Hands On: Acer ICONIA Tab W700

You know how almost everybody wants a tablet that can take over his or her heavy and bulky laptops? Thanks to Windows 8, now there are. We got our hands on the Acer ICONIA Tab W700 at the Acer launch last week and if you’re one of those who are looking for something to take over your big huge laptop, Acer might have the answer for you with this tablet.

First up, the specs, the Tab W700 is an 11.6” touch device that packs a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080. Powered by the Second Generation Intel Core i3 processor, it has 4GB of RAM and runs on a 64GB SSD for a smooth performance. Although it may not have a keyboard dock to make it a hybrid like its smaller sibling, the W510, it comes with a cradle that when docked, you can connect your wireless keyboard and mouse to; the dock is also designed to enhance the speakers on the device so you can enjoy your music and videos with louder audio. We didn’t manage to get a glimpse of how the cradle looks like in real life but just so you know, you can dock the W700 in both portrait and landscape mode.

Hit the break for more.

Design wise, the Tab W700 is a little too heavy for my liking, weighing just below 1kg (tablet only), it’s not really something you
would hold with one hand, in fact, I was having difficulty trying to hold it with one hand while taking pictures of it with the other. It does however, have a relatively large display measuring at 11.6”, making it feel more like a PC than a typical tablet that we’re all used to.

What I find most interesting is Acer’s very own software that when you put five fingers on the display, it brings out a wheel that gives access to your multimedia content such as pictures and music, documents, favorite apps, and even settings. The performance is very snappy mind you, but of course, the unit I played was a brand new unit with nothing much installed.