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The S5 is thin and light with blazing disk performance, but this overpriced laptop is marred by serious usability flaws, including short battery life and inconvenient port placement.

The sleekly designed Acer Aspire S5 Ultrabook poses one of the most credible threats to the MacBook Air we've seen to date.

This is the current leader in the arms race for the thinnest officially labeled ultrabook, and has the rare quality of being just plain fun to use.

The price premium here is ultimately what may be the bigger hill to climb. The $1,400 price tag is justified given the extra storage capacity, but it’s still tough to swallow when competitors’ ultrabooks can be had for under $1,000.

The Acer Aspire S5 is a superthin Ultrabook with record-breakingly fast dual SSDs, but a dull screen and short battery life hold it back.

you get what you pay for, and if your aim is to grab a thinnest-in-class yet high-quality notebook with power enough to play top-quality games and work all day long on web and local-based type-heavy tasks on Windows, you’ve got the best there is right here.

If you're looking for a primary laptop that can handle the rigours of everyday life, but be as light and svelte as humanly possible, you've found your ideal laptop.

Throw in niggles like its lack of keyboard backlighting, and there are simply better premium ultraportable laptops on the market than the Acer Aspire S5 for its price.

Nothing about the S5 justifies the price disparity between it and the Aspire M5, and nothing makes it competitive with other expensive Ultrabooks.