Acer Iconia W510 CloverTrail Tablet Incoming. Send us your Questions.

Posted on 12 December 2012, Last updated on 17 March 2023 by

After weeks of trying to get hold of a CloverTrail tablet through product managers, PR companies and marketing teams I’ve given up and bitten the bullet and bought one. The Acer W510, with 64GB and dock, will be with me soon and I’m excited to get right into the testing to find out what the platform is capable of.

Acer-Iconia-Tab-W510-Test-23-imp

  • Video playback performance and battery life
  • Keyboard quality
  • Typing quality and battery life
  • Use as a 10 inch tablet
  • Use as a laptop and tablet replacement
  • Intel Quick Sync video performance for video creation and format conversion
  • Wireless Display
  • Sensor features
  • Battery life in many scenarios
  • Storage expansion through SD storage
  • Disk Speed tests
  • Use as home media player
  • Limits of gaming
  • Turbo boost longevity

More information, links, videos on the Acer Iconia W510 here.

Note: I am planning a live Hangout on Friday starting at 2100 CET.

Of course I won’t be doing this immediately and it could be that I get hold of another CloverTrail tablet for some of the more generic tests (like Quick Sync performance which will be the same across all CloverTrail devices) and as I’m buying this unit, I’ll take my time to do long-term testing over the next month so that you get an idea of what’s possible for the January sales, and availability of other CloverTrail devices.

Image via Tabtech.de who kindly agreed to sell their W510 unit to us.

 

 

 

Thanks to Tabtech.de who sold the W510 to us

29 Comments For This Post

  1. Anfanglir says:

    Great!
    I would appreciate info on GPS and 3G-options.

    thanx / Anfanglir

  2. Steven says:

    Is there any chance you could find out where we can get just the dock for non-extortionary prices? Got the 32GB model from the Microsoft Store for $400 when it was on sale, but I can’t seem to find a dock anywhere!

  3. Dan says:

    Steven, your lucky you got the tablet… I was stuck on the idea of wanting a digitizer so passed on the $399 deal, now im kicking myself. Since ive seen the 11.6″ tablets in person they are just too big and now I want the 10.1″ acer but can’t bring myself to pay the extra $100. lol.

    Possible Questions:

    Is the new acer microSD limited to 32gb?

    Key for me are screen brightness and battery life with and without the dock?

    Also how typable is the keyboard on this lil guy.

  4. Chippy says:

    OK. I won’t be buying a 64GB microSD card to test but i’ll make sure you get the other information.

  5. teadrop says:

    Question: I also want to know if the Acer W510 support micro SDXC card? I have a 64gb SDXC card I hope I can use on this tablet.
    Thanks

    P.S. Too bad Acer didn’t give you guys a free review unit. I value your recommendations much more than those mainstream tech sites like Cnet or Verge.

  6. Chippy says:

    Thanks! I’ll see if I can convince a local electro shop to test a 64Gb card in the W510 for me.

  7. PL says:

    I can confirm that MicroSD 64GB SDXC worked fine. Bought the card from Amazon– SanDisk Ultra 64 GB MicroSDXC Class 10 UHS-1 Memory Card with Adapter (SDSDQU-064G-AFFP-A). I copied 55GB of video files and each file played fine. The write speed of the card averaged at 10 to 11 MB/s which is very good.

  8. peejay says:

    I’d be interested in your views on using the desktop, and desktop apps, using touch. I’ve seen differing opinions. Pocketables (using Office RT) said using it with touch was fine. Most other people don’t. I’m guessing it boils down to what your expectations are. If you really want a full-featured Windows device that’s also ultraportable, then you might be willing to cope with it being a bit fiddly.

    Of course, if using a finger to control desktop apps is really horrible, then my next question would be whether using a stylus is better!

  9. Mark says:

    Are the keyboard and mouse disabled when the screen is tilted more than 180 degrees?

  10. jeraldyne says:

    * best way to debloat to have more space on the 32GB version
    * tweaks to run faster
    * overclockability

  11. jpmatrix says:

    hi
    i actually own an Acer Iconia W500 and it flawlessly accept my 64GB SDXC so i tend to think that the W510 should accept it too !

  12. jeraldyne says:

    http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/acer-gateway/53943-iconia-w510-mini-review-6.html#post301519

  13. jeraldyne says:

    post #60

  14. KJ says:

    I ammcurious about
    – hw gps
    – 3G model Acer w511
    – nfc
    – wtv file playback MCE video files
    – flash in metro ie
    – desktop app performance
    – touch interface

  15. Marc says:

    What are the chances of these Atom devices being chargeable through USB within the next year or two. That’s one of the features I really like about most ARM devices.

  16. Chippy says:

    Good point. Although usb + power should be coming in 2013 to solve that.

  17. bily says:

    the dell latitude 10 allows USB charging

  18. guy says:

    It’s great to hear that USB charging for Windows devices are already coming. Does the Dell have a stiff dockable keyboard like the W510.

  19. Chippy says:

    Really? There’s client port on the device?

  20. AJ says:

    Apparently so: http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/latitude-10-tablet/pd

    Overview > Power your employees
    “Mobile professionals can keep a spare battery on hand or charge on the move with the micro-USB charging port.”
    “Micro-USB charging port enables easy charging on the go.”

    Tech Specs > Power:
    “Charge via micro-USB charging port”

    Too bad it doesn’t have a keyboard dock. Just some Bluetooth keyboard case that doesn’t really allow for easy lap use.

  21. Chippy says:

    Very interesting. I guess it’s simply a charging port and not a data port. I bet they have a special high-current charger too. Wonder how long it would take to charge over a simple usb port.

  22. mrwed says:

    Chippy, I just read a review of the Samsung Ativ 500 over at ExtremeTech and it says the device doesn’t support .mkv file playback (at least not in hardware decoding). Are you able to check on that? I’ve encoded nearly all my hdtv recordings in .mkv (using Handbrake) and was hoping they’d play well on the Clover Trail devices.

  23. Chippy says:

    That doesn’t surprise me as previous gma modules didn’t support it and its not a mainstream format. The question is, how much can be done by cpu. I’m guessing 720p. I recall that 4mbps was the limit on single core systems. I’ll add it to my tests.

  24. AJ says:

    Well, Windows 7 doesn’t support MKV natively either but you can install an MKV splitter like Haali Media Splitter or use a player that has one built in like MPC-HC. Once the container can be read, the built-in Windows codecs (including hardware acceleration) can decode the video and audio assuming they are H.264 for the video and MP3 or AAC for the audio or some other audio/video format that Windows can decode natively.

    From my understanding, Windows 8’s native Modern UI and desktop video apps don’t support the MKV container but at least in the desktop environment you can do what you’ve done in Windows 7 to get it working. Unless ExtremeTech found that the MKV compatible splitters and players aren’t compatible with Windows 8 yet.

  25. go2turbo says:

    I got W510 32GB from Micro Center for $399.99
    http://www.microcenter.com/product/406384/32GB_ICONIA_W510-1620_101

    Any one knows
    1. How to enable/use GPS? (if it exist)
    2. How do you do factory restore with the included restore DVD? (without keyboard dock)

  26. KJ says:

    – no gps. I’ve tried a Bluetooth gps and it works (e.g. streets and trip) but windows doesn’t use it for Bing etc.

    – for factory restore you’ll need to use a usb hub in standalone tablet mode. Hold down volume during reboot and you’ll enter uefi bios. Change boot device or you can choose a ‘F’ function key during boot. I used a self powered 4 port usb hub with usb mouse, usb keyboard and usb cdrom. Worked great. Used 3 factory optical media and it took about 1 hour. You can probably use a flash based restore but you have to create.

    Good luck!

  27. Confused says:

    KJ – you say “change the book device” I’ve looked at the bios system and I have no idea what you change it to. I’m not to stupid when it comes to computers, but this one has me pegged that way and I don’t like it! So, I’m going to ask for help… Can you write a step by step with as much description as possible?
    Acer walked me through moving the USB/DVD from the third position to the first then wanted me to change the security but they didn’t know how to do it… so they told me to try the volume/windows/power buttons. Well, that didn’t work. I kept getting the home screen.

    After my third try, they gave up. After three hours of trying, I give up. :(

  28. gabriel says:

    -swipe from right to access your w510 setting
    -at the bottom click on change pc setting
    -in the general tab scroll all the way to the bottom and you’ll find an option called “advanced startup”
    -click on restart and that should take to the boot menu where you can boot from a usb/dvd to reinstall windows. you’ll still need a minimum of a keyboard and an optical drive if you’re using dvd.

    my theory: in a virtual machine on my desktop, install windows 8 from the Acer provided dvd, install drivers, create an image and recover from that image on my acer w510 from the advanced menu this I shouldn’t need any keyboard or optical drive.

  29. Loay-Ashry Ashry says:

    Can I technically change the charging port jack of keyboard docking because it was corrupted by any common piece or jack from different type

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