14 DAY TRIAL // These days, tablet manufacturers usually consider it very important to offer consumers the sleekest and lightest devices when it comes to tablets. After all, a slate should be synonymous with portability and flexibility. Well, not always: meet the Acer Iconia W700, which can be said to be a bit of a beast.
If you are one of those people who want a tablet that can be jiggled around in one hand, then this is definitely not for you.
With this piece, you will most likely have to use both hands to handle it properly. Nevertheless, there’s a good excuse for its bulkier design, it packs an Intel Core i5-3317U Ivy Bridge processor, which makes it more powerful than your average tablet.
Also on the positive side of things, this is a sturdy, resilient device with a nice aluminum unibody, so it won't get damaged easily.
style="color: #aa3333">Design
As stated above, the Acer Iconia W700 is quite chunky and its weight makes it feel more like a regular notebook. It’s 295 mm / 11 inches in length, 191 mm / 7 inches in height , 11.1 mm / 0.43 inches thick and weighs a hand-breaking 942 g / 2.07 pounds.
So, it’s definitely not a casual couch companion. The laptop comparison is not so far-fetched considering that the slate comes with a detachable Bluetooth keyboard cover.
The Iconia W700 is pretty heavy by itself, but the keyboard cover wraps around it pretty neatly, so you’ll be able to carry it around like a book, a heavier book of sorts. The cover allows you to prop the tablet up on your desk and, despite my initial doubts, it does a good job.
The only problem I stumbled upon at first was that it was actually complicated to get the slate into the cover wrap. I couldn’t slide it gently, but as I repeated the procedure, the plastic gave in and I eventually managed to glide it in smoothly.
The wrapping also covers the power and sound buttons, and at times you really have to forcefully press them to get them to work.On the left side, the device features a micro HDMI port, a USB 3.0, A/C charging port and the promise of Dolby Home Theatre audio experience, which basically means that users are going to enjoy surround sound.
The right side is home to the audio output jack. The speakers are located on the bottom, so it’s impossible to miss them as they are outlined in zingy red, and it turns out they do a very swell job.
At the top of the screen, there’s the cooling fan that will protect the Iconia W700 against getting overheated. If you're going to be browsing around the web or reading an eBook, the fan is going to keep pretty quiet, but that will change if you start toying with a more advanced application like Photoshop.
style="color: rgb(255,102,0)">Display
In terms of display, we can acknowledge that Acer has done an awesome job here, packing a 1080p IPS screen coated with a nice layer of Gorilla Glass.
It comes with a reasonably slim black bezel and boasts an 11-inch display with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, which basically means we’re dealing with a full HD screen here. If you're not happy with the default screen brightness, it can be easily adjusted from the Settings charm.
Even tiny text on some web pages we’ve browsed was perfectly visible and prolonged exposure to the screen didn't pose any fatigue problems. Video content was also beautifully displayed with full, sharp colors adding to the experience.style="color: #aa3333">Power and Performance
The Acer Iconia W700 packs an Intel Core i5-3337U processor under the hood, coupled with 4GB of RAM and integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics. The chip is basically the same that can be found in most Ultrabooks nowadays, so you won’t be wrong if you expect everything to run smoothly.
The W700 ships with Windows 8 out of the box and swiping through the interface was quite breezy and smooth. However, some hours later, I started to notice some lagging issues when trying to access certain apps. Heavy multi-tabbed Web browsing posed no problem and moving through tabs was surprisingly easy, even with those that had HD videos running.
Acer claims booting time can be achieved in a meager 6.7 seconds, which is darn fast.
With 128GB SSD and 4GB of RAM, the slate offers plenty of room for everything you might want to add to it.
Keep in mind that the device offers the full Windows 8 experience, rather than the limited Windows RT one. This is definitely an improvement from other hybrids like the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11, Microsoft's own Surface RT or Asus VivoTab.
With a powerful processor like that, the Acer Iconia W700 can pretty much handle everything you throw at it in terms of multimedia playback.
This includes videos streaming with full and rich audio. Thus, you won't have any problem viewing content from services like Netflix, Hulu or Amazon's Prime Instant Video.
style="color: rgb(255,102,0)">Camera
The slate features a pretty capable front 1MP camera/webcam with built-in microphone, that takes reasonably bright 720p videos.
The 5-megapixel camera on the back yields rather mediocre pictures, so we were not overall impressed with its performance, as it has a tendency to flatten shots with poor light management.
Video shooting in broad daylight proved to provide smooth frames with bright colors, though.
style="color: rgb(153,204,0)">Software
The machine is running Windows 8, which obviously means you can get Windows desktop applications, Windows 7 applications and everything you find interesting in the Windows store.
Browsing through the Metro interface is extremely easy and intuitive; unfortunately, doing stuff while in the traditional desktop environment is not as much fun since most text and icons are too small. Clicking on icons proves to be super fiddly and Acer should have probably set the default scaling to 125 or even 150%.
The Iconia W700 comes with a lot of pre-installed applications (which some people might consider bloatware) from Acer's extensive library of offerings, such as the Acer Power Button, Acer Crystal Eye Camera or Acer Power Management.A convenient tool called Acer Ring has been added, which basically allows users to shuffle through everything found on their device like photos, videos, documents and apps.
But that's not all you get; you'll also find a lot of other stuff on board, some of it useful, some of it not so much. Yet, we have newsXpresso, TuneIn, Kindle, Skitch Touch, HP Printer Control, Fresh Paint, Skype. eBay, Amazon and a bunch of games like Shark Dash.
And of course you further get Microsoft's own apps like Games, Music, Video, Sports, Reader, Maps, Messaging, Bing Search, WeatherBug – some of which redirect users to their specific webstores.There are two versions of Internet Explorer, one accessible through the Metro interface, and one available in desktop. We preferred using the first version, because in live tile mode IE runs in full screen, so everything has been scaled to make things look bigger and the text more readable.
The whole range of Microsoft Office 2013 has also been bundled with the tablet.
style="color: rgb(153,51,102)">Connectivity
In terms of connectivity, the Acer Iconia W700 bundles Atheros Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0. There's no LAN, NFC or GPS or 3G. A second USB port and a microSD/SD card might have been a nice addition.
style="color: rgb(153,204,0)">Battery
The Iconia W700 features a 4,850mAh battery, which Acer claims will last for up to eight hours of intense use. And that's about right. We used the Iconia W700 for playing games, using apps, browsing online and streaming video without running out of battery.
Unlike most slates, however, the Iconia W700 doesn't allow charging to be made via USB, which might put a damper on things if you were hoping to get more mobility out of the slob. The charging kit is also super bulky, and I don’t know how much fun it will be to carry that around.
The Good
The Bad
style="color: rgb(153,51,102)">Overall Impressions
It appears that the Acer Iconia W700 was built with an ultrabook / laptop framework in mind, meant to be used for both work and play, rather than as a real tablet. Mobility feats, which make people love slates so much, simply lack here. Surely, you can use it at the office or at home, but forget about taking it with you, if you're planning a hiking trip.
Nevertheless, if you're looking for a laptop replacement, the Acer Iconia W700 might be the right answer. However, with a price starting at $1,249 / €912, you'd probably be able to stumble upon some interesting cheaper alternatives.
