More info on that ultra budget tablet from Acer that made a sketchy FCC appearance roughly a week or so ago: The Wall Street Journal‘s been chatting with a “person with direct knowledge,” who offered up an intriguing price tag of “around $99” for the Iconia B1. The slate is said to feature similar specs as older Amazon and Barnes & Noble devices, including a 7-inch 1,024 x 600 display and a 1.2GHz processor. As for availability, the device will apparently be targeted at developing nations, with no word on whether it will make it to the US.
According to the WSJ, Acer’s going to build the world’s first tablet that manages to break the $100 barrier without being a glorified cheese plate. That’s the good news. The bad news? You probably won’t get the chance to buy it. More »
The other we spotted the Acer V360 Android smartphone, but if you weren’t too impressed with its seemingly low-end specs, then perhaps you might be interested in its sibling, the V350 which was spotted recently on the GLBenchmark website. Based on the specs revealed in the benchmark, the V350 appears to be the more superior device in terms of hardware specs, featuring a 1280×720 display resolution, a dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor and it will also come with Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean out of the box. Granted this isn’t some quad-core super phone unlike some other Android offerings available in the market, but given its 720p HD display and the fact that it will run Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean out of the box, it should prove to be an affordable smartphone for those shopping on a budget or for those who don’t really see the need for a high-end device. Apart from those details, not much else is known but with CES and MWC around the corner, hopefully more details will be revealed then.
Rumors are rumors, and while they might be juicy, they are not necessarily going to turn out to be true, and it is a hit-or-miss affair. Of course, it is nice to populate the news pages with what’s coming from different hardware manufacturers from time to time, but it would be better if there was an accurate release, no? Well, you would have to take the following with a grain of salt again, where it seems that Asus might be launching a $99 tablet that will be known as the Iconia B1, although one would wonder whether such a tablet would cannibalize on the Google Nexus 7 tablet, which is manufactured by Asus considering the hardware specifications that one find inside the Iconia B1.
Rumored specifications of the Acer Iconia B1 7” tablet include a resolution count of 1024 x 600, which is similar to what you would find on the BlackBerry PlayBook, alongside a pixel density of 170ppi. Whispers also abound that there will be a 1.2GHz processor there alongside a SIM card slot for you to enjoy mobile data connectivity, and should it arrive with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean on board, the Google Nexus 7, Amazon Kindle Fire and iPad mini might want to look back over their shoulders.
Welcome to Friday evening everyone. Depending on who you choose to believe, today was the day it was all supposed to come crashing down, but since that doesn’t seem like it’ll be happening, let’s recap the news from the day and then jump into the weekend, shall we? Today was a historic day aside from being the rumored end of the world, as Psy’s ridiculously popular hit Gangnam Style topped 1 billion views on YouTube, officially becoming the first video to do so and beating Justin Bieber to the punch. We had a new Acer-related leak today, with benchmarks for the rumored V350 flagship phone surfacing, as well as images for the ASUS ME172V tablet.
The Senate has passed a bill that will allow Netflix users to share what they’re watching on Facebook, and Apple said it will soon allow for 30-pin and Lightning dock connector combos. We found out today that Ubisoft may be looking to buy up some of THQ’s assets, while Electronic Arts dropped some new details on End Game, the next piece of Battlefield 3 DLC. Instagram has been updated on iOS and Android, and Facebook has released a new Poke app to take on Snapchat. The Archos 97 Titanium HD was revealed today with a impressive 2048×1536 resolution, while Google is said to be teaming up with Motorola to make a new X Phone.
Neilsen’s 2012 recap ranks the year’s top performers, and Google has launched a new search trial that uses receipts and hotel reservations from your Gmail account. Finally tonight, Chris Burns tells us why BlackBerry is jumping the shark with tiered service plans, Don Reisinger explains why the dual-screen TV experience doesn’t do anything for him, we go hands-on with EyeEm, and Chris Davies calls out Instagram for taking the lazy, sneaky way out. That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, we hope you enjoy the weekend folks!
Acer hits back with their new home entertainment projector, the H6510BD. Adopting the DLP display technology, this 3D-ready projector provides 1920 x 1080 Full HD resolution, 3000 ANSI lumens brightness, 10,000:1 contrast ratio and up to 5,000 hours of lamp life (ECO mode). The H6510BD will hit the market from December 21st for unannounced price yet. [Acer]
Here comes a new touchscreen all-in-one desktop PC from Acer, the A5600U-F34D. This space-saving system is equipped with a 23-inch 1920 x 1080 Full HD touchscreen (multi-touch) display, a 2.40GHz Intel Core i3-3110M processor, an Intel HM77 Express Chipset, a 4GB DDR3 RAM, a 500GB hard drive, a webcam, a DVD Super Multi Drive on the right side, an SD card slot, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 and runs on Windows 8 64-bit OS. The A5600U-F34D will hit the market from December 21st for around 100,000 Yen (about $1,185). [Acer]
Acer has released a couple of smartphones already, but they haven’t yet made a lot of noise in the smartphone industry. However, details of a new Acer handset point to the company’s first Jelly Bean smartphone that could make a splash in the market. Called the V360, the leaked device is rumored to arrive early next year, and it includes specs that put it right beside a lot of today’s current mid-range smartphones.
What we know so far is that it’ll have a 4.5-inch display with a rather disappointing qHD resolution (960 x 540). On the inside, it’ll run a dual-core 1GHz processor, and will feature a 5MP rear camera with a VGA-quality front-facing camera. It’s said it’ll run Android 4.1, as opposed to 4.2, but at least it’s getting Jelly Bean to begin with.
There’s no mention of how much RAM this puppy will hold, nor is there any say on whether a microSD card slot will be available. The device is said to weigh in at just under five ounces and has measurements of 132mm x 68.5mm x 9.9mm, making it a fairly large handset, but not anything that we haven’t seen before.
The V360 is expected to be available in both black and white, and will debut somewhere around $300 without a contract, which isn’t a bad price at, especially off-contract. Of course, it’s definitely not a high-end device by any means, so it’s certainly believable that it won’t cost as much as some top-tier phones currently on the market.
All-in-one PCs have always seemed a little weird, at least to me. They don’t take up as much space as a traditional computer with a tower and a monitor, but they’re not exactly portable. They also tend to be pretty expensive, though the hardware hidden away behind the screen isn’t always the best. With the new Acer Aspire 7600U, things get even more strange, with this particular all-in-one sporting a 27-inch touchscreen to go along with Windows 8, which comes installed from the get-go. It’s certainly impressive from a design perspective, but can the hardware inside keep the warm and fuzzy feelings going, or is this PC a little too underwhelming to justify it’s expensive price tag? Read on to find out.
Design
If we were judging this simply based on looks, the Apsire 7600U would receive a glowing review. This is one sexy computer, with its 27-inch screen and a glass panel that covers the entire thing. Make no mistake, this is a big and heavy computer, but its been very well designed. Beneath the screen is a piece of glass that spans the entire width of the computer – this looks nice, but it does attract dirt and fingerprints easily. Thankfully, that doesn’t seem to be an issue with the screen itself, and even if your screen gets dirty after a while, Acer was kind enough to include a microfiber cloth to wipe it down. Ah, the little things.
On the right side of the device is where the Blu-Ray drive and eject button are located, with nothing else to accompany them. On the left side there’s a bit more going on, with two USB 3.0 ports, a multi-card slot, and jacks for a microphone and headset. Around the back of the device there are even more ports, including two HDMI ins, one HDMI out, a set of four of USB ports (with one of them housing the Bluetooth module), Ethernet, and SPDIF. Among other things, the HDMI in ports mean you can connect an Xbox 360 or PS3 (or Wii U, if you’re lucky enough to have one already), and with a screen as nice as this, it might not be a bad idea.
When I initially pulled the computer out of the box, I spent a good five minutes trying to find the power jack so I could, you know, actually turn this thing on. After looking all over the back and sides, I finally found it – it was on the end of the silver kickstand that’s attached to this all-in-one. That annoyed me at first, but after a while, I came to love the idea. By having the power jack there, it keeps the power cord out of the way, which means that there will be one less cord to get tangled up in the mess you’re bound to have back there before long.
The kickstand itself is nice and sturdy, and though I’m not usually a fan of them, I like this one. The silver meshes well with the overall design, and this kickstand in particular manages to look sleek while still being strong enough to hold this beast of a computer up.
All in all, this is one really nice looking computer. From a design standpoint, it doesn’t get much better than this, and the fact that it’s so slim helps with that a lot. As you get closer to the top, the thickness increases to make room for the Blu-Ray drive and the speakers, but even at it’s thickest, this computer is still pretty thin. As I said above, if we were judging this solely on looks, the Aspire 7600U would receive an excellent review. However, design is only one aspect of the equation, and it takes a back seat to things like hardware and overall ease-of-use.
Hardware
The hardware found in the Aspire 7600U is somewhat underwhelming, which is a shame considering how good this computer looks. Before we jump inside, let’s talk about the screen a little more. As you already know, the 7600U offers a 27-inch screen, this one displaying at 1920×1080 resolution. I think the screen looks great – brightness is spot on for my tastes, and the colors are great. With the Blu-Ray drive this computer comes standard with, it makes a great machine for watching movies, and I have a feeling you’ll be pleased with the results if you decide to connect a game console. The screen features 10-point multitouch, which allows you to take full advantage of Windows 8.
The 7600U comes equipped with an Intel Core i5 3210M clocked at 2.5GHz, which is similar to the processors we see in some ultrabooks. That should give you an idea of where this is headed – you won’t have a lot of power to work with, at least as far as the processor is concerned.
Thankfully, the Core i5 isn’t terrible, and the 7600U seems to make up for it in other areas. For instance, there are 8GB of RAM in this bad boy, which should be enough to keep things speedy most of the time. The processor may struggle occasionally, but it’s nice to have 8GB of RAM on board.
Surprisingly, the 7600U also uses discrete NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M graphics, which makes it a capable gaming rig. You’re not going to be able to crank everything up to max settings on more recent games, but the 7600U should be able run a number of games without any issues. The problem, of course, is the processor – while the GPU isn’t half bad, that doesn’t really matter if the processor isn’t all that it could be. It would have been nice to see a Core i7 in the configuration I received to review, but that would have driven costs up so high that I think Acer would have had a difficult time moving units.
System – Acer Aspire 7600U
Manufacturer
Acer
Product Type
Desktop
Operating System
Microsoft Windows 8 (64-bit)
Motherboard
Acer Aspire 7600U
Processor
Intel Core i5-3210M
Processor ID
GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 58 Stepping 9
Processor Frequency
2.49 GHz
Processors
1
Threads
4
Cores
2
L1 Instruction Cache
32.0 KB
L1 Data Cache
32.0 KB
L2 Cache
256 KB
L3 Cache
3.00 MB
Memory
8.00 GB DDR3 SDRAM 799MHz
FSB
99.8 MHz
BIOS
American Megatrends Inc. P11-A2
The speakers on the 7600U are decent, but they aren’t great. Sounds aren’t always as full as they should, and the bass in particular could definitely use a boost. They can certainly get loud though, but you may not want to go too high if you’re watching an action movie or playing a game with a lot of explosions (which seems to be most games these days). Truth be told, you’re better off using a good pair of headphones – those will give you the good sound quality you need to go along with the excellent screen.
The 7600U also ships with a matching wireless mouse and keyboard. Both look sleek, and while I was quite pleased with the keyboard, the mouse leaves something to be desired. The mouse feels fine in the hand, though clicking the mouse buttons isn’t all that satisfying. It’s also worth pointing out that the mouse only includes left and right buttons and a scroll wheel, so you’re essentially getting the bare minimum as far as mice go.
Let’s jump back to the keyboard, which I think is a pretty nice piece of equipment. The keyboard for the 7600U is very, very slim, which makes it feel a little on the delicate side, but typing on it is a pleasant experience. On this you’ll find chiclet-style keys we see on notebooks and ultrabooks, and these keys give off a satisfying sound when you hit them. The keyboard manages to pack in a full number pad while remaining quite small, which is nice. There was one small problem I ran into, though: the wireless on this keyboard seems to be a bit touchy at times. There were a few times I was trying to type something with nothing showing up on screen, but a quick adjustment was all that was needed to fix this issue.
Software
One of the main draws of the 7600U is Windows 8. Microsoft’s new operating system is aimed directly toward touchscreens, and with 27-inches of real estate to play with, it works well on the 7600U. If you’re new to Windows 8 you’ll probably still feel completely lost for a little while starting out, but the touchscreen definitely lets you get the hang of things quickly.
You’ll have a number of pre-installed apps right from the start, but thankfully, some of them are actually useful. Acer has taken the liberty of installing apps like Evernote, Netflix, Spotify, Hulu Plus, eBay, and Kindle, so if you’re a user of some or all of those services, it’s nice to have the app ready to go right when you pull it out of the box. A trial of Cut the Rope is installed too, which makes for a perfect way of testing out the screen.
Of course, Microsoft’s programs are there in force too, with Skype, a trial of Microsoft Office 2010, and Internet Explorer present and accounted for. There are also the standard Windows 8 apps including People, Weather, Finance, News, and SkyDrive, so you’ve got a healthy serving of apps already installed before you even plug it in. You’ll have 909GB of the 7600U’s 1TB hard drive available to use, and the installed apps bring that total down to 871GB of free space – that amount should tide you over for a while, but some may want to do some cleaning once they get the computer out of the box.
Above the screen, the 7600U has a camera for video chat and gesture controls. Gesture controls don’t seem to work as well as they should, which is a shame because I could see them coming in handy. The problem is that the camera doesn’t always recognize what it is you’re trying to do – I even had issues working my way through Acer’s tutorial. Instead of popping your hand up for a quick command, often times you end up waving your arms around as if you were playing a Kinect game. It may be a better idea to skip gesture controls entirely and just use the touchscreen or the mouse and keyboard instead.
Benchmarks
Running the 7600U through Geekbench, it’s obvious that we don’t have the most powerful computer on our hands. With a score of 8549, the 7600U actually falls in line with the ratings we see for a number of ultrabooks out there. That being said, it isn’t as if the score is a terrible one, and the 7600U does have some decent hardware running under the hood. The problem with that is the computer’s hardware doesn’t really justify the high cost.
Benchmark Score – Acer Aspire 7600U
Section
Description
Score
Total Score
Windows x86 (64-bit) – Microsoft Windows 8 (64-bit)
Integer
Processor integer performance
6112
8549
Floating Point
Processor floating point performance
11458
Memory
Memory performance
8020
Stream
Memory bandwidth performance
7955
Wrap-Up
So with the Aspire 7600U, we have a computer that’s shooting for high-end but doesn’t quite make it. The screen is definitely the star of this show at 27-inches with 1080p HD and ten-point multitouch to boot. The whole unit looks great too; no cheap looking stand, a slim design despite the fact that Acer had to cram so much hardware behind that screen, and an overall look that does scream “high-end.”
The problem, though, is with the hardware. With that $1899 price tag, it’s clear that you’re paying a lot of money for the screen, as the hardware on its own isn’t all that expensive. The Geforce GT 640M is definitely appreciated, but I feel that the Core i5 might hold it back in some instances. We’d really be rocking if the i5 had been swapped out for an i7, but that would have easily pushed the cost up above $2000, a price point Acer is clearly trying to stay under.
Don’t get me wrong, I liked the time I spent with the 7600U. I just think there will be quite a few folks who will pass at the $1899 price point. Acer did a lot of cool things with this computer, but in the end, the Aspire 7600U falls short of greatness almost every time.
Acer is about to release their newest multi-touch LCD monitor ‘T232HLbmidz’ for the mass market. Adopting an IPS panel, this new 23-inch LED-backlight monitor provides 1920 x 1080 Full HD resolution, 1000:1 contrast ratio, 250 cd/m2 brightness, 5ms response time and 178/178 degree viewing angles. In addition, it also comes with two built-in 1.5W stereo speakers and features DVI-D, mini D-Sub and HDMI connectors, and a 3-port USB hub. The T232HLbmidz will hit the market from December 7th for around 50,000 Yen (about $606). [Acer]
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
The other we spotted the 
Rumors are rumors, and while they might be juicy, they are not necessarily going to turn out to be true, and it is a hit-or-miss affair. Of course, it is nice to populate the news pages with what’s coming from different hardware manufacturers from time to time, but it would be better if there was an accurate release, no? Well, you would have to take the following with a grain of salt again, where it seems that Asus might be launching a $99 tablet that will be known as the Iconia B1, although one would wonder whether such a tablet would cannibalize on the Google Nexus 7 tablet, which is manufactured by Asus considering the hardware specifications that one find inside the Iconia B1.
