Acer taps out yet more tablets
Ten-inchers and seven-inchers
MWC 2011 Acer's 10.1in Iconia Tab A500 wasn't the only tablet the PC giant announced this week: it also took the wraps off a 7in Android-based alternative and a second ten-incher, this one running Windows.
The W500 will come with Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit runing on a 1GHz AMD C-50 chip with integrated Radeon graphics. Acer has packed in 2GB of DDR 3 memory and a 32GB SSD, plus Bluetooth 3.0 and 2.4GHz 802.11n for connectivity. A dock accessory has Ethernet too, and HSPA 3G is an option.
In addition to the dock connector, the W500 has HDMI, SD and USB portage. There's a "mini Sim" slot to use with the 3G version.
Acer's Iconia Tab W500
The W500 weighs in at 970g with a three-cell, 3260mAh battery on board.
The 7in A100 is just 470g - falling to 450g if you choose the Wi-Fi-only model. Both are 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 250 dual-core units with 512MB of memory and 8GB of on-board storage. Want more? Stick in a Micro SD card.
The screen has a resolution of 1024 x 600 - the W500 runs to 1280 x 800 - and this slate has both a 2Mp front-facing camera and a 5Mp one on the back.
Iconia A100
Again, 2.4GHz 802.11n is present for networking, with HSPA 3G optional.
The Iconia W500 will go on sale early next month, while the A100 will be available in the UK towards the end of April. The A100's price is still TBC, but the W500 will retail for £449 - or £529 with a bundled keyboard accessory. ®
COMMENTS
but the W500 will retail for £449 - or £529 with a bundled keyboard accessory.
If or when I buy a tablet, it will have to cost less than a laptop.
If it sounds like a laptop, smells like a laptop and looks like a laptop...
Surely running Windows, with an HDD and a detachable keyboard it's a bit of a stretch to put it in the same category as 'tablets'?
Seems to me it's a touchscreen laptop with a wireless keyboard!
I bet the 'droid version with no SSD, no windows tax and better battery life will outsell it 10 to 1.
"I want a tablet that is just like an ipad but with Windows"
I am genuinely interested in seeing how that Windows one sells.
It sort of looks like a (heavier) ipad but it has the "comfortable and familiar" Windows with its "millions of applications" on it. This is important because this is what many fanboys will tell you is what everyone needs in a tablet to get any real work done.
So here it is, the much vaunted "Windows Ipad".
I assume the battery life is less than stellar due to the required hardware specs and it will likely be slow to boot but you have to expect that with Windows on x86. You also have to expect premium pricing for the same reason and we've got that here for sure.
So, will this sell like hotcakes or be left in the dust by the "lesser" tablets running Android on ARM even though they don't have the "comfort of Windows" and "millions of applications"?
Interesting times indeed.
Sticking to my Netbook
I'll stick with my Acer netbook-10" is a great screen size but there's no way I'd want to go any smaller and especially not at twice the price !! The netbook does what it says on the tin and that's good enough for me !!
Tablets vs Netbooks
"Surely running Windows, with an HDD and a detachable keyboard it's a bit of a stretch to put it in the same category as 'tablets'?"
I don't see why tablets and netbooks are counted as separate categories in the first place. We're going to see tablets with keyboards, and netbook/laptops with touchscreens already exist. You can run Android on netbooks, and we're going to see Windows on tablets.
We don't separate phones into categories depending on whether they have a touchscreen or not, after all.
