Acer's Windows 7-themed Iconia Tab tablet has arrived in the States.
Acer said Thursday that it's now shipping the Iconia Tab W500 tablet in North America, packed with Microsoft’s Windows 7 OS and AMD's Fusion platform. It will arrive in two flavors: the W500-BZ467 with Windows 7 Home Premium for $549.99, and the W500P-BZ841 with Windows 7 Professional for $619.00. Both will have Microsoft Office Starter 2010 pre-installed.
"The Acer Iconia Tab W500 is the perfect tablet for people who want the touch capabilities that are so natural and efficient on the go, but also need a Windows environment to access productivity applications for work and school," said Eric Ackerson, senior product marketing manager, Acer America. "So much of what we're doing on the go is accessing information and consuming content in cloud-based applications, such as realtors and salespeople who need access to databases and Intranet sites. The Acer Iconia Tab W500 is the ultimate reflection of our lives -- able to multitask between work and fun, and ready at a moment's notice."
On the hardware front, the tablet will use AMD's C-50 processor and ATI Radeon HD 6250 graphics. Also under the 10.1-inch LED-backlit display (1280 x 800) will be 2 GB of DDR3 memory and a 32 GB SSD-- an additional SD card reader supporting up to 32 GB of storage will be provided as well.
As for other features, the tablet will sport Dolby advanced audio v2, two Acer Crystal Eye 1.3MP webcams mounted on the front and back, Acer InviLink Nplify 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi wireless technology, Ethernet, Bluetooth, and the Acer PowerSmart long-life 3260 mAh Li-polymer battery pack promising up to four hours of unplugged HD video playback and six hours of Internet browsing.
"The tablet weighs only 2.14 pounds and measures 10.83(W) x 7.48(D) x 0.63(H) inches," the company said. "The additional docking keyboard weighs 1.34 pounds and measures 10.83(W) x 7.48(D) x 0.43-0.77(H) inches."
Acer said that the tablet will also use its proprietary Acer Ring overlay, a user interface that throws special features and touch applications into a graphical ring. By placing five fingers in a circular pattern, the Acer Ring appears to let consumers surf the web, capture screen images, post photos and status updates, watch movies and more, all in the manner most comfortable and natural to them, the company said.
Unfortunately, Acer didn't specify an actual date of arrival or the names of retailer lined up to sell the tablet(s), only stating that they are "now available for sale at select retailers and channel partners in the United States."
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Wow this actually looks really good for school use O_o
good to see Fusion is put to work
I hope they could throw in a wacom pen system in addition, then it would be ideal for school.
wow, those are really impressive specs. But being broke sucks, so Im not getting it, but its nice to see a tab running that power at that price.
The replys on this topic just got deleted. seems Toms is in bed with google.
This seems like a better value than the Asus Transformer, I think the docking station is even included in the price. The Transformer has triple the battery life though. Still, previous experience with Acer netbooks would make me wonder how sturdy the dock is, it really doesn't look like a very strong cradle. Win7 is also sort of bothersome to use with a touchscreen. I think I'll stick with a netbook until I see a tablet design that still allows me to upgrade memory and storage.
Looks great but I must say: not for begineers.
I can almost see reviewers claiming its battery life is junk without getting rid of all the bloatware and disabling idiotic Windows features such as prefetching and virtual RAM. Others will complain about the performance of the Fusion after installng antivirus, claiming it's just the same as the anemic ARM devices out there.