Linus Tech tips coverage of computex 2013 is powered by Western Digital our
trusted gaming gear partner is Corsair Vengeance and our trusted retail partner
is nc.com now if you've been following
lately you'll know that there's a couple of Acer devices that I am personally
pretty enamored with one is the W7 which is a phenomenally well-built Windows
tablet and the other is the Aspire S7 which is actually the notebook being
carried around by Yours Truly here at the show but this is an all new device
this is the W3 which is a full Windows 8
tablet in an 8 in form factor this is the first time we've seen this so it's
got sort of the expects are the specs that you'd expect so it's got the new
Intel Atom Processor it's got 2 gigs of RAM it's available in 32 gig or 64 gig
configurations but there are a couple things that are unique about it so
you've got micro SD expansion which is nice to have but I'm going to have our
lovely assistant Peter here show me how you actually transport this around with
you so it comes with the keyboard Docker doesn't yeah go ahead it comes with the
keyboard Docker it doesn't depending on the region but it Clips in on the
speaker ports down at the bottom stays in place now you can Chuck it in your
bag and you're ready to take it with you on the go but lonus why would I ever
take a tablet out of my house I never use my tablet outside of my house
personally I don't use my tablet outside of my house well there's a good answer
it comes pre-loaded with Microsoft Office in spite of the fact that this is
not a Windows RT device this is a full-blown window Windows 8 device
meaning you can run your modern UI experience oh thank you you can run a
modern UI experience you can run
a don't worry we'll get this modern UI
regular desktop experience whatever it is you happen to want you can run all of
your legacy applications but it comes pre-loaded with office meaning you can
actually get something done on it when you're on the go all
right yeah that's that's how things always happen at these things maybe Guys
these are pre-production units these aren't going to be available till
sometime around end of June so this one right here yes the button there does
load up the modern UI so you've got that same interface that you're going to be
familiar with already and then there's the desktop including
the see if I can figure out how to use this thank you Peter hopefully we're
going to find whatever you saw Microsoft Office on the other one so let's move on
to the next cool thing that AC are showing off in their booth now this is a
pretty unique design if you check out the coverage we did from the Intel booth
on NC Tech tips we showed a lot of
different hinge designs for two-in-one type devices tablet notebook we don't
know what it is this it doesn't quite fit cleanly into that category because
it's a little bit unique this is the Aspire R7 from Acer and I might have to
get a lovely assistant to come in here and help me move it around cuz I've got
only one hand but it can basically be used in what would be a traditional
notebook mode so there you go it's open all the way you may have noticed or you
may not have noticed that the touchpad is in a bit of a different position on
this thing so it's intended for you to be using it either as a touch P
traditional notebook mode just like that or and I have complained about this so
many times what is the problem with touchscreen the problem is that it is
fatiguing to sit like this with your ARM like this it's too far away show me what
it does this is why the touchpad gets
covered up it is intended to be used in what they're calling easel mode this
allows you to easily oh wow uh this allows you to
easily use the keyboard for typing and the touch screen for interacting with a
device like this is touch perfect for everyone the answer is no touch is not
for everyone and if touch isn't for you you don't have to use it a lot of the
time I would probably end up having a mouse hooked up to this but I'm the kind of person who actually carries a gaming
mouse around in his backpack so not everyone is necessarily me if it was
like my kid using it then it's going to be like Angry Birds or whatever okay
well there's some kind of a bird let's go look at that one sort of complete
there's a bird okay so angry birds or something like that well that's what they're going to want to do and this is
going to be a perfect mode for that now with that said it's not like you lose
the productivity as well personally I think it take me a while to get used to
a touchpad on the top but check this out if I'm working on something I want to
show it to someone this I can probably do on my own you flip it around you can
see in the mirror right here it auto rotates which means you can easily show
someone something this could be great for Creative professionals and just for
Content consumption you don't have to use it as a notebook at all it can can
be used in tablet mode it is a little bit on the heavy side guys let's be
realistic it's a notebook it's not a tablet it's a full-fledged notebook
device you got your USB 3 you got your SD card you got everything that you
could want on a notebook it's also got an IPS panel and I've pretty much run
out of steam for what to say about this other than yeah that looks pretty cool
very different from anything else that we've seen so far now we're almost at
the part that I'm really excited about that I've been geeking out about but I
guess I'll do this one first cuz it's pretty cool as well this is the Aspire
S3 which is very similar to The Notebook that I use except that it has been made
a little bit more accessible in terms of pricing so what have they changed versus
the S7 number one is the keyboard is black okay not that big of a difference
number two is the keyboard lacks the E illumination that automatically reacts
to the lighting in the room okay so if you really need an illuminated keyboard
you're going to want to get an S7 number two is it only has a glass surface on
the multi-touch touchcreen on the back of the notebook is now a
plastic surface so that's not going to be quite as scuff resistant but it's
certainly going to have some scratch and scuff resistance even though it's not
quite to the same degree as glass would it's a little bit thicker but you
actually get something in return for increasing that thickness you're
actually able to add check this out a dedicated graphics card to it so this
particular model comes with a GT 735m
which compared to the onboard Graphics that are available in most of these thin
and light notebooks is definitely going to be an improvement it also uses up to
a 1 tbte sshd meaning you're going to have quick resumes from sleep I've gone
ahead and put it to sleep right here so we're going to go ahead and wake it up check this
out especially compared to traditional
hard drives that do not have an SSD component built into them although pure
SSD models may also be available and this is the one that I'm actually
excited about this is the Aspire S7 392 if you you guys have ever watched
one of my live streams or you've ever heard me talk about my favorite notebook
you'll already know I have one of these
but this is the older generation and I had three complaints about my notebook
three Each of which has been addressed with the new generation product
complaint number one the battery life is not good enough I have to carry around
this external battery in order to keep it acceptable to the point where I can
really get the 6 hours 6 and 1/ half hours of battery life that I need out of
it 30% better battery life in the new device very nice complaint number two
the keyboard is extremely low profile too low profile it's not very
comfortable to type on it doesn't bother me as much as it bugs slick but bam
higher travel distance keys on the new keyboard in spite of the fact that the
new S7 is 1 mm thinner than the old S7
last but not least the touchpad on mine has a bit of a latency issue it's it it
legs and it's a little bit too Twitchy sometimes when I'm trying to use it and
and click with the uh with the buttons down here new S7 no more leg all gone it
is now officially like I I actually couldn't improve anything about it at
this point so that's a shame because you
guys are going to have a re it's going to be a real trick to make something better than this in my eyes now so guys
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