Windows 8 and its touchscreen interface have caused quite a stir in the IT world and helped the industry produce a totally new breed of devices that are part tablet and part laptop.
One such device that immediately caught my attention is Acer’s netbook-sized, 10.1-inch Iconia W5. This device has a hinge that allows you to open and close it exactly as you would a normal netbook – however, you can also physically unclip the screen from its keyboard and use it as a fully functional Windows 8 tablet. One main problem with anything trying to be two things at once is that most actually fail to do a decent job in both. But this is not the case with the Acer Iconia W5.
Design is key to the Acer Iconia and other hybrids like it. That snap on/snap off convertibility is going to be what draws many people to it in the first place.
The first thing you’ll notice when you pick it up is that, for a 10-inch laptop, it’s quite heavy – however, considering what the device offers I wouldn’t really consider this to be a deal breaker. If you can get past the weight, the device is not overly chunky and it’s not so heavy that it’s ever a problem to hold or carry it.
Looks-wise, the anodised aluminium finish is what one expects of a quality laptop. Admittedly, the gigantic white hinge is a bit of an eyesore but its functionality outweighs any real criticism.
The keyboard reminds me of why netbooks fell out of favour a few years ago. The main QWERTY keys themselves are not bad, but everything else (Shift, Enter and plenty of other useful buttons) is jammed in together. In fairness, with a bit of practice it does get easier – however, tapping away on such a confined space for more than 30 minutes at a time makes you realise what a small wonder it is that the ultrabook form factor was invented as the modern day take on a portable computer.
Fortunately, the Acer Iconia W5 is about more than just productivity. Unclip the laptop’s screen with the quick release switch on the hinge and you free the tablet form to which it best belongs. In fact, it’s only when the tablet is in your hand that you notice that all the weight is actually in the keyboard or, more specifically, in the hinge.
Again, one can understand why the hinge is so dense – if it wasn’t, it would be a source of breakage or a very shaky connection mechanism. Neither is the case, and there’s not one single complaint I would make about clip on and off design. It’s excellent.
As for the Acer Iconia W510 tablet itself, it’s very pretty, comfortable to hold, and both the quality and touch sensitivity of the display are bang on.
Picture clarity and screen brightness are good, while the 1366 x 768 standard resolution display is nice and dense over the 10.1 inches of glass. Although not full HD, colours are good and images are clear.
For me, the real problem with the Iconia W5 is neither the keyboard nor the weight. Also, the 1.8GHz Intel Atom Z2670 does its job pretty well.
Rather, the real issue is with its graphics processor – it just doesn’t cut it and is not enough for HD video, streaming or any serious games.
For connectivity, the Iconia W5 is equipped with everything you need – there’s NFC for contactless payments and information transfer and the latest versions of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The only thing missing is a broadband SIM slot.
On the wired connections front, there is a single USB socket on the right side (which you lose once in tablet mode), a micro USB on the side of the screen and a micro HDMI and micro SD card slot.
Other than those, the lines of the tablet are nice and clean. There are dock ports at the bottom, a volume rocker, a subtle power switch, a headphones jack and an auto-rotation lock button to prevent your screen display from flipping round when you don’t want it to. It also comes equipped with some very adequate stereo speakers on the right and left side of the tablet.
As for the cameras, it’s all thumbs up. The eight-megapixel rear-facing unit, complete with flash, is really good and takes very decent pictures. The two-megapixel front-facer delivers some excellent detail for the person at the other end when making video calls, a great combination to the pre-installed Skype app.
The last thing worth mentioning about the Iconia W510 is its battery, which is probably the best I’ve seen in a laptop or tablet for quite some time. It’s a two-cell Lithium polymer unit, which means there’s plenty of capacity – in combination with the Intel Atom chip, it makes the use of those reserves even more efficiently.
On the product specs it says it has around 18 hours battery life, but so far I haven’t been able to test it long enough to confirm this.
The team behind the Iconia W510 has done excellent work on the design to make a compelling and reliable product.
Jesmond Darmanin is a technology enthusiast who has his own blog at www.itnewsblog.com.