Welcome to my unboxing and first look at the I'm sorry I told you guys I'm
totally going to cheat here because this is a really hard to remember model name
T23 HL BMIDZ and for whatever reason
this is in lowercase so apparently that makes some kind of a difference. Don't
worry about that. worry about the part where this is the first sample of Acer's
touchscreen 1080p IPS
Windows 8 ready LCD monitor. This is
extremely exciting and yes, first sample
in all of North America. So, I am like just super super
whoops stoked on uh on getting this thing opened up because this is what
Windows 8 is all about to me. So, for the gamers and the PC enthusiasts out
there who are saying Windows 8 isn't for me because
you know, okay, there we go. I don't like the
interface that shall not be referred to as Metro and uh you know this and that.
Um, Windows 8 is about changing the way
we use our computers. and I haven't had as much experience with it as I'd like
yet, partly because the devices don't really exist yet that will let you have
a proper Windows 8 experience. So, this is a huge step in the right direction.
And now, while everyone else is talking about their tablets or their notebooks
or their all-in-one PCs, not everyone,
especially us enthusiast gamers, wants any of those things. We want our gaming
desktop to be as good an experience as
possible. So something like this I think can bridge the gap
because instead of locking you into you know crummy graphics or a small form
factor or whatever else now we can actually take our proper gaming desktop
and have that touchscreen keyboard mouse
hybrid experience wh as long as I can figure out how this
uh how this stand works. Ah there we go. All right. There we go. So give me a
second. I'm going to unpack all this stuff and then I'll show you all the accessories.
So, we start with the CD as well as the
manual, which you may actually need given this is a touchscreen monitor. So,
you should probably download the latest from Acer if you can, but it's not the end of the world. Try that out. VGA
cable, power cable for the power brick, which is also included, HDMI cable, and
a DVI cable are included. So, you can use either of those out of the box. I'd
love to see more than just one cable included. Ben Q is like
they're still including only a VGA cable with even some of their high-end
monitors, which sort of drives me drives me crazy. Well, not high-end, but like
you know, VA panels, right? So, Acer includes three different video cables
for you here. USB A tob cable. This is
great because the monitor has a built-in three port USB 3 hub and an audio pass
through cable. So, I don't know if it has actually don't know if it has speakers on board, but let's go through
the specs really quick as well. So, here you can just come in and look at this
with me. So, you got 1920 x 1080. Yep. 250 nit brightness, which is actually
not bad at all. Um, whatever. Like 1
billion to1 contrast ratio, whatever that works out to. 5 millisecond grade
response time, which is pretty good for an IPS. Uh, 178 and 178 degree vertical
and horizontal viewing angle, which is what you'd expect from an IPS. And let's
see what else Acer has to say for themselves, cuz I really didn't cover this. This is all the same stuff we
talked about already. Oh, 100 million to one adaptive contrast management. Uh
power savings 10 points. Uh oh, it's LED back lit. I should have mentioned that
before. So, full HD LED back lit, 10point multi-touch touchscreen monitor.
So, let's have a look at the industrial design of it overall. So, you've got a
single piece of edgetoedge glass that goes all the way down to here, which
means that if you're doing any kinds of gestures that come in from off of the
screen, you're not going to have the same problem that we had with these
these first generation touchscreen monitors as well as all-in- ones. So, uh
if you guys have seen my Windows 8 consumer preview, uh you'll see that the
one we're using has this giant plastic bezel that makes it you kind of got to
like wedge your finger in there to swipe from off screen. it really doesn't work
very well. This is going to be an outstanding experience. Speaking of the
experience, overall, the glass feels very nice. So, it is glass. It's not not
any kind of composite plastic or anything cheesy like that. So, it's a little bit cold to the touch. What you
might expect, what you guys might know from from your past experience is some
pieces of glass tend to have a little bit more drag than others. This one
actually feels very good. It's got a little bit of resistance, but not too
much. So, let's Oh, this piece looks
like it's a little bit separated. Uh, but this is just this is more just for
show. And this piece is plastic and this piece is glass. Up here on the side you
find the three USB 3.0 ports. One of these looks like it's just a charger and
the other two look like data, although I'm not 100% sure about that having not
fired it up yet. And then on the back, you see they've gone with a kind of a
unique look to this. I I like this stand. Um, it's unfortunately not height
adjustable, but because of the design, it does have pretty ample Oh, no way.
Does it lie down? It lies down very flat. Not quite flat, although that
would have been really cool. You can probably I wonder if you can uh I wonder
if you can actually remove it. It doesn't look like there's an obvious way
to remove it. So, it is intended to be used as a desktop monitor. However, if
you I wonder what you would do with it. It does have a vase mount. Okay. So,
there's your four vasa mounting holes. So, you could position it wherever you want it ultimately and use it however
you want in its uh in its touchscreen goodness. So, let's come down here and
we've got there's the USB in as well as VGA in, DVU in, HDMI in, no DisplayPort
in, although it's really not the end of the world, guys. I'm not sure yet how
the data is managed for the touchscreen interface. Sometimes it's passed through
on the DVI, although I don't know if VGA has that capability, so it's possible
the data is run through the USB 3. So, that might be a mandatory connector, but
I'll have to uh we'll still have to try this. We are going to turn this baby on
in a full NCX tech tips episode featuring Windows 8. So, very very
excited. Kensington locks over there. Sorry, I missed that before. And then
you've also got your audio in as well as your DC power in. This piece right here
has a has a plastic uh slider like not well, it's not a slider, but a plastic
protector so that you're not going to damage the ARM and you can screw that on
and off without much difficulty. I would like to play around with this ARM a
little bit more. No, no, it doesn't. No, no, that's on that's on purpose. Um,
Diesel is giving me sort of a look as if I'm like breaking it here, but I think
that's intentional. That'll keep it from accidentally closing completely and then
falling flat on you. So, it's it's a stopper. Um,
so I think that pretty much covers it. I actually Oh. Oh, there they are. There
they are. Sorry. There's your on screen display buttons.
So, no touchcreen buttons. That sort of surprises me. Although, personally, I'm
still I'm still a tactile button guy when it comes to managing my monitors.
with one exception being the uh the proximity sensitive BenQ buttons that
they have on their 2420TX. So, I think that pretty much wraps it
up. Thank you for checking out my unboxing and first look at the 10point
multi-touch IPS Acer T23
T232 HL LCD monitor. And I hope you guys
have enjoyed this. Don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for unboxings, reviews, and other computer
videos. I learned something about manuals today.
You should probably look at them once in a while. Check this out. So, this piece
does come out. That's what this piece of plastic is for. It's four screws. You
just remove the plastic cover on the top. Oh, okay. There you go. Just like that. And probably comes off there
somehow. You remove those four screws and then you can put this uh this cover
on. So, that's how you can easily mount this to some kind of a mounting ARM or
whatever else you want to do. Very cool stuff.