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Core i3, i5 to appear in 10 and 11.6″ Gigabyte Laptops at Computex


After I had tested the N570-based S1080 tablet yesterday I had a great discussion with Gigabyte about mobile video editing. Gigabyte have always explored new features and pushed the boundaries in some way another so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when the representative told me I should wait for Computex to see the T20xx range of devices that will come with the latest, Sandy Bridge versions of Intel’s Core i3 or i5 CPUs. I understood that they would be convertible too.

That’s going to be something to test as soon as possible because if they manage it, we could have another low-cost power-option on our hands. If they manage to get some decent battery life out of it and keep it under 1.5KG too, it’s going to be very interesting indeed. I sincerely hope that the rep knew what he was talking about and can’t wait to hear more.

Computex starts on May 31st and we’re planning to be there.

Acer Iconia Tab W500 – Specs Look Good. Weight and Battery Life Don’t


The product page for the Acer Iconia Tab W500 is now live and populated with links, specs, gallery and videos.

Acer Iconia Tab W500

I’ve been through the details with a fine toothcomb and on one had I’m quite excited about a sub 1KG tablet with an acceptable CPU, good GPU, hi-res wide-view screen, UMTS and docking station for 599 Euro (current average online prices, Germany) but when you look at the weight / battery life ratio, it isn’t that good. Acer have only managed to squeeze in a 36Wh battery which means you’re looking at 3-4hrs usable battery life. Add the dock (which doesn’t look like it’s built for the road!) and you’re up over 1.5KG.

Taken as a tablet only, it actually looks like an interesting proposition. With CPU power up at the top end of the netbook range and GPU that blows away anything based purely on Intel netbook platforms it should perform smoothly. 2GB of RAM and Windows Home Premium give it media serving capability. Throw in the UMTS/HSDPA and it gets even more exciting.

W500_stand_up.jpgW500_tab_lft.jpgW500_Keyboard.jpg

See the W500 gallery for more.

At the end of the day, and specifications list, I’ve a feeling that this is going to work well as a hot-desking solution. It should serve well as a home desktop for anyone not getting involved with hundreds of browser tabs or video editing and the grab-and-go capability means it can be used in a more casual manner now and again. It looks fun too!

For ultra mobile PC fans though, it’s just too heavy. An upgraded 1.25KG Asus 1015PN with 6hr battery would be a much better choice for true mobile computing.

Waiting For A Dual-Core Convertible Netbook? Gigabyte Have You Covered


gigabyte T1000PMe and chippy mentioned on Twitter just the other day that more power was needed from netbook based systems and Gigabyte may have just come up with the goods in their T1000 series refresh.

The T1005M comes packing Intels newest Atom processor, the N550. Its a 1.5GHz dual-core chip with 512KB of L2 cache, DDR3 support and hyperthreading to get you multitaskers moving along nicely.

Other specifications from this convertible netbook include, 2GB DDR3 RAM, 320GB hard drive, WiFi 80211b/g/n, Bluetooth, 2x USB 2.0, Windows 7 Home Premium and a 10.1 inch capacitive multi-touch display running at 1366 x 768 pixels resolution. What is also notable is the inclusion of one USB 3.0 port and optional inbuilt HSDPA.

Based on these specifications I think we have found chippy a new convertible, assuming he’s willing to stump up the $798 USD premium.

The unit weighs 3.3 pounds, measures in at 10.4 inch x 8.4 inch x 1.6 inch and comes with a 6 cell, 41Whr, 7650mAh battery.

Gigabytes T1005M is already available in Australia, although curiously the retailer is showing the product as discontinued. When it will grace European and US shores is yet unknown but watch this space.

[via Liliputing]

Inking on the Acer 1825 PT


Many of you have asked about the inking ability of the Acer 1825 PT I reviewed two weeks back, so I thought I would do a short demonstration video of it.

As you can see its not a perfect experience and won’t provide the same level as a full tablet PC with an active digitiser but it usable for short note taking sessions.

Acer 1825 PT 11.6″ Convertible – Review


I wanted to live with the Acer 1825 PT for a couple of weeks before I posted a review because using it for a couple of days isn’t a good test of any device. Its been a great work horse but not without its faults. If you haven’t already, check out my unboxing video.

Acer Review (2) Hardware

Overall the look of and feel of the Acer is good, its very compact and not too heavy, although at 1.72 kg (3.79 lbs) it does begin to feel weighty when using it one handed. The screen is bright and crisp and the 1366 x 768 resolution is perfect for the 11.6 inch screen size, touch input is accurate on the capacitive touch display and you rarely find yourself having to press multiple times when trying to hit on screen buttons like the classic close program. One of the major downsides to the screen is its highly reflective, probably more so than any other device I have used or owned. This is a major point, when using the screen in a well lit room like an office or for example a hospital waiting room, the viewing angle is tiny, this often means the angle you are holding it at is a strain. I’ve lived with this problem for two weeks and have learnt to deal with it but if you spend a lot of time in well lit places then you must take this into consideration, even more so if you plan to use this device in tablet mode often.

One of the other advantages of an 11.6 inch device is the keyboard, the Acer 1825 PT has a full size short press keyboard which is perfect for typing on. In no time at all, my words per minute speed was up to the same level as it would be when using a full sized desktop keyboard which is a huge boost to productivity. There is some flex in the keyboard which does leave a feeling of low quality but it certainly doesn’t effect typing speed. Acer Review (5)

There are two additional hardware buttons on the Acer, a ‘P’ button the screen bezel and a Acer Backup Manager button above the keyboard. The ‘P’ button has three actions, CTRL + ALT + DEL, print screen or a customisable program launcher. It lacks a screen brightness function which given how reflective the screen is, should have been included.

Another issue I have come across during everyday use of the Acer is the screen hinge. The hinge itself feels pretty solid and robust but it isn’t stiff enough, when you pick up  the device in laptop mode the screen almost falls back to the flat position and you have to be weary when moving the Acer about because of this. The screen can also only be twisted in one direction which isn’t uncommon for convertibles, although is a learning curve.

Performance

The Acer 1825 PT’s performance has been excellent, the Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 is clocked at 1.3GHz which when coupled with 4GB of RAM means Windows 7 steams along. I have done some serious multitasking on this device, Chrome with several tabs open, Windows Live Writer, photo editing, Outlook 2010, Evernote, Skype, Live Messenger all open concurrently and with no noticeable slow down or reduction in performance. For a convertible of this size its mightily impressive when it comes to productivity. Cold boot times for Windows are nice and quick and your looking around a 30 second wait for the device to boot into the operating system.

Acer Review (3) Video playback has also been excellent, YouTube HD isn’t at all an issue as you would expect from the Intel 4500MHD graphics unit. As a further test I had the film 2012, both in 720p and 1080p encoded in the matroska format. On the Acer’s display the 720p version played without a hitch with no noticeable frame’s dropped. When outputting 1080p to a 40 inch LCD via the HDMI port, video became choppy and the audio lost synchronisation, however 720p video playing at the TV’s native resolution of 1920 x 1080 worked perfectly and looked great. With Xvid, WMV and H.264 file formats and encoding, video playback at both 720p was near on perfect. This is down to the 4500MHD GPU which can share up to 1695MB’s  of the system RAM.

Battery life has excellent and not far off Acer’s figure of 8 hours. I have regularly achieved 7 hours with 40% screen brightness and WiFi turned on when web browsing or writing. This figure drops significantly under certain circumstances, one of which is video playback. Running the 720p version of the film 2012 on a loop the Acer managed a measly 3 hours and 50 minutes before going into hibernation, this has been true of any situation that utilises the graphics controller on the device, including flash video playback. The other strange circumstance I have suffered with the Acer is sleep. If you sleep the device the battery life time is significantly reduced in less than a 12 hour period, I found that if I used the devices for several sessions in a day with a one to two hour intervals of sleep in between sessions the battery would be reduced to 5 hours. I’m really not sure what is draining the battery when the Acer is asleep but by using hibernation this problem is resolved. The obvious issue with hibernation is the 10 seconds for Windows to resume which hinders productivity. Acer Review (6)

Software

There is an unfortunate amount of crapware that comes preloaded on the Acer, this took a good 30 minutes to remove the unnecessary software. Acer include a whole host of  software with the 1825, including crystal eye webcam software to enhance video calling through Skype and Live Messenger and a backup manager linked to the hardware button I mentioned earlier. Also included is the Acer Touch Portal which has the Microsoft Touch Pack programs and Windows Media Player enclosed into a custom user interface, you can access it through a corner of the desktop which looks like a folded over page. Its a pretty poor attempt at a UI, it looks ugly with a front room type layout and lacks finesse. You can access the Microsoft Touch Pack programs separately through the start menu which makes the Touch Portal redundant. A 64 bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium is also included with full touch support including the Tablet Input Panel (TIP).

Touch Features

We have said before that Windows 7 isn’t built from the ground up to be finger touched, there are too many small buttons and scroll bars that require a precise input like a stylus or pen to operate. However, at the panels standard resolution I have found it actually very easy to operate and navigate around Windows with finger touch, the pixels per inch seems to be a good balance of resolution without making items too small to hit accurately.

Acer Review (1)I also wanted to demonstrate the screen with a capacitive stylus for ink input. I know many of you would be looking at the Acer 1825 PT as a device to ink on and I believe it is achievable. If you are happy to hold your wrist or palm on the bezel of the screen, then stylus input works without issue. I have ordered a capacitive stylus but it has not yet arrived, if and when it does I will do a demonstration video of ink input.

Conclusion

There is a lot to like about the Acer 1825 PT, its performance and video playback features are excellent, even the battery life is good and has been better than expected. Windows 7 performs very well on the dual core processor and the 300GB’s of storage means you shouldn’t have to worry about space. For me I’m still unsure if its going to have to be returned, the screen reflection is a big drawback and I have found constantly changing the position of it in tablet and laptop modes is a real pain.

If you have any questions then fire off below and I will do my best to answer them.

Acer 1825 PT 11″ Convertible – Unboxing Video


Acer has taken what seems like an age to get stock of the 1825 PT and PTZ out to distributors but finally I have managed to get hold of one. I will be reviewing it over the next two weeks to give you an insight of the devices capabilities but in the meantime here is the unboxing video.

Specifications;

  • Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit)
  • Intel® Coreâ„¢2 Duo processor SU7300 (1.3 GHz, 800 MHz FSB)
  • 11.6″ HD Acer LED LCD (1366×768), 2 point multi touch
  • 4 GB Memory
  • 320 GB HDD
  • Multi-in-1 card reader
  • 802.11a/b/g
  • Bluetooth
  • Webcam, 6-cell Li-ion battery
  • Weight 1.7KG

How does it look to you? Netbook upgrade?

[I’m interested in seeing how Guy’s testing goes. With 3G and a fast SSD, this could be a nice upgrade from my Touchnote which, with the extra battery that gives me 8 hours, weighs over 1.5KG! – Chippy]

$200 off of Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t Purchase


Thanks to GottaBeMobile for spotting this deal over at LogicBuy.

lenovo ideapad s10-3t

You can use the coupon code on the LogicBuy page to save $200 on the IdeaPad S10-3t multitouch convertible. Check the specs (top end model):

  • Intel Atom N450 CPU @ 1.83GHz
  • 2GB of DDR2 RAM
  • Windows 7 Home Premium
  • 250GB HDD
  • 4-cell battery
  • WiFi G/N
  • 10.1 inch capacitive multitouch screen

If you are interested in this deal, make haste, it’s only good until April 19th, or the first 150 uses!

Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t — full specs and details in our product database

3 Convertible Netbooks Compared


The Viliv S10, Lenovo S10-3T and Gigabyte T1000 sit in the 1.2-1.5KG bracket and are therefore just outside the range that we normally focus on here at UMPCPortal but given the multiple usage scenarios offered by the touch-capable convertible form-factor they are still worth looking at.

The four interesting models in the 10 inch screen size range right now are:

  • Viliv S10 1GB RAM, Multitouch (1366×768) Z530 1.6Ghz Windows 7 Home Premium  32GB SSD. 779 Euro (expected)
  • Lenovo S10-3T 1GB RAM, Multitouch (1024×600) N450 1.6Ghz Windows 7 Home Premium 449 Euro
  • Gigabyte Touchnote 2GB RAM, Single Touch N280 1.6Ghz (1366×768) Windows 7 Starter, 569 Euro
  • ASUS T101 MT 2GB RAM, Multitouch (1024×600), N450 1.6Ghz CPU, Win 7 Home Premium. 320GN HDD. 499 Euro

I’ve talked about the relative pricing of the four devices here but what about the features? Sascha got to play with the S10-3T, the T1000 and the S10 at CeBIT last week and here’s his hand-on video. [S10 appears later in the video here.] You can see how slim the S10 is compared to the other two devices.Viliv have done an excellent job with size, weight and styling. “They are kinda bulky inch says Sascha as he holds the Viliv S10 and points to the other two devices!

*** We’ll have the S10 and Touchnote T1028M in a live session today.***

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