When comparing MacBook vs Acer Aspire S13 S5-371T-78TA, the Slant community recommends Acer Aspire S13 S5-371T-78TA for most people. In the question“What are the best USB-C laptops?” Acer Aspire S13 S5-371T-78TA is ranked 6th while MacBook is ranked 12th. The most important reason people chose Acer Aspire S13 S5-371T-78TA is:
The Aspire S13 is a decent laptop for most day-to-day activities for students or normal users. The 8GB of RAM and i7 CPU work amazingly well for web browsing, watching videos or working with files and documents.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Extremely portable
The laptop weighs just 2 pounds and is 13.1 mm thin. It's one of the thinnest and lightest laptops on the market and it's extremely portable and easy to carry around.
Pro macOS is developer-friendly
macOS is based on XNU (Darwin) kernel, it's a certified Unix and arguably a lot more developer friendly than Windows. Development for Unix is native on macOS.
There's a large selection of great development tools available for macOS. The operating system itself comes bundled with a powerful terminal emulator, called Terminal. Additionally, Apple provides tools, like Xcode, an IDE that contains a comprehensive collection of tools for developing macOS and iOS software, for free.
You can also install Homebrew, an extremely useful package manager.
Pro Amazing display
Everything about the display is very good - from its high resolution (2304x1440) to the brightness (325 nitts), uniform brightness distribution (90%), and high contrast ratio (1000:1) with over 95% of the sRGB spectrum. Overall, a great display which will come in handy for people who work with visual arts.
Pro Excellent trackpad
The MacBook has a large 4.4 x 2.7-inch Force Touch trackpad with a Taptic Engine that delivers haptic feedback whenever the user taps on it to give them the impression that they are actually clicking on it. It also supports gestures and multi-finger swiping.
The accuracy is almost perfect and there's virtually no lag or stutter when using the trackpad.
Pro Decent battery life
The battery lasts around 7h30m of continuous web browsing which is about average for this class of laptops. Where this laptop's battery truly shines though is under heavy stress where it manages to last an impressive 2h35m under a total stress test (maxed out brightness and processor usage - circumstances that you are likely never going to encounter in the real world).
Pro Completely silent operation
Thanks to the Core M processor (which doesn't require a fan) and the SSD storage, there are no moving parts the in MacBook. It will operate in complete silence.
Pro Very good speakers
The speakers, found above the keyboard produce loud and clear sound with minimal to no distortion whatsoever. They can be used for both listening to music and watching movies with no problem at all.
Pro Decent keyboard
Pro Available in 4 colors
The laptop is available in space gray, gold, silver and rose gold (pink) finishes.
Pro Good performance for casual use
The Aspire S13 is a decent laptop for most day-to-day activities for students or normal users. The 8GB of RAM and i7 CPU work amazingly well for web browsing, watching videos or working with files and documents.
Pro Has a top-notch display
This laptop's display outshines most of the competition, from various lab tests it managed to score 106.8% sRGB color gamut. Which is better than the average for this display size (83%).
The display is quite bright as well. At 327 nits you can clearly see what's on the screen even under direct sunlight.
Pro Has both touch and non-touch display options
The Aspire S13 can be ordered with either type of display. They are both 1080p but the non-touch version is a bit brighter.
Pro Good build quality
Most of the chassis is covered by a textured nano-imprint cover which adds a very "premium" feel to it and is great to the touch. The keyboard and wrist area are made of aluminium, which looks great when the laptop is opened.
Pro Great design
The Aspire S13 comes in two colors, obsidian-black and white. Both of them have a nano-imprint cover, which gives the laptop a nice and slick aesthetic.
Cons
Con Not very powerful
With an Intel Core M processor, the Macbook isn't a serious development laptop. While it will get the job done for lighter tasks, it will struggle with heavier jobs.
Con Non-free software
Apple doesn't release the source code for most of their software & firmware. This makes it significantly more difficult to customize, automate tasks, and verify security.
Con It's a bit hard to get used to the keyboard
The keys are pretty shallow, with a travel length of just 0.5mm. They still provide good feedback and the writing experience itself is not bad, but it's just a bit hard getting used to, especially if you are coming from a laptop that's not a MacBook.
Con Connecting more than one thing requires a hub
The laptop comes with a single USB-C port that's used for charging as well as any other peripherals or external storage devices. Connecting more than one thing at a time requires using a USB hub.
Con Premium price for not-so-premium hardware
Macbooks are one of the most expensive computers for the hardware they have. Mac is the most expensive UX to buy, as the price has low relationship to how good the hardware is and, instead, is related to how the whole experience from opening the box, to the physical shop, to the cloud and sync services they have.
Con Too fragile, compared to the competitors
Can barely handle liquid, breaks easily with bumping and, at a premium price, has the largest probability of something just breaking without apparent reason.
Con Very expensive (official) repairs
Fixing any problem with a Macbook through the official means is a very expensive investment. Usually, any problem that happens means replacing most of the laptop for 80% of the price, even if the problem can be solved by replacing a 5$ transistor or a 15$ chip or even bypassing with a 1$ wire.
Con The touchpad has accuracy issues
This laptop's touchpad works fine with two-finger scrolling but has issues when navigating around the desktop. There's some slight stuttering with the cursor and it's easy to accidentally select text if your palm brushes the touchpad by accident.
Con The thick plastic bezel around the display is a bit off-putting
The display is surrounded by a thick plastic bezel which should have been avoided as it makes the laptop seem cheaper and less attractive than it should be.
Con Slight sound distortion on high volume
There is some slight sound distortion when volume is over 90%. Below that level everything sounds perfect.