Design and Features
The Acer Iconia W700-6465 is essentially a slab tablet, similar in philosophy to the Apple iPad and Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1. It follows the standard modern design ID: large Gorilla Glass screen, aluminum sides and back panel, controls on the side edges. If you orient the tablet with the Acer logo right side up, it has a hard button below the screen to bring up the Charms menu, with similar functions as the Windows Start key on a regular keyboard. The right side of the unit has the power button, volume +/- rocker switch, and headphone jack. There is an issue with the power button being so close to the volume control: it put the system to sleep several times when we wanted to turn the volume up. There's a USB 3.0 port, micro HDMI, and AC adapter port on the left, and an orientation lock switch on the top. The bottom of the unit houses the tablet's stereo speakers with Dolby Home Theater optimization. Turned up all the way, the volume is loud enough for a small group (3-5 people) to listen to the soundtrack from a movie or TV show.
The screen itself is a 1,920-by-1,080 (full 1080p HD) resolution screen, which is really nice if you enjoy watching videos. The tablet's IPS panel ensures a decent viewing angel, so you don't have to crowd on top of each other during a viewing session. The 11.6-inch screen has a 16:9 aspect ratio, so current HD videos and movies fit full screen. Unfortunately, this also means that icons and text will appear too small in Windows 8 desktop mode and in certain apps. Things look fine in the new Windows 8 User Interface (aka Metro), but when you put the tablet in traditional desktop mode (as you would running legacy x86 apps), user elements like close buttons, menu items, and scroll bars become too small to touch with a finger. This also was the case when using the Desktop mode's Internet Explorer app: screen elements looked tiny, and it was a pain dismissing tabs and browser windows. Ditto on Microsoft Word and Office: UI elements like the save button were too small to reliably activate without using a capacitive touch stylus like the Wacom Bamboo Stylus Pocket.
Things got a little better when using apps made for the Windows 8 interface: apps we downloaded from the Microsoft Store like USA Today, Popular Science, and Accuweather displayed fine and were easy to navigate. However, for the time being, Win 8-optimized apps are somewhat scarce. We clicked on the Microsoft Office 2010 logo in Windows 8 UI and it brought up the desktop Internet Explorer and prompted us to download a standard trial version. We look forward to the Win8-optimized version of Office when it is ready. (For more on that, see Hands On: Microsoft Office 2013 on Samsung's Windows RT Tablet.)
The tablet weighs 2.04 pounds alone, which is a marginally heavier than the first-generation iPad (1.6 pounds). The W700-6465 came with a leatherette protective case that can be used easel-style like the iPad's Smart Cover. That case adds over a pound to the tablet's travel weight, which negates some of the system's portability. The other included accessories (aside from the charger) are a docking station and a Bluetooth keyboard. The Bluetooth keyboard is more comfortable than typing on the screen for long memos or emails. The dock lets you use the tablet in desktop mode, adding three USB 3.0 ports to one USB 3.0 port on the tablet. The dock can stay at your workspace, while the tablet can travel the office (or world) with you.
Performance
Since the W700-6465 we tested was a pre-production unit, we didn't run our usual round of tests on the system (wait for our full review for those numbers). What we can say is that we're thankful that the W700-6465 comes with an Intel Core i5-3317U processor instead of an Atom processor. This means that the tablet should be able to handle everyday tasks at least as well as our Editors' Choice ultrabook, the Toshiba Portege Z935, which had a similar processor, 4GB of memory, and 128GB SSD. We couldn't run MobileMark, but the tablet survived several hours of surfing and viewing streaming video over Wi-Fi. Speaking of Wi-Fi, the W700-6465 was able to connect to 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi networks easily.
It remains to be seen if the full production Acer Iconia W700-6465 passes our tests with flying colors, but the tablet seems almost ready for primetime. The Windows 8 user interface is less cluttered than the traditional Windows 7 desktop, and compatibility with previous x86 programs is a distinct plus over WinRT or any competing tablet operating system.
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