The Inquirer had a chance for some hands on time with the new Acer Aspire Switch 12 convertible tablet and keyboard. It is powered by the new Core M 5Y10a at 1Ghz, which does not require a fan and has 4GB of RAM and runs Win8. The screen specifications were not listed but their eyeballs suggest the screen is a full 1080p which is a great improvement from the usual 1366×768 on these convertible devices. They were not overly impressed by the quality of the keyboard or the process to attach or remove it from the screen but the sacrifice in aesthetics does help to keep the device very light and thin when the keyboard dock is attached. You can see their preview here, hopefully a full review will appear soon.
"The Aspire Switch 12 is the successor to the Taiwanese firm's previous affordable multi-mode device, the Aspire Switch 10. It boasts a slimmer design thanks to Intel's new 14nm fanless processor, has a 12.5in display and features five alternative viewing modes."
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“We hope that the Aspire
“We hope that the Aspire Switch 12 won’t cost much more than its £299 ($487) Switch 10 predecessor…”
Intel suggested that Core M tablets would start near the $800 mark and maybe be as low as $600 some day, so if Acer can build one near the $500 mark, that would be incredible. Acer is really good at making cheap stuff with the right amount of compromises, but the CPU is $280 alone. Bingdows 8.1, most likely.
I’d pay $500 in a heartbeat
I’d pay $500 in a heartbeat as long as I get Core M + 1080p IPS + a big battery, the rest of the specs don’t matter much to me. Otherwise I’ll stick to Bay Trail/Cherry Trail tablets in the $200-400 range.
Ya, you know wanting a
Ya, you know wanting a Corvette to be as cheap as a Chevette isn’t going to make it so.
The Switch 10 is pretty decent. Much better build quality than the ASUS Transformer Book T100 – and they use WIMboot on Windows 8.1 to save extra storage space too (you can remove all of the Acer junk and crappy apps also). It’s the cheap man’s tablet. The Switch 12 looks to be Acer’s take on a Surface Pro 3, except unlike Microsoft, Acer would be selling this into the Channel to all resellers, not just big-box stores like Microsoft does.
I actually DON’T want it.
I actually DON’T want it. It’s with an Intel CPU with something that is called, I think, Intel graphics.