Acer Iconia W500

[HeavyHanded]

Acer Iconia W500

I saw that this tablet gets meh reviews by the tech sites, but on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.jp everyone seems to love it.

Since i cannot afford a EP121 and hate the idea of 2 hours of battery life, I'm really interested in this tablet. It should get 5 plus hours of heavy use and has APU (CPU + GPU).


Since I have a small bamboo pen and touch, I may decide to use this as a replacement to my aging and frustrating LE1600.

Anyone here used it, or have it?

[Michelle Mastin]

I've seen the reviews too and the idea of the tablet is great, reminds me of my TC1100 with the keyboard dock. But the screen looks frustratingly small inside of the huge bezel. I would be afraid that having to have a separate tablet for your digitizer would get annoying to carry around, and (for me at least) so much of the awesomeness of the integrated tablet is that you can see what you're drawing directly under the pen.

Then again, I haven't actually used one for myself, and you're right that it seems the reviews from those who have them are generally pretty good.

[adsmeenk]

I bought one this weekend, and I must say I am impressed with it.
Resume from sleep is < 1 second and Wifi-reconnects in almost under a second.
The bezel is wide, but it ensures your fingers/palm do not touch the screen while holding it.
It has 4 point touch so pinch-and-zoom work.

Windows experience index: CPU=2.7, RAM=4.9, Graphics=4.1, Gaming graphics=5.5, Disk=5.9.

Its speedy! the 32GB flash disk sure makes a difference, Word/Excel 2010 starts in under a second (less then half a second probably).

I tried W8 on it which cold-boots in less then 5 seconds to the login prompt, a few seconds after the login the desktops is ready to use.
I did not keep W8 on it, but I sure intent to try beta's of it on this machine.

[HeavyHanded]

I tried W8 on it which cold-boots in less then 5 seconds to the login prompt, a few seconds after the login the desktops is ready to use.
I did not keep W8 on it, but I sure intent to try beta's of it on this machine.

I thought Windows 8 had a specific resolution it needed to be run at, and without that resolution, it wouldn't run on a tablet. (The Windows 8 Tablet experience is optimized for a 1366-by-768 resolution or it works best with 16-by-9 aspect ratios.)

Is the w500 able to support that resolution?

[adsmeenk]

^ First time I hear about that resolution requirement, I know it wants 16x9, but not that it needs 1366x768.

I do hope they support 16x10 also, a lot of screens have that.

I did not have the full UI itself handy (e.g. the tiles), but the theme displayed and the whole install was without problems except for the wireless drivers. I did not try the 32-bit drivers as downloadable from ACER, w'll see when the beta's come out.

I do need to find a better way to display 720p video, first try with VLC was not smooth. Otherwise I'll have to make do with the ASUS transformer :)

This is just an experiment, although I think I can finally mothball the TC1000 and the ASUS 7" UMPC now.

[adsmeenk]

To add to the above: installed newest Shark007's codecs and 720 mkv playback is smooth in both Windows Media Center and Windows media player.
Also added the keyboard dock, so now its also bye bye to the 2 year old Acer 721, this will replace them for 'on the go' computing.

Windows Tablets might not be 'cool' because they are 'PC's but they do work :)

[Michelle Mastin]

Have you tried a capacitive stylus with it to see if it handles inking? I've heard that it does okay in that regard. I know many people are fine using these things without ever messing with a pen, but I still like to take handwritten notes on occasion.

Does the large bezel bother you, or are you okay with it? I've had machines in the past with large bezels, and I ended up frustrated at the smallness of the screen when I could see that it could have been bigger in the same box.

Do you have the keyboard dock? If so, how do you like it?

[HeavyHanded]

I finally got to test drive the w500 tablet in person at the Kawasaki Big Camera store. So sad, that apple gets this high floor space but all of the others are jammed together in aisles. Anyway I the W500 and played with it. Super fast and very responsive to touch. The only horrible thing was the built in windows keyboard which needs the keys are not right mapped like they are on the iPad and Gingerbread tablets.Anyway I wanted to try out the keyboard, butit wasn't there. When I asked the three experts in the store, they pointed me to the ASUS transformer. Isaid no this should have a keyboard. Then they went and got the A500 brochure showing me it wasn't. I sighedand showed them the amazon website and YouTube videoshowing the keyboard. I told them they'd sell a lot more if they had it. So sad. No wonder apple is winning.

[adsmeenk]

Have you tried a capacitive stylus with it to see if it handles inking? I've heard that it does okay in that regard. I know many people are fine using these things without ever messing with a pen, but I still like to take handwritten notes on occasion.

Does the large bezel bother you, or are you okay with it? I've had machines in the past with large bezels, and I ended up frustrated at the smallness of the screen when I could see that it could have been bigger in the same box.

Do you have the keyboard dock? If so, how do you like it?

I'll check out inking when I find a capacitive stylus around here.

The large bezel doesn't bother me when using it, it does look bigger visual then the Transformer and more 'plastic'.

I have the keyboard dock, I like how it works: puts the machine to sleep the moment you put it flat on the it and then latch it.
Those magnetic 'struts' that come out and lock it in place at the back work very good.
Haven't used it much for typing yet, but I see no lag. The Network according to specs is a 1Gbps, also very nice!

The W7 onscreen floating keyboard needs a revision to have bigger buttons like those on the iPad or Andriod devices. I must check if the docked version does look the same.
e.g. I think need to put the Transformer and the W500 side-by-side I have both 'complete' now :)

[adsmeenk]

So... W8 is available and installed, and working like a charm! All devices (except the bluetooth and G-Sensor) are working right out-of-the-box.

Performance is excellent and smooth, and battery seems to hold like it does under W7.