Acer Iconia W3 8-Inch Windows tablet: Unboxing & first impressions

Acer Iconia W3

Today at Build, Microsoft handed out a few g Iconia W3s to the attendees. For those of you don't know, the Iconia W3 is Acer's outset effort at an eight-inch Windows 8 tablet running with an Intel Atom processor.

Is it good, bad, somewhere in between? We're not a 100% certain yet but we do like playing effectually with it a whole lot. Head past the break for our easily on video and some impressions!

To refresh on the all the specs of this little bad boy: the tablet weighs 1.x pounds, is .45 inches thin, sports a 1200 x 800 viii.ane inch LCD display, 32 or 64 GB of memory, and is powered past an Intel Atom Clover Trail CPU.

Acer Iconia W3 tablet laying down

Truth be told, the display is a chip "meh". By that sophisticated description we're referring to the lack of an IPS display, making this straight up LCD, which seems similar something from 2022 rather than 2022. Of course, it was done to keep the price down and similar all displays, once you use it for a few minutes your mind kind of forgets. Just on first loading, Sam Sabri and I each thought something was wrong with our screens.

Guess nosotros're spoiled.

Acer Iconia W3 Windows 8 tablet

Device performance is what yous tin can await from an Intel Atom: information technology rocks for Windows eight Beginning screen apps, but lags a flake when you run total desktop apps (this is full Windows 8, after all). Only what selection would you rather take? A somewhat sluggish desktop experience or no choice in the matter? Because of that we prefer Atom processors over ARM, though we hope to revisit that issue later on this year.

Biggest surprise? The speakers. Located at the bottom of the device, when held vertically, they're surprisingly loud and sound a lot better than you lot'd expect. Cameras, on the other paw, are a bit muddy. The W3 features both 2.1MP front end and rear cameras, which is probably washed one time over again to cutting costs.

Acer Iconia W3 with Windows 8

Having said that, we run across a real opportunity for some OEM (cough, Nokia, cough) to make an viii-inch Windows 8 tablet with stellar front and rear cameras, because this size device lends itself to Skype and even full general photo taking.

We'll do a follow upwards in a few days from Sam and me on the Iconia W3. Information technology'southward not a perfect device and it'due south really the tip of the iceberg for what's coming in this range—but it is quite compelling to use and is keeping us entertained. For $379 (32GB version) information technology will certainly raise some eyebrows.

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