Gizmo Guru | Not an all-rounder
The Acer W4 is a nice Windows tablet, but is Windows ready for tablets?
On most tablets, a quad-core 1.33GHz processor, 2GB of RAM and 64GB of storage would sound great, but unfortunately, the Acer W4-820 isn’t just a tablet. It’s running Windows 8.1, and you can use it either as a tablet, or go to Desktop mode and run your classic Windows programs.
Since you can easily connect USB peripherals, the W4 can do duty as your full time PC, particularly because there’s an HDMI out for easily connecting to a monitor as well. In theory, the W4 should be the perfect multipurpose device, but the fact is that it feels underpowered.
Windows Desktop mode users would quickly find that the W4 is ideally used as a tablet, running one thing at a time. Searching for reference material in Chrome, while listening to music using iTunes, and also keeping a Word document open to type quickly bogs the hardware down.
As a tablet though, the W4 is more than adequate—browsing, reading books, watching movies, listening to music and playing games, everything works really well. The catch of course is that Windows tablet apps are still few in number when compared to iOS or Android.
Add to that the fact that it’s fairly bulky and heavy, and you end up with a very compromised device. If your next Windows machine absolutely has to be a tablet, then the W4 is a sensible choice. Otherwise, laptops like the Lenovo S210 give you more power, a bigger screen and keyboard, without sacrificing much portability, for the same price.
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