Acer has presented its first attempt on Intel’s new Ultrabook category with the Aspire S3 and with that, has claimed the honour of being the first to ship them to the US outside of Apple.

Ultrabooks are characterized by their ability to be concurrently powerful and lightweight, and the Aspire S3 accomplishes just that. The 0.51 inch thin notebook, with a magnesium alloy case, houses a 13.3-inch screen and weighs a feathery 2.98 pounds. And the graceful façade comes power-packed with a low-power Intel Core i5 processor, 4 GB of RAM memory and a rare combination of both a 20GB SSD for speed and a 320GB rotating drive for space- all signs of a solid performer. Acer promises a fast 1.5-second wake from sleep time (6 seconds from deep sleep) and a further 2 seconds for Wi-Fi connectivity, all thanks to its Instant On and Instant Connect technologies. It also claims a 50 day standby time.

See how thin that is !?

The device starts at $899. Because of the lower price, some specs had to be sacrificed which include a lower 1366×768 screen resolution and a shorter six-hour battery life. Acer assured that less expensive systems with Core i3s, as well as faster Core i7 models, will also be available.

All in all the sleek and stylish Aspire S3 is a powerful device and a perfect portable machine and its low pricing makes it a very interesting opponent to Apple’s more expensive and slightly lighter 13-inch MacBook Air.