Acer Iconia W700 pre-orders now for $799.99

Acer’s first Windows 8 tablet, the Acer Iconia Tab W700 with cradle is now available to order for $799.99. It started shipping on October 26, with the official release date of Windows 8.

[UPDATED: Acer W700 started with a pre-order price of $749.99 on Amazon, but sold out before the release. It now retails with the regular list price, starting at $799.99 for the cheapest model.]

By Jim Miller – The Acer Iconia W700 was first unveiled at the Computex trade show back in June, and is now finally available for pre-order, 2 weeks before the October 26 release date.

Acer has built what it likes to think of as a “high-performance Windows 8 PC in tablet form with a portable design for mobile productivity” with the Iconia W700. And with the option of either 1.7GHz or 1.8GHz Core i3 or i5 Ivy Bridge processors, it’s powerful enough to replace a laptop or desktop computer and handle office and productivity tasks. It even has 4GB of RAM which really is a lot for a tablet.
Storage options are either 64GB or 128GB. And there are many more office friendly features provided by the Acer Iconia W700.

Acer Iconia W700 Pre-Order Price

Since the Acer Iconia W700 is running Windows 8, it is compatible with previous x86 programs, something that will be appreciated both in and out of the office.

The screen is a slick looking 11.6-inch IPS display with full 1080p HD, and 1920×1080 resolution, which will be enjoyed when watching videos (16:9 aspect ratio), ensured by the Intel HD Graphics 4000 graphics processor.

It also has a high-brightness display that makes viewing in sunlight possible, coupled with wide viewing angles.

Of course, one of the things that really makes this tablet stand out from other Windows 8 tablets, is the particular cradle it comes with, together with the Bluetooth keyboard.

The cradle will hold the W700 in two different positions: 70 or 20 degrees in landscape mode. But the cradle also adds three more USB 3.0 ports, as well as charge the tablet.

The new Windows 8 OS enables some fast power-up features for the Acer Iconia W700 such as Acer Green Instant On that gives the W700 a boot time of six seconds, and an instant-resume functionality of 1.5 seconds. So nothing to complain about there.

Wi-Fi connectivity comes in form of 2.4GHz and 5GHz 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, with Acer Always Connect that optimally should connect users to previously used hotspots in 2.5 seconds.

It has sensors like accelerometer, e-compass, and gyro, a 5MP rear camera with full HD 1080p video, and a front-facing HD 720p webcam. The sound is pretty loud from the built-in speakers, and there is also Dolby Home Theater v4 sound boost for headphones.

As for dimensions, it weighs in at 2.3 pounds, and is less than an inch thick.
Battery life will last up to 8 hours, and considering the power this tablet has, we can’t complain about battery life.

The Acer Iconia Tab W700 was released on October 26 in the US with a MSRP starting at $799.99.Amazon.com took pre-orders for $749.99, but sold out before the release. This is a very popular tablet, so it will be out of stock pretty early. Acer W700 is also available from TigerDirect.
In the UK, you can order the Acer W700 from £599.99. It will also be available in Canada soon.

Acer Iconia W700 Pre-Order Prices
Best Price	$799.99	$849.99	$949.99	$1,049.99
Model Number	W700-6607	W700-6691	W700-6465	W700P-6459
Processor	1.8 GHz Core i3-3217U	1.7 GHz Core i5-3317U	1.7 GHz Core i5-3317U	1.7 GHz Core i5-3317U
Hard Drive	64 GB SSD	64 GB SSD	128 GB SSD	128 GB SSD
RAM	4 GB SDRAM	4 GB SDRAM	4 GB SDRAM	4 GB SDRAM
OS	Windows 8	Windows 8	Windows 8	Windows 8 Pro

Included with the Acer Iconia W700 tablet is a charger, Bluetooth keyboard, cradle, protective case, and MicroHDMI to VGA adapter for a quick projector connection.

Acer Iconia W700

Acer IconiaTab W700 Back

Acer Iconia Tab W700 in Docking

Acer Iconia Tab W700 in Portrait

Acer Iconia Tab W700 in Dock Left Side

Acer Iconia Tab W700 in Dock Right Side

Acer Iconia W700 Docking

Acer Iconia Tab W700 Bluetooth Keyboard

Sony Tablet S Gets ICS Android 4.0 Official Update in US

Big news for Sony Tablet S users who were waiting for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update on their devices. After updating Xperia Ray, Xperia Neo V and Xperia S smartphone, now its Sony Tablet S turns. In US Sony Tablet S which has received the Android 4.0 update. Previously the Sony Tablet S had Android 3.2.1 Honeycomb operating system although with this update you will perceive Android 4.0.3 as the OS version on your tablet.

With the Android 4.0 update, Sony Tablet S comes with lots of new features like face unlock and limited data usage, along with panoramic picture capture. New and special features we can record video and take picture at the same time. Main improvement is interface. With Android 4.0 update the Sony Tablet S improved lot and below are some feature which included on this update:

• Enhanced lock screen with direct access to notification
• Face unlock feature too available
• Panoramic picture camera shoot
• Direct SD card access and photo editing tool
• Calculator, Browser, Remote control moved to Small Apps folder
• Reduced clutter on the home screen
• New home screen options of drag and drop to create folders
• Comes with Enhanced web browser
• Comes with detailed data usage
• Native screenshot capture using the Volume and power button.

iPad mini and iPad 4th Gen on sale: WiFi ships Nov 2nd, 4G “late November”

Presales of Apple’s iPad mini and iPad 4th-gen have begun, with the online Apple store accepting orders for both new tablets ahead of delivery in November. Both the 7.9-inch iPad mini – priced from $329 – and the iPad 4th-gen – priced from $499 – are available in WiFi and WiFi + Cellular versions, though shipping times vary between the cellular/non-cellular models: if you want your new iPad soonest, you’ll have to forgo mobile data.

The WiFi-only models are expected to begin shipping on November 2, for both variants, though that’s likely to rapidly change in the coming hours as more preorders flood in. As for the WiFi + Cellular variant, that’s listed as shipping sometime in “late November” though you can still place an order today.

Both iPads run iOS 6, and have support for all the usual App Store apps as well as Siri, Apple’s digital assistant tool. The iPad 4th-gen has a Retina display, just as its predecessor did, though swaps out the old-style Dock Connector for a Lightning port, and the A6 processor for the new A6X chipset.

The iPad mini, meanwhile, runs at the same resolution as the iPad 2, though is designed to be more pocketable and a rival to Android slates like the Nexus 7. There’s more information in our hands-on.

Update: Looks like there’s another speed compromise to be made depending on color: if you want the white & silver iPad mini, you’ll have to wait two weeks, as opposed to November 2 estimates fro the black & slate version:

Apple iPad mini released, world swoons –an annotated graphic

In case you missed it… (yeah, we know, a more redundant opener to a blog posting there has never been) Apple has released a new iPad. It’s smaller than the existing iPad. Sort of a mini version of the iPad. They’ve called it the iPad mini. Brilliant. It gets easier and easier in the Apple Marketing Department, doesn’t it?

Note obligatory use of sentence case for this product name, like the iPod touch, despite Apple’s continued arbitrary use of a capital P. Why do we all persist in honouring this ludicrous bastardisation of written English? Really, it’s an Ipod, if we’re going to consider using a proper noun for the product name. Or if we consider it generic enough, we should write ipod, like writing kettle as opposed to Kettle. Or hoover vs Hoover.

Oh, sorry, were you waiting for a more detailed analysis of the new iPad mini? Sorry. Can’t really be bothered. It’s very nice, it’s completely unnecessary and it probably guarantees an early grave for millions of perfectly serviceable electronic devices now apparently rendered obsolete and prehistoric and ultimately heading to the world’s landfills. Super.

We’d all take one if it was offered to us free, though, wouldn’t we? Even if only for use as a bedside lamp or a small plate for sushi.

E&T covers this sort of 21st century gadgetry nonsense all the live long day, so drop by our home page any time for the latest news and features. If you prefer an Apple-only diet, bookmark our Apple news page. It’s dynamically updated every time we write about Cupertino’s technology behemoth. Mmm… dynamic!

Click on the graphic for an expanded view.

Would you buy an iPad Mini?

As September draws ever closer, consumers, tech enthusiasts and Apple fanboys and girls eagerly await the announcement of the new iPhone, but for the first time in as long as I can remember, there is another Apple device receiving just as much interest at exactly the same time: The mythical iPad Mini.

Normally most Apple rumours take a sideline during iPhone season, but countless leaks, mumblings from ‘sources close to the matter’ and other blogosphere hyperbole have dragged iPad Mini rumours kicking and screaming into the public consciousness. I hear just as many people chatting about the mini iPad as I do Apple’s next mobile handset, which shows just how high the level of public interest the device really is.

With virtually every possible source, bar Apple themselves, leaking information about the iPad Mini, it seems the device is almost certainly being manufactured somewhere in China ahead of a holiday season launch. So this begs the question: Will you be buying one?

Is 7 to 8 inches too small for a tablet? Will you be willing to spend upwards of £300 on a device that does little more than your smartphone? At the end of the day, why go just a little bigger when you could get a 10 inch iPad 2? These are all important questions to ask, so let’s turn to the Android ecosystem, where mid-sized tablets have been available for some time now.

Despite several 7 inch Android tablets from the likes of Samsung and HTC stumbling at the first hurdle (see Samsung Galaxy Tab, HTC Flyer), the 5 inch Samsung Galaxy Note has been an unexpected success in recent months, with over 10 million units sold since its launch last October. Admittedly this is a smaller device, but it shows a definite interest in hardware larger than most smartphones, but smaller than the iPad. A device that you can still use on the go without needing to sit down to operate effectively.

Now let’s add the Google Nexus 7 to the mix. Google’s new flagship tablet has seen overwhelmingly positive reviews over the past couple of months. Even diehard Apple fans are praising it, thanks to the highly polished Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system. Sales of the Nexus 7 have been brisk and sales figures for the tablets first quarter are expected to impress.

With the recent success of the mid-sized Android tablet, it’s no wonder Apple are looking to join the party with a similarly sized iPad. Apple will still sell millions of units regardless of market trends simply because there are millions of developers, tech enthusiasts and Apple fans who’ll want one for themselves, so it might take a couple of hardware generations before we see its more accurate market interest.

Perhaps 7 to 8 inches will be the sweet spot for the tablet form factor. As less and less phone calls are made in favour of instant messages, we may find ourselves carrying tablets instead of smartphones by the end of the decade. I personally use a 4.65 inch Android smartphone and could easily see myself moving to something larger, like a Nexus 7, if I continue to make fewer phone calls. Whether I’m alone in feeling this way or not, only time will tell, but every year devices are getting gradually bigger whilst hardware sales continue to skyrocket.

Will you be throwing your money at an iPad Mini if it materialises, or do you think 10 inches is the way to go? Is a smartphone/laptop combo your preferred solution going forward?, or do you still rock a Nokia and have nothing to do with all that touch screen mumbo jumbo?

Let me know in the comments below…

Apple goes to war with its rivals

Apple, Google and now Microsoft are slugging it out in the battle to sell us tablet computers. And the competition can only be a good thing

This has been quite a week in that strange, frenetic universe known as techworld. Two major companies did things that they once vowed they'd never do: Apple launched a small iPad in order to attack similar-sized devices marketed by its rivals – Samsung, Google and Amazon – and Microsoftlaunched the first computer it's ever made (a tablet called Surface). So we have Apple playing catch-up and Microsoft getting into a business – hardware manufacture – it had hitherto wisely avoided.

The Apple launch followed the usual pattern: slick presentations by chaps with chronic logorrhea – at least in relation to the word "amazing"; a complaisant audience drawn from the Church of Steve; and announcements of improved versions of existing Apple products. There's a new laptop with a Retina (ultra high-resolution) display, a new Mac mini (a much underrated product IMHO) and an iMac desktop so thin as to be positively anorexic. All nice and dandy – not to mention expensive.

But then came one departure from tradition. Just over 55 minutes into the show, as Phil Schiller, Apple's senior marketing guy, was extolling the virtues of the new iPad mini, he suddenly launched into what in industry parlance is known as trashtalk. He embarked on a scathing comparison of le nouvel iPad with "an Android tablet", sneeringly dubbed "the latest, greatest, most favourably reviewed new device", aka the Google Nexus 7. Needless to say, the Apple product was superior in every respect. Its bezel was thinner and made of aluminium, not (yuck!) "plastic". The Google device was "thicker and heavier even though it has a smaller screen", etc etc. You get the message: Nexus 7 may be the same size as the iPad mini, but basically it's trash. (He omitted to mention that the Google device is also at least £100 cheaper than its Apple counterpart.)

As an iPad user who has also been using a Nexus 7 for months, I happen to agree with Schiller about the deficiencies of the Google product. It's excellent for some things (email, Evernote, diary keeping, for example) but unsatisfactory for others (web-browsing in particular). Its onscreen keyboard is, well, a bit flaky. And the standard of Android apps is pretty variable. On the other hand, it's well-made and is relatively good value for money. In technology, as in life, you get what you pay for.

What made Schiller's attack on the Nexus intriguing was not its content but the fact that he felt the need to make it. It signified a descent from the lofty heights to which Steve Jobshad elevated Apple, so far ahead of the competition that it didn't condescend even to admit its existence. And this subtext suggests that although Apple comprehensively dominates the market for high-end tablets that it effectively created with the iPad, it's now trying to keep up with the market for smaller, pocketable devices. One of the most important advantages of the Nexus 7, for example, is that it really does slip into a jacket pocket. (The same goes for Samsung and Amazon tablets.) In many contexts, that's actually quite useful, which is how Apple comes to be doing something that must be making Steve Jobs rotate in his grave: playing catch-up.

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, Microsoft was launching the first computer it has ever made in the form of its Surface tablet. This was intriguing in several ways. For one thing, it suggests that the software giant has finally concluded that Steve Jobs was right all along: that in order to make consumer-friendly computers one must control both the hardware and the software. The odd thing, though, is that the bit of the package it seems to have got right is the hardware. "Sleek Tablet but Clumsy Software " is how David Pogue, the New York Times technology columnist, summed it up, echoing early industry reactions to the device. "You have to be fairly cold-blooded," Pogue writes, "to keep your pulse down the first time you see the Surface: its beauty, its potential, its instant transformation from tablet to PC. How incredible that this bold, envelope-pushing design came from Microsoft, a company that for years produced only feeble imitations of other companies' fresh ideas. And how ironic that what lets the Surface down is supposedly Microsoft's speciality: software."

I don't have a dog in this fight, but I hope Microsoft gets its tablet act together. In the end, the only thing that keeps big technology companies honest is real competition. I don't want to live in an Apple-dominated world any more than I liked living in a Microsoft-dominated one. Which means, I guess, I will never get an invitation to a Phil Schiller superlatives-fest. In which case, virtue will be its own reward.