Acer's Iconia Touchbook takes on iPad, MacBook Air using Windows 7
The world's second largest PC maker Acer aimed at tapping into enthusiasm surrounding the iPad and MacBook Air with Iconia, its keyboard free, mobile touchscreen Windows PC notebook. The downside is that the product costs more than twice as much as the iPad and eats up a battery in less than three hours.
As profiled by Bloomberg, Acer's Iconia 6120 Touchbook runs Windows 7 using an Intel Core i5 CPU, packing the full power of a notebook.
Unlike a conventional notebook, it drops not just its optical drive but also its keyboard, resulting in a 14 inch tablet that users type on directly, similar to the iPad's glass surfaced virtual keyboard. The design won a top ten design award at its debut at the January Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The hybrid device is priced at $1199.99, weighs 6.2 pounds and has a conventional hard drive (640 GB) and packs 4GB of RAM. That makes it an expensive, albeit limited duty and highly specialized Windows PC notebook and a very expensive but ostensibly more powerful iPad alternative.
Also like the iPad (and Air), Acer's Touchbook uses a non-removable battery. However, Bloomberg notes that the machine's "biggest drawback is the battery. The two touch screens suck power like a vacuum cleaner, and even Acer?s claim of three hours on a full charge may be on the high side if you?ve got the screens set to bright and are connected to a Wi-Fi network."
Acer's hybrid Touchbook sits in stark contrast to Apple's offerings, which are clearly delineated between the very simple, multitouch iPad and its mobile MacBook Air, which shares iPad technologies and features but maintains a conventional keyboard, trackpad and non-touch display. The 13 inch MacBook Air also aims at light portability, weighing just 2.9 lbs (1.32kg), less than half the weight of the Acer Touchbook. Apple's Air notebook line now standardizes on SSD for storage, trading speed for overall capacity.
Acer unveiled a series of mobile devices running Android and Windows 7 last fall, after predicting that Apple's iPad would rapidly lose its overwhelmingly dominant position in the tablet market and shrink to just 20 percent share as it was forced to complete with platforms that are not "closed."
Acer's initially successful netbook initiative was crushed by the appearance of Apple's iPad last year, suddenly stalling the company's rapid growth in 2010. After announcing intentions to "overhaul operations" in response to Apple's impact on the PC market, the firm's chief executive Gianfranco Lanci resigned late last month.
As profiled by Bloomberg, Acer's Iconia 6120 Touchbook runs Windows 7 using an Intel Core i5 CPU, packing the full power of a notebook.
Unlike a conventional notebook, it drops not just its optical drive but also its keyboard, resulting in a 14 inch tablet that users type on directly, similar to the iPad's glass surfaced virtual keyboard. The design won a top ten design award at its debut at the January Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The hybrid device is priced at $1199.99, weighs 6.2 pounds and has a conventional hard drive (640 GB) and packs 4GB of RAM. That makes it an expensive, albeit limited duty and highly specialized Windows PC notebook and a very expensive but ostensibly more powerful iPad alternative.
Also like the iPad (and Air), Acer's Touchbook uses a non-removable battery. However, Bloomberg notes that the machine's "biggest drawback is the battery. The two touch screens suck power like a vacuum cleaner, and even Acer?s claim of three hours on a full charge may be on the high side if you?ve got the screens set to bright and are connected to a Wi-Fi network."
Acer's hybrid Touchbook sits in stark contrast to Apple's offerings, which are clearly delineated between the very simple, multitouch iPad and its mobile MacBook Air, which shares iPad technologies and features but maintains a conventional keyboard, trackpad and non-touch display. The 13 inch MacBook Air also aims at light portability, weighing just 2.9 lbs (1.32kg), less than half the weight of the Acer Touchbook. Apple's Air notebook line now standardizes on SSD for storage, trading speed for overall capacity.
Acer unveiled a series of mobile devices running Android and Windows 7 last fall, after predicting that Apple's iPad would rapidly lose its overwhelmingly dominant position in the tablet market and shrink to just 20 percent share as it was forced to complete with platforms that are not "closed."
Acer's initially successful netbook initiative was crushed by the appearance of Apple's iPad last year, suddenly stalling the company's rapid growth in 2010. After announcing intentions to "overhaul operations" in response to Apple's impact on the PC market, the firm's chief executive Gianfranco Lanci resigned late last month.
Comments
The world's second largest PC maker Acer aimed at taping into enthusiasm surrounding the iPad and MacBook Air with Iconia, its keyboard free, mobile touchscreen Windows PC notebook.
I think you meant tapping.
What a waste of resources.
Honestly... Do the Apple-competitors remotely have a distant clue? The only person that comes to mind buying this monstrosity and loving it is DaHarder.
What a waste of resources.
*snicker* on so many levels.....
I think you meant tapping.
No, they meant taping. Taping up all the groin pulls from lifting that thing.
Acer should just call this the "Kitchen Sink" model. Your battery power even goes down the drain!
weighs 6.2 pounds
Oh dear lord.
3 hours battery life
Double fail.
$$$$$$$$$$$$
Can I have some of what they're smoking?
Maybe a Core i5 isn't the most suitable tablet/netbook/THINGbook processor, eh?
Like a big Nintendo DS?
No, they meant taping. Taping up all the groin pulls from lifting that thing.
Not to mention the hazard to airport security people. The TSA screeners might die laughing when this engineering hermaphrodite shows up on their monitors.
Seriously though, it might have a place on the Stargate set.
Not sure how they thought this would be a winner.
The range of emotions I had reading the review of that POS. Funny stuff!
IF MS decides to scrap an idea, it probably isn't worth going after.
At least Courier looked like it would have a custom OS.
honestly, the idea is pretty neat. If it was a MBA or MBP with the dual screens with the same battery life and such then I feel it would be in line of things to come. But with the dismal battery life and price and such, it's just not gonna fly. However, for awhile it will give those diehard windoze lovers something they think they can brag about being cutting edge and or different. They will just have to do it while it's plugged in and they have a harness on.
I'm with you on this, I think as a concept, it looks pretty cool.
When it becomes possible to do the same thing a lot lighter and with better battery life (and, lets face it, without Windows), it strikes me as a pretty neat form factor.