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If you have a passion for white electronics, the Aspire S7's looks alone may seal the deal, but the laptop is more than just a pretty face. Acer packs in Intel's Broadwell Core i7 processor, a battery that lasts close to a full work day, and plenty of storage and RAM into a sleek body.
What we liked
The gorgeous design and white aesthetics makes for a stunning laptop. Acer not only filled the void created when Apple discontinued its white-hued plastic MacBook, but the Aspire excels in the looks department with premium glass and metal materials.
If you take time to remove the bloatware that comes preinstalled on the Aspire S7, you'll be rewarded with fast and powerful performance thanks to Intel's Core i7 processor. Design professionals who may be drawn to the Aspire's aesthetics may want to stay away if their workflow requires a dedicated GPU to do heavy lifting, but the Intel HD Graphics 5500 is more than capable for general computing tasks and casual gaming.
If you're looking for an entertainment laptop, the Aspire S7 has a gorgeous screen, albeit one that's capped at 1080p, and impressive stereo speakers.
What we disliked
The biggest problem with the Aspire S7 is that Acer saddled the laptop with too many software titles, which slows the system down. Once the pre-installed bloatware is removed, performance increased in our benchmark tests.
Adding a 360-degree hinge to the slim and attractive design of the Aspire S7 would make it an attractive convertible notebook that would make the system more competitive with premium convertibles, like the HP Spectre x360 and Lenovo LaVie Z 360. The 180-degree hinge on the Aspire S7 is still good for productivity and enhances peer-to-peer collaboration, but if you want to travel with a tablet, you'll have to add the cost and weight of a separate slate to your travel bag.
Final verdict
The Aspire S7 is an attractive and powerful laptop, but not one without compromises. If you're willing to invest a little time to remove Acer's bloatware and can live with a keyboard with key travel that's a bit more shallow, then the Aspire S7 rewards you with a very capable computing experience that will also look good on your desk.
