Acer Aspire S5 Features

When Acer introduced the Aspire S5 ultrabook at CES in January, it did so to considerable fanfare. The company said it was the thinnest ultrabook yet, and that it didn't cut corners to get there: the S5 has a Thunderbolt port (good luck finding one on another ultrabook), a huge 256GB SSD, and a bizarre ports panel called MagicFlip. Thin, light, fast, and Thunderbolt sounded like a gang not to be trifled with.
It is indeed the thinnest ultrabook we’ve tested and one of the lightest, we've tested, at 15.2mm thick and 2.65 pounds — it’s noticeably lighter than even the MacBook Air. Small seams exist, but it looks for all the world like a unibody device save for a small cutout in the bottom. It's a beautiful, sleek machine, and it's clear that Acer took care in its design.

The S5 does still have its oddities, however, one of which you'll probably hear before you see. At first glance there are exactly two ports on the S5 — an SD card slot (itself fairly well hidden into the tapered edge, though an inserted card sticks out about halfway) and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The rest of the I / O lineup lives in a hidden panel at the back called the MagicFlip, which rises out of its shell when needed (or when the fan is needed, since it's on the same panel).

Audio quality is functional, but far from impressive. Two of the the S5's speakers are located on the computer's bottom edge and the third is on the MagicFlip, pointing out the back. The setup worried me, but they're plenty loud and actually do a nice job of using a table or your lap to diffuse sound. Audio doesn't distort even at maximum volume, but that's because compression is going berserk here: the top and bottom of nearly any song are clipped to the point where bass-heavy songs appear to be missing entire tracks and instruments. There's some Dolby software that lets you choose a few different EQ profiles, but its changes are relatively minor.
The trackpad, on the other hand, is a bit of a mess all the time. It starts with the materials: the matte texture is almost sticky, so your finger (and thus the cursor) stutters across the pad instead of gliding smoothly. Strangely enough, I found that licking my finger before using the trackpad actually helped a lot — it's like the S5 just needs some WD-40. Scrolling with two fingers is incredibly stuttery, as is pinch-to-zoom. On the bright side, palm rejection is excellent, so you won’t accidentally brush the trackpad and move the cursor while you’re typing.