Acer Aspire 1825PT 11.6in touchscreen notebook
At last, a Tablet PC done right?
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Review Some years ago, I made a fool of myself by describing Microsoft's ultimately doomed Tablet PC concept as a good idea. My saving grace was that I wasn't as dim as all the Tablet PC manufacturers, who chose to overprice their own products out of existence.
Acer's Aspire 1825PT: if only Tablet PCs had always been specced like this
Things might have been very different if affordable touchscreen notebooks such as this Acer Aspire 1825PT had been around at the time.
The 1825PT is designed to be small enough for one-hand portability but with full-notebook power: a dual-core processor - Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300, since you ask - 4GB Ram and a 320GB hard disk. Only 285mm wide, it features an 11.6in display - that doesn't sound much, but it has a native resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels - and a pretty decent keyboard.
Its star attraction, though, is the swivelling display panel that can be folded back onto the keyboard with the screen facing up. Since it's also a Windows 7 machine, this means you can use it as a handheld tablet, using intuitive touch and swipe gestures in combination with Windows' on-screen keyboard. As you turn the notebook around, the display orientation rotates automatically in 90° jumps.
Tablet convenience but with some power under the hood
Make no mistake, this is a great way to use a portable computer, not least for those needing a convenient way of browsing technical manuals and accessing reference material on the hoof. That said, the screen responds only to finger touch - the 1825PT is not a pen tablet - which limits it in certain ways. Anyone who has tried to complete electronic forms by dabbing their clumsy fingers over tiny tick boxes will know what I mean.
COMMENTS
CD Drive
WTF is up with the Reg Hardware reviewer and banging on about "missing" CD drives? I have one in my laptop and used it last over 6 months ago. Windows 7 can be installed from USB, and almost everything else can be downloaded or sent via email. Please get the reviewers to state WHY they NEED a CD drive?!
CD's are so 90's.
http://edge.technet.com/Media/Installing-Win7-using-a-USB-Stick/
Touchscreen Ubuntu?
Windows 7 meh, not bothered about Windows even if it is the most reasonable version since NT 3.51. What about sticking Ubuntu on it, what's the touchscreen support like for that? (even with the netbook remix big icons which works a treat on a 7" 1st gen Asus eee netbook).
From a touchscreen point of view if its too heavy to hold and wobbles about if you have it on a desk then really what use is the touchscreen apart from being a bit gimmicky? The iPad is light, fast, long battery life and well suited to mobile applications (e.g. form filling, presentations, email, browsing, watching tv on the loo) and for the same price you get the top end device .. so I'm not sure if its worth the extra few hundred on top of a normal notebook price for the touchscreen element of the Acer even though I'm sure the hardware build is good .. its stuck in the same mould as the other Bill Gates Tablets of old albeit with a better hardware spec ... its just not as touchy or mobily as an iPad, hmm.
The only time I use a CD/DVD drive these days is for ripping media or a new OS install, everything else comes over the network (Wifi,3G or wired) and if you don't trust an outsourced cloud then just connect a NAS or file server (I've a NFS'ed ZFS server with 9Tb of RAIDZed usable space) and run it yourself. USB DVD drives are really cheap if you don't go for the ultra slimline versions and you only need one 8-)
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