Asus Aspire S5 391

Acer Aspire S5-391-9880

The Acer Aspire S5-391-9880 is aptly named. It aspires to be something special, to combine beautiful design with uncompromising performance, to be a premium ultrabook worth every penny of its $1,399.99 (direct) price. It achieves most of its goals, just not quite enough of them. The Aspire S5 offers strong performance and is equipped with a Thunderbolt port - a lightning-fast 10Gbps port previously seen only on Apple laptops - but it falls short of delivering the sort of user experience we expect from a machine in this price range. The end result is an ultrabook that is perfectly adequate, if slightly dissatisfying. The Acer Aspire S5 has a unique design, anchored with Acer's MagicFlip I/O Panel, a powered hatch on the back of the system. With the press of a button, this concealed panel opens up, revealing the laptop's ports. This motorized panel is a neat idea, but the execution leaves something to be desired. Port covers of plastic or rubber are already needless and irritating, but when pressing the button to open the hatch - which you'll need to do anytime you want to plug in anything other than headphones - it opens slowly with an electronic grinding sound.