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A 10-inch detachable for $179. Does it work? Acer One S1002 tested.


I tested the Acer Aspire Switch 10E last year. It cost about $300 and was quite usable. Today I have a lower-cost version of that in my hand. At $179 it’s the cheapest Windows detachable on the  market and It makes sense that I  do a few usability tests with it while I have it. The Acer Aspire One S1002.

Acer Aspire One S1002

Acer Aspire One S1002

Surprisingly there’s a reasonable build quality here, charging over Micro USB or DC-in and a separate HDMI and Micro SD card port. There’s a full-size USB 2.0 port on the keyboard. The screen is bright with good contrast.

A 32 Wh battery inside will keep you browsing for over 6 hours and if you’re offline you can type for well over that although the keyboard really is netbook-style and needs getting used to.

The best thing is the disk speed. This is one of the fastest eMMCs I’ve seen on this generation of Windows tablets. It’s well-balanced and gives a relatively good set of 4K scores.

Acer One S1002 disk speed

Acer One S1002 disk speed

Now to the bad. The Acer One S1002 runs on an ‘old’ Baytrail-T platform and while the CPU on the latest Atom X5s isn’t much faster there’s a new GPU in the new platform that gives a good boost over this generation.

The resolution is a poor 1280 x 800 and you’ve only got 2 GB RAM and 32 GB storage (around 18 GB usable.) It’s a fairly thick netbook when closed and it weighs 1.2 KG in total. There’s no USB 3.0 and the speakers are really poor. WiFi is single-channel, single band, non-AC. 72 Mbps was the most I could connect at.

I took a look inside the keyboard case to see If there were any nice surprises. Although there’s a space for a disk there are no electronics for connecting to one You might want to think about stuffing a few hundred grams of something inside there though because the tipping-point of the docked tablet is very tight. I found it tipping back in normal desk-based usage.

What can you do on the $179 Acer One S1002? Well, Office Mobile is installed and you get a free Office 365 year license. Web browsing is faster than on most smartphones and the Sunspider 1.0.2 score of around 500 ms is OK. Working in the back-end of WordPress has been fine.

You’ll get some Windows Store gaming done on the Acer One S1002 but it seems that there’s no accelerometer. At least it didn’t work on my test with Drift Mania.

Acer One S1002 keyboard internals.

Acer One S1002 keyboard internals.

Overall there’s little to moan about here. Corners have been cut in places that might not matter for people who want a low-cost Windows tablet with keyboard and $179 is really a bargain. [at BestBuy. No affiliation.]

 

Full written Acer One 10 review here.

Acer Graphics Dock Hands-on. Thunderbolt and GTX 960M goodness.


It feels I’ve waited years for a consumer-grade docking solution that includes a graphics card. The Acer Graphics Dock a, theoretically, universal Thunderbolt USB-C graphics dock (Nvidia GeForce, details below) brings it all together and while 300 Euro sounds expensive, it’s a good start for a consumer-grade docking station and shows the way for the future of dockable ultramobile PCs. Acer Graphics Dock hands-on at the end of this article.

P1290266

Update 15 March: I quoted a GTX 940M in the video. That information is incorrect as there is no GTX 940M. We’re currently trying to confirm leaked information that shows a GTX 960M inside. That makes more sense and could take it from ‘low settings’ to ‘medium settings’ PC gaming.

Update: Confirmed by Acer: It’s a GTX 960M inside.

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Acer Aspire Switch 11V 2-in-1 video review and opinion. (Great screen, limited performance.)


I have the Acer Aspire Switch 11V with me in the studio and have just posted the review video for Notebookcheck. It scored 76% in their review so let me tell you why it wasn’t a huge win.chippy aspire 11V

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Acer Aspire Switch 11V hands-on, video.


IFA 2015 has brought us a range of new and upgraded convertible PCs but the one that I’ve had at the top of my list for a while is the Acer Switch 11V which seems to offer just the right balance of features for a Core M 2-in-1. The problem is that Lenovo are launching the Miix 700 which might be an even better option because it uses the latest Core M generation. The Acer Switch 11V has taken so long to get to market that it’s still using the first generation. Acer might need to adjust some pricing on the 11V if they want to see it compete successfully.

Switch 11V

 

Acer have done a reasonable job of keeping the looks and plastics from feeling cheap but the Switch 11V isn’t a style-statement. Inside you’ll find a ‘proper’ SSD connected via a SATA port. Speeds aren’t known at this stage but expect it to outperform something like the Surface 3.  The performance of the Switch 11V can’t be determined by Core M model number because, as with all Core M builds, it depends on how well the Acer engineers have designed the internal airflow and heat-sinking. A full test will be needed to determine that.

I liked the keyboard but the trackpad needs longer term testing before it can be evaluated.

A 28 Wh battery inside the Acer Switch 11V is a little small when you compare it to the 41 Wh of the Lenovo Miix 700 and that’s going to really affect battery life. If you’re looking for an all-day battery-powered mobile PC solution the Switch 11V isn’t it.

Take a look at the video to get a good overview of the Acer Aspire Switch 11V.

 

Acer Cloudbook 11 hands-on. How’s that keyboard?


The Acer Cloudbook 11 CB3-111-C670 Windows 10 laptop is available at a price of just $169. If you want the more sensible 32 GB version you’re still only looking at $189. For a laptop that runs a new Braswell processor and weighs just 2.54 pounds you can’t ignore it. So I didn’t, as I passed through the Acer booth at IFA 2015. I was particularly interested in testing the keyboard.

P1260491

Acer Cloudbook 11. How’s that keyboard?

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Acer Aspire Switch 10V updated with Xtom X5. Hands-on.


The Acer Aspire Switch 10V takes the new 11V design and shrinks it down a little to make an overall improvement on the original Switch 10. There’s an Atom X5 (Z8300) on the inside along with a Full HD screen. Hands-on video at the base of this article.

Acer Aspire Switch 10V

Acer Aspire Switch 10V

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Acer Chromebook R11 Hands-On


Acer launched a new Chromebook at IFA today. The Chromebook R11 is a lightweight 11.6-inch convertible with a good keyboard and large touchpad. The 1366 x 768 screen is entry-level but the Braswell processor should offer quite a bit more than the ASUS Chromebook Flip that it will compete with. Hands-on video below.

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Acer Cloudbook. Ignore the 16 GB version. (And it’s not a Chromebook competitor.)


Please, if you are looking at low-cost laptops and reading articles today that say the new Acer Aspire One Cloudbook is a Chromebook competitor, or worse, uses the K word, think again. It’s not. A stream of articles published after the launch of the Acer Cloudbook today will have you believe that price is the way to compare between the two laptop segments but they are wrong because even at the same price, the Cloudbook is nothing like a Chromebook. Even if you ignore he Chromebook comparisons there’s another issue. The 16 GB Cloudbook is not exactly going to be barrier-free with Windows.

Aspire One Cloudbook AO1-131 (14-inch)

Aspire One Cloudbook AO1-131 (14-inch)

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