First Days: Acer Iconia W700 and Windows 8
I have used Android tablets, but have felt a bit restrained, as I could not exactly use all of my apps I have accustomed to for the last 2 years. And using Remote Desktop with the androids on-screen keyboard was not exactly a dream.
The "tablet" is quite nice to use. It is on the heavy side, so you cannot use it for longer time holding it in a single hand. And I am not used to the thumb typing, so the best position is to lay it flat on you lap.
The Bad
One thing I am missing is the notification LED. I could be useful, if the screen of the tablet was off, and I got a mail. Another thing was, the WiFi was not really up to my standards (which are quite low), first I had trouble connected to any of AP. When I finally got connected it had problem with keeping a stable connection, even at max a meter from the AP. Lets see how it plays with other wireless networks before I can give my final word, as it can be the network at home. For now I have opted for a USB NIC I had laying around (the one that could be used on 64-bit Windows 8).
The Windows button at the bottom is a physical button, and is bit hard to press. I found it was a lot easier to activate the charms bar and click the Start there.
The Good
The tablet has a nice finish to it. It does not (so far) feels like a early adopter. It comes with a couple of accessories, which in most cases are sold separately.
It came with a travel cover, which can be flipped and be used as a stand. There are two position in the stand mode, and I found that both had comfortable angle (angels depending on how I was working).
There was also a micro HDMI to VGA adapter in the box, so that I can connect it to any projector I want to. Don't need to search for a adapter in the whole house, just because you have a memory of seeing one (which was probably at work).
But the best one is the dock. It is just something that holds the device in a quite comfortable angle (most of the time). The cradle does not have any type of special connector, it takes the USB post on the device and turns it to three USB 3.0 ports. It forwards the power (as the USB hub need power) and forwards it both to the device. There is nothing to alert tablet that it has been docked, more then it get AC.
Windows 8 - The Bad
The most annoying thing is not the tablet itself, but the Windows 8 in it. Love the way swipe gestures works in Windows 8, but the Charms gesture would have been a bit more useful if I could turn WiFi/Bluetooth on/off, adjust brightness and volume with the need of clicking on the Settings Charm. Have some custom quick launch shortcuts on the screen (there is a lot of dead area, when in charms screen). I would like to see how much battery I have left in percent, and not just a icon representation of juice left.
Another thing I don't like is Virtual Keyboard that is part of Metro UI. It would be nice if one could turn down opacity of it to 50% (at least in Desktop mode) when needed. And that one could hold a key, and get option to insert other chars, like hold down q for 1. I could enable the standard keyboard under General settings, which seems to be a bit of improvement.
The Desktop mode needs a lots of work to be more touch friendly, it is a "tablet" after all. For starters, windows should be have out of the box, when there is a touch there is only need for one click to launch the application on the desktop, and double click if mouse is used. Windows should come configured out of the box, with tiles in the explorer instead if details view. Then there is scrolling problem. Scrolling does not work as one might think. For the drop down menu one need to be able to grab the scrollbar on the side. In some Desktop app one can just grab somewhere and scroll, but in most one need to grab the scrollbar to the right.
I am little disappointed on that, the bundled OS is not a Pro. I would have love to use Hyper-V on this tablet for Android apps, maybe I should just use Bluestacks or something for that. Else the only think I can think of, that I would like to have Pro for is Remote Desktop and side loading Metro apps. For Remote Desktop I might be using Teamviewer or Splashtop Streamer anyway, so not a really huge loss, but side loading would have been nice. May be it can be solved by putting Visual Studio with Windows Store Developer License on it.
Windows 8 - The Good
Some parts of Windows 8 have been polished quite well for the touch interface. I really like the way Microsoft has implemented the global gestures. Which is something I would like to have on my Android devices, on other hand I can just install something like GMD GestureControl for that. The new Start Menu is pretty good to use with a touch screen. It is fluid to use, I have not felt any jerkiness in the UI so far.
One of the things I am going to appreciate most is the Desktop mode. Being able to use the FULL windows along side with the tablet is I am really looking forward to.
Applications
As it has Windows 8 and not Windows 8 RT, it should be able to run all of the Windows 7 apps. But it would be quite nice to able to run some of the Desktop apps in the Metro mode. Like Notepad, Calculator, Explorer, etc. Maybe I should write one of these apps as a weekend project.
Browsers
I have used Firefox for a quite a long time (since before 1.0). And today I don't have a Metro app for it, and the desktop app is not the best when using touch. Chrome has a Metro mode, but that is a joke if anything. It is Desktop app with no taskbar. Looks like I will be stuck with Internet Explorer in the Metro mode for a quite a while.
Windows Store
As it is well knows Windows Store does not have a lot of apps, compared to the competing Play Store and iTunes App Store. On other hand, Windows 8 has just been released, compared to the others who have been in the "wild" for ca 4 years. There is a lot that has to be done with the store, like writing the name of the published on the search page.
Bundled Apps
There were not as mush bloat ware installed in it as I am used to with a OEM PC, it only had some Photo and Media apps, McAfee, and some online installer of Office 2010 (don't know which edition).
It also had Acer Cloud, and Acer Cloud Docs, which were nuked at once (don't need another cloud application, SkyDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, Wuala, etc are just enough).
There were tons of Metro apps tough, some of them I can actually use like TuneIn Radio, Skype, Evernote. But apps like 7digital, Social Jogger I might never use. The bundled nwesXpresso would have been of better use for me if it had option to connect with Google Reader.
Than there are application like Acer Power Button, Acer Power Management, Acer Ring, which seems to be essential as OS itself lacks these.
Acer Ring
Acer Ring is a application that listens for a ring gesture made by full hand (all five fingers). It launches a Metro app, that has quite good photo browser, a place to pin favorite application (still one extra click), volume control, device control for quickly switch certain things on/off like WiFi (still two extra clicks, but like Windows 3-4 clicks).
I would like to create a new app that is a combination of Charms screen and Acer ring, only if I could find a way to create an app that could listen to the gestures globally.
Gaming
As it is only a i3 with Intel HD 3000, I will not be running Crysis on it. But for Flash and Metro game it is more than enough. Acer has bundled free versions of games like Shark Dunk, Cut the Rope and The Treasures of Montezuma 3 (a Bejeweled type game), from which first two were nuked in under an hour of tablet usage. Then there are games line Mahjong, Solitaire and Pinball which are always a favorite.
If I can read the market right, Windows Metro is going to be a platform where most of the game developers will be releasing games for, like iOS and Android. There are developers who are using tools like Unity 3D to develop games, and I guess it just a matter of time till And cause Metro is designed for ARM in mind, I think it is a safe bet that there will be grate games for Metro in the near future, and this tablet is going to handle it just fine.
Display
The display on this does feel like a high quality tablet, and draws a lot of power. When I was playing around with the display brightness, I could see I added hours (yes hours) in the time left estimation, by just turning down the brightness a bit.
Acer has put a FullHD in a 11.6" display, but Windows (in Desktop mode) does not work quite as expected. I had to increase the DPI to 150% in order to be able to click at least near what I wanted to click.
The prints
As I have noticed, this display is very friendly towards the fingerprints. I will have to see if a screen protector is going to help. And because the screen can be used as an mirror, even when turned on, all the smudges can be seen all over the screen.
Technical Specifications
- Inter Core i3-2365M (Sandy Bridge), 1.4 GHz, Dual Core, HT
- 4GB RAM
- 64Gb primary storage
- 11.6" with 1920x1080
- Inter HD Graphics 3000
- IEEE 802.11 a/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0
- 1 USB 3.0, 1 micro HDMI, 3+ touch
- Front and Back camera
- ~5 hrs battery
- Location Sensor, orientation sensor
- ca 1Kg
- Windows 8 Pro
- Dock (converts 1 USB to 3)
- Travel cover, micro HDMI to VGA adapter
Final words
I looks like a table, Acer calls it a tablet. But it is not a TABLET. It is a laptop with no mouse and keyboard, and way to little I/O ports... At the same time it IS ultra portable, with a bit of power (there goes the battery), and I love it so far. For my need it might be good enough, only if the Windows 8 was polished for the tablets.
I think the overall experience is not going to as much OS than as the individual apps. Yes, there are going to be frustrating moments with the OS, like lack of easy shortcuts for things like turning on/off WiFi, adding Bluetooth easier. But it is more of a habit then a real problem. The real downer for the overall UX will be the apps in the store. As I know, not everybody puts an hour to get the radius of a corner just right. But in the long run these things does count.
Must say this time Acer has done good, they have included a lot of accessories packaged with the tablet itself, just wish they had included two power adapters!
Note: This review is made with only 50 hours of ownership of the tablet, and only 16 hours spent on it. Therefore I have not been able to test it in any real world a application. Will try to write a new review after a month or so of usage, which will contain a more focus on the performance and UX in the wild...