IFA 2011: Acer announces its first Ultrabook, the Aspire S3

Yesterday, we told you about Toshiba announcing their Protege Z830 Ultrabook at IFA 2011. We knew there were more Ultrabook announcements to come and now Acer has announced the S3 that falls under the Aspire line of notebooks. Acer boasts of the S3 being impressive in every aspect. The S3 will be 1.3cm in thickness and should weigh 1.4 kg which is roughly, netbook weight. Standby to normal operation switch-on should take 1.5 seconds. The standard chiclet-style design keyboard will still be present on the S3. The Ultrabook movement is being driven by Intel and all of its close partners are likely to be building notebooks on similar lines.

Ultra portability with the new Aspire S3

The Aspire S3 will use Intel Core i3 and Core i5 Sandy Bridge processors and use either a 240 GB SSD or 320/500GB hard drive. The hard drives are likely to be the more value for money offering. Other standard features found on other notebooks such as network connectivity (WiFi 802.11n), a memory card reader, a 1.3 MP camera and even Bluetooth 4.0 support are going to be present on the S3. Indian launch dates and prices aren’t mentioned but European markets should find the S3 available from a starting price of 799 Euros (approximately Rs. 52,000). The highest spec model will sell at 1199 Euros (Rs. 78,000).