Acer Aspire S3-392G review

The S3-329G’s Full HD 13.3in touchscreen was delightfully responsive. We could easily perform Windows 8 gestures, and the scaling options in Windows 8.1’s Control Panel made it easy to tap files and icons accurately. We did notice a couple of issues with the touchscreen digitiser, though, as the touchscreen would sometimes tap or select something on its own when we tilted the screen back.

These phantom taps were mostly confined to the top left-hand corner, so it would sometimes switch tabs while we were browsing the internet for example. This issue with the digitiser wouldn’t put us off buying the S3-392G, and the phantom taps didn’t happen every time we moved the screen, but it’s certainly something of which you should be aware before purchase.

The image quality of the S3’s screen was pretty good. We measured a relatively average sRGB colour gamut coverage of 68.4 per cent, but our subjective test images looked great. Reds, greens and blues were bright, rich and pleasing to look at. Our calibrator reported a low black level of just 0.11cd/m2, and the solid blacks displayed on the screen almost matched the same shade of as the glossy bezel. Whites were clean and evenly lit, too.

We were equally happy with the S3-392G’s contrast levels. Having measured a huge contrast ratio of 1,086:1 with our colour calibrator, all of our high contrast test images were packed with detail. A few areas of ultra deep shadow were lost to its deep black levels but, on the whole, images looked superb.

As for battery life, the S3-392G lasted exactly 9 hours in our light use test with the screen set to half brightness, which is around what we expect to see from an Ultrabook at this price.

The Acer Aspire S3 is a huge improvement on its predecessor. It’s expensive, but it’s easily one of the best value Core i5 Ultrabooks currently available. You certainly get much more for your money than the Acer Aspire S7 and we think it’s much more comfortable to use. We’re certainly not happy with the phantom screen taps that occasionally occurred when we moved the screen, and there were some very minor flaws with the keyboard. However, these issues aren’t enough to detract from a stunning design, powerful hardware and a great display.