (Apr, 2012)The keyboard works well for touch typists with no strange key sizes or rearrangements.
Acer Aspire S S3-951 13.3", 1.7 GHz, 4 GB, 240 GB SSD | Rated 20% by by Tim-Nisly--SoydeTim (Sep, 2012)Wish I didn't have to return it, but it freezes every 5-15 minutes, gives me a blue screen of death or just restarts.
Body
Acer Aspire S S3-951 13.3", 1.7 GHz, 4 GB, 240 GB SSD | Rated 100% by by Austin-D. (Feb, 2012)I can't tell you how much I love the thin, lightweight design.
Acer Aspire S S3-951 13.3", 1.7 GHz, 4 GB, 240 GB SSD | Rated 100% by by J.F.It's always handy to have when I need to mock something up and design on my laptop, on the spot, and in front of them.
Acer Aspire S S3-951 13.3", 1.7 GHz, 4 GB, 240 GB SSD | Rated 100% by by QuinnRaymond (Jun, 2012)Fast, cool(temp wise), sleek, well built, etc.Not sure Ill want a reg Laptop anymore after this.
Touchpad
Acer Aspire S S3-951 13.3", 1.7 GHz, 4 GB, 240 GB SSD | Rated 60% by by Gregg-A.-Lebovitz--glebovitz (Mar, 2012)The touch pad requires a driver update from ELAN - ELAN sent me a beta driver that addresses most of my issues with the touch pad.
Acer Aspire S S3-951 13.3", 1.7 GHz, 4 GB, 240 GB SSD | Rated 60% by by Gregg-A.-Lebovitz--glebovitz (Mar, 2012)The alternative is paying Acer $200 to clean out the touch pad.
Acer Aspire S S3-951 13.3", 1.7 GHz, 4 GB, 240 GB SSD | Rated 60% by by Gregg-A.-Lebovitz--glebovitz (Mar, 2012)The touch pad is a bit fragile - The touch pad has no seal around the edges.
Size
Acer Aspire S S3-951 13.3", 1.7 GHz, 4 GB, 240 GB SSD | Rated 100% by by Web-Goddess (May, 2012)The laptop is very thin and light, doesn't get too warm, great viewing angles, doesn't come loaded with too much cr@pware, is a breeze to set up, and sounds great!
Acer Aspire S S3-951 13.3", 1.7 GHz, 4 GB, 240 GB SSD | Rated 100% by by Jianfeng (Jun, 2012)Slim, bright, lightweight, fast, good looking, everything is fine, except the noise of the fan and the weak wireless signal, compared with my Thinkpad x200 machine.
Acer Aspire S S3-951 13.3", 1.7 GHz, 4 GB, 240 GB SSD | Rated 40% by by Angie-Boyter (May, 2012)The computer is easy to carry, and I liked the touchpad's "rocker" feature, but the negatives were too strong.
Harddrive
Acer Aspire S S3-951 13.3", 1.7 GHz, 4 GB, 240 GB SSD | Rated 100% by by ben (Jul, 2012)I bought this for my father he needed a new laptop and he loved how small the net books wereThe ssd is perfect he doesn't need much space but the speed is amazing.
Acer Aspire S S3-951 13.3", 1.7 GHz, 4 GB, 240 GB SSD | Rated 100% by by Mark-Twain (Mar, 2012)The SSD drive makes the laptop very responsive, and the fact that it is 256GB instead of just 128GB or 160GB like some of the other brand laptops I was considering is nice.
Acer Aspire S S3-951 13.3", 1.7 GHz, 4 GB, 240 GB SSD | Rated 100% by by J.F.You can still fit a ton of stuff onto 240GB, but I'd install all necessary applications first, and then add the fun stuff for last so you know you have room on your hard drive.
Competition What else you should consider
 | 1 | Apple MacBook Pro with Retina Display Highest resolution screen Apple MacBook Pro with Retina Display vs Acer Aspire S S3-951 |
 | 2 | ASUS ZENBOOK UX31E Fastest processor ASUS ZENBOOK UX31E vs Acer Aspire S S3-951 |
 | 3 | HP Pavilion dm1 4-way tie: Fast RAM HP Pavilion dm1 vs Acer Aspire S S3-951 |
 | 5 | Acer Chromebook AC700 2-way tie: OK l2 cache Chromebook AC700 vs Aspire S S3-951 |
 | 6 | Dell XPS 13 xps13-l321x 3-way tie: Fast USB Dell XPS 13 xps13-l321x vs Acer Aspire S S3-951 |
 | 7 | SAMSUNG Notebook NP300V5A 3-way tie: Most CPU cores SAMSUNG Notebook NP300V5A vs Acer Aspire S S3-951 |
 | 8 | Samsung RF Series RF711 Good CPU benchmark score Samsung RF Series RF711 vs Acer Aspire S S3-951 |
New duel?
Let the battle continue or dare to compare.
Editions Editions of the Acer Aspire S S3-951
| Price | Edition | RAM type | Battery life | Cores | Manufacturer code | Compare | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | | DDR3 | 7 hour | Single core | S3-951-6828 | | ||||
 | | DDR3-1333 | 10 hour | Dual core | S3-951-6432 | | ||||
