MOBILE

Iconia W700 Tablet Having Ultrabook Power (Part 1)

4/29/2013 9:34:03 AM

Iconia W700 is the combination between a laptop and the tablet of Acer which was released at Computex last year. The device is equipped with 1.7-GHz Core i5 chipset, 4 GB RAM, 128 GB SSD. With the price of 999 USD, 100 USD higher than Surface Pro of Microsoft, users will also have a full HD screen, keyboard and dock that can connect with the device via Bluetooth. Whether Iconia W700 is a good replacement for both laptop and tablet, let’s find out.

Iconia W700 is the combination between a laptop and the tablet of Acer

Iconia W700 is the combination between a laptop and the tablet of Acer

Design

It’s true for what users have expected in a device with a price of 1,000 USD, Iconia W700 is a luxurious design. At the front, we have an 11.6-inch full HD screen that is rounded by a 1.2-cm thick bezel. The 1.3-MP camera of the device is designed at the center on the top of the screen, and the silver Windows logo is designed below it. The back of the device is made of durable aluminum, and placed a 5 MP camera, embossed Acer logo, along with Windows 8 logo.

Front

Front

With the dimension of 29.4x19.1x1.19 cm and weight of 907 gram (1.63 kg including dock), Iconia W700 is still quite heavy at tablet mode. iPad of Apple is only 653-gram weight and 9.3-mm thick. Aspire S7 is also from Acer, despite being a laptop in the rue sense of word, it is thinner, only 1.16 cm.

And the rear of the device

And the rear of the device

While the full-size USB port for W700 can be considered an advantage, the rivals such as Samsung ATIV Smart PC (also a hybrid device), though, has up to 3 USB ports, it has better thinness than W700 (9.9 mm). Samsung’s hybrid laptop is also 200-gram lighter than Iconia W700. Despite that, if compared to the face to face rival which is Surface Pro, Iconia W700 is not too thick and heavy. Surface Pro also weighs 907 gram and is even thicker (1.34 cm).

One weak point of W700 is that users will quickly feel tired when using for a long time. Moving to portrait mode helps holding feel less uncomfortable; however, users will use the device at laptop mode (connecting to dock) more than use at tablet mode because using W700 as a laptop is clearly more effective.

Screen

Though the resolution is not as high as Google Nexus 10 (2,560x1,600) or the 4th-generation iPad (2,048x1,536), but the resolution of the screen (11.6 inches) of W700 is also amazing, 1,920x1,080 (LED-backlit and Gorilla Glass 2 in companion). High resolution makes the displayed content on the screen very sharp. When watching the 1,080p trailer of "The Hobbit" movie, you will easily tell apart the wrinkles on the shabby face, as well as the red vest of Bilbo character. The screen also has wide viewing angle. Users can move 45 degrees at any angle and they can still see the content on the screen clearly.

Iconia W700 screen is also brighter than the rivals. With 369-lux brightness, it defeats Aspire S7 (215 lux). Only VAIO Duo 11 has brighter screen (402 lux). However, in spite of having high brightness, it doesn’t help the display under direct sunlight of W700 better.

One problem with the small-sized screen but having high resolution is that users will have trouble when touching the icons on the screen because they’re tiny. The Retina screen of iPad doesn’t have that problem.

Audio

The speaker is designed at the bottom of the device.

The speaker is designed at the bottom of the device.

The speaker is mounted at the bottom and pumps out sound loud enough to listen to in a small room; however, when try listening to the heavy-bass songs, distortion happens when turning up the volume to the highest level.

Acer equips W700 with a Dolby Home Theater v4 toll that helps improving the audio quality. This is a tool that lets users choose 3 different audio modes including watching movies, listening to music and gaming. Users can themselves set up a mode for them thanks to this software.

Keyboard, Dock

Acer bundles Iconia W700 a Bluetooth keyboard and a dock connection.

Acer bundles Iconia W700 a Bluetooth keyboard and a dock connection.

Acer bundles Iconia W700 a Bluetooth keyboard and a dock connection. The island-style keyboard measures 28.5x12.7x1.7 cm and weighs 402 gram and made from silver plastic to be best-suited for the device’s aluminum chassis. The keyboard is powered by 3 AAA batteries inside. Experience shows that typing by this accompanying external keyboard is quite comfortable; the keyboard travel is good, though the size is still somewhat cramped.

The accessory dock helps to turn W700 from a tablet to a device that looks like a clamshell laptop for you to manipulate, work with the Bluetooth keyboard above. From the right side, you slide the device into the dock to connect. The accessory dock provides you with some ports such as USB and DC-in (on the left). Besides, we also have up to 3 USB 3.0 port and a DC-in jack at the back of the dock. The support of this accessory is removable, and you can use it to fix the device in either portrait or landscape mode for using.

Temperature

Despite equipped with the “gigantic” hardware" but Iconia W700 still remains cool through practical testing.

Despite equipped with the “gigantic” hardware" but Iconia W700 still remains cool through practical testing.

Despite equipped with the “gigantic” hardware" but Iconia W700 still remains cool through practical testing. After streaming 1 video on Hulu in 15 minutes, the measured temperature on the device screen is 28 degree C, on the back is 27 degree C. With the aforementioned system, the temperature at 35 degree C is considered as hot. A regretful point is that the cooling fan of W700 still makes a lot of noise during working process.

Other  
 
Top 10
Review : Sigma 24mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art
Review : Canon EF11-24mm f/4L USM
Review : Creative Sound Blaster Roar 2
Review : Philips Fidelio M2L
Review : Alienware 17 - Dell's Alienware laptops
Review Smartwatch : Wellograph
Review : Xiaomi Redmi 2
Extending LINQ to Objects : Writing a Single Element Operator (part 2) - Building the RandomElement Operator
Extending LINQ to Objects : Writing a Single Element Operator (part 1) - Building Our Own Last Operator
3 Tips for Maintaining Your Cell Phone Battery (part 2) - Discharge Smart, Use Smart
REVIEW
- First look: Apple Watch

- 3 Tips for Maintaining Your Cell Phone Battery (part 1)

- 3 Tips for Maintaining Your Cell Phone Battery (part 2)
VIDEO TUTORIAL
- How to create your first Swimlane Diagram or Cross-Functional Flowchart Diagram by using Microsoft Visio 2010 (Part 1)

- How to create your first Swimlane Diagram or Cross-Functional Flowchart Diagram by using Microsoft Visio 2010 (Part 2)

- How to create your first Swimlane Diagram or Cross-Functional Flowchart Diagram by using Microsoft Visio 2010 (Part 3)
Popular Tags
Microsoft Access Microsoft Excel Microsoft OneNote Microsoft PowerPoint Microsoft Project Microsoft Visio Microsoft Word Active Directory Biztalk Exchange Server Microsoft LynC Server Microsoft Dynamic Sharepoint Sql Server Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2012 Windows 7 Windows 8 Adobe Indesign Adobe Flash Professional Dreamweaver Adobe Illustrator Adobe After Effects Adobe Photoshop Adobe Fireworks Adobe Flash Catalyst Corel Painter X CorelDRAW X5 CorelDraw 10 QuarkXPress 8 windows Phone 7 windows Phone 8