14 DAY TRIAL // The Acer Aspire S3 ultrabook from Acer is supposedly on track for a CPU upgrade, though the step won't be officially taken until five months from now.
Acer, like the rest of the ultrabook makers, tried to describe its Aspire S3 as favorably as possible, without straining the bounds of frankness overmuch.
In the end, though, the device was not found at all mindblowing in reviews and also failed to sell as well as Intel and its partners had hoped.
Now, it is said that Acer has decided to upgrade the item to Ivy Bridge in April, 2012.
The Core i5-based Aspire S3 was tricky enough to sell, with its price of $899 (about 665.5 EUR), even before it got upgraded to Core i7 and a 240 GB SSD ($1,299 / 961.5 EUR).
The redesigned S3 is supposed to be the fulfillment of the promise that these super-thin and light laptops would get cheaper and better next year.
Still, it will be hard to actually meet the goal of $499 (€371) that Acer mentioned was set for 2013.
The Ivy Bridge Aspire S3 is, thus, a step in that direction, though one can only hope that further delays won't interfere.
Intel already pushed back the central processing units from Q1 sales to the second quarter, so April is a bit on the early side for notebook launches.
“I think in April next year we are having a new slightly redesigned version of S3 with slight adjustment in outlook,” said Acer Middle East Country Manager Grigory Nizovsky.
The Acer Aspire S3 will be doubtlessly present at CES 2012 (Consumer Electronics Show), along with 30 to 50 new ones from all over the world.
“This is only the beginning of a new transition period, which is going to excite all of us, ” Nizovsky said.
The above is a sort of echo of how Intel said, a short while ago, that the PC was being reinvented, not pushed aside.