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It’s been about a year since the first ultrabooks hit the market. At the time the thin and light laptops featured 2nd generation Intel Core chips and Windows software. Now most new models are shipping with 3rd generation Core chips, Windows 8, and other premium features such as optional touchscreens.

And that’s good news if you’re looking to pick up last year’s model. Because prices are falling fast. This weekend TigerDirect is selling the Acer Aspire S3 ultrabook for just $499.99. That’s the lowest price I’ve seen on any ultrabook so far.

The Aspire S3 model on sale features a 13.3 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display, an Intel Core i3-2377M CPU, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive plus a 20GB solid state cache disk. The laptop runs Windows 7 Home Premium.

While it’s not the fastest laptop on the market, it’s still one of the thinner and lighter models around, measuring 12.7″ x 8.6″ x 0.7″ and weighing 3 pounds. The Aspire S3 feautres WiFi, Bluetooth, 2 USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI port, and a flash card reader.

Acer says you should be able to get up to 5.5 hours of run time from the non-removable battery, but your results will probably vary depending on what you’re doing with the laptop.

As I mentioned, this is a weekend sale, and the price could go back up to the $600 range soon. But now that PC makers are pushing higher-priced ultrabooks with Ivy Bridge processors and Windows 8, I have a suspicion we’ll continue to see bargains on older models in the coming months.