The Acer Aspire Switch is a Windows tablet which turns into a notebook when you attach a keyboard dock. It gets the “Switch” name not only because you can switch the system from a notebook to a tablet and back again… but because you can also switch the screen around by flipping it 360 degrees and attaching it so it faces away from the keyboard for use in desktop or presentation mode.
Acer’s Switch tablet first popped up in a listing at the Red Dot 21 design awards in March. Now Swiss retailer Brack has posted more details about the upcoming 3-in-1 tablet.
The Acer Aspire Switch S5 features include:
- 10 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel IPS display
- Intel Atom Z3745 Bay Trail quad-core processor with Intel HD graphics
- Windows 8.1
- 64GB of storage
- 802.11n WiFi
- Bluetooth 4.0
- micro HDMI port with HDMI 1.3 support
- micro USB 2.0
- microSD card slot
- Front-facing HD camera
The tablet comes with a keyboard dock, has stereo speakers, and the tablet weighs about 1.3 pounds without the keyboard.
Acer’s holding a press event on April 29th to unveil it’s next-gen products. Don’t be surprised if the Aspire Switch and Android-powered A1-840 make an appearance.
via UMPC Portal and TabTech
uugghh Windows OEMs have got to start embracing higher resolutions more.
Looks like a solid netbook. My only gripes are no USB 3.0 and not a 16:10 screen. Of course, I expect a price similar to the existing ASUS T100. That Z3745 isn’t likely to be noticeably different than the Z3740.
I wonder if this can be slow charged using the microUSB port when the DC power supply isn’t available. For me, a dual charging system would set it apart from the ASUS T100. A dedicated DC in for fast charging and a microUSB for on the go charging (ie. using the same charger to charge the netbook and your phone).
Perhaps more tablet with a keyboard than a netbook? Perhaps create a new category called ‘tab-book’?
Eh. The “netbook” never really had a definition. It was just a marketing term that now has a negative connotation. Good thing I buy stuff based on trying to know how well it does on what I want.
Too bad many (mostly ones who don’t frequent tech blogs) just latch onto words like netbook, ultrabook, tablet, etc. and ignore the differences of a particular product from whatever definition of the word they happen to have come up with.
I like that we are seeing the new gen get released. But this particular model at 2GB and Z3745 does not give any benefit over the older T100 with 2 GB and a Z3745. Maybe the 64 bit CPU could run things faster, but in that case you certainly don’t want 2GB.
A bit of a type-o there… the T100 uses a Z3740 and it’s this new Acer Aspire that’s using the Z3745…
While they may appear identical in spec the newer Z3745 is part of the second wave of Bay Trail SoCs that’s suppose to give a small boost in performance, namely a boost to graphics performance by as much as 16% due to faster max clock for the GPU… and the Z3745 can be configured with dual channel LP-DDR3-1066 RAM of up to 4GB… along with being offered with either Windows or Android…
While all Bay Trail SoCs support 64bit, but the firmware and driver support is only now coming out for newer devices… at least for mobile as older laptop and desktop Bay Trail M/D releases already supported 64bit because they didn’t need to support Connected Standby, etc…
I agree with David that it’s unfortunate that Acer decided to hobble this with USB 2.0, as there’s isn’t really a reason to do so as Bay Trail natively supports USB 3.0 but they may have wanted to differentiate this model from one of their possible more premium offerings they may release later…
That… or they’re saving it for a dock option, if this model supports a docking port… Like the Asus T100 supports USB 3.0 throught the keyboard dock but not on the tablet itself…
Yeah, that was a typo. But comparing the processors spes, the only difference I see is the graphics turbo on the 45 is 778 vs 667.
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Atom/Intel-Atom%20Z3745.html
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Atom/Intel-Atom%20Z3740.html
I was assuming that all of the newer models would be 64 bit, but then again this is less likely in a 2GB model.
Do you really see anything in the hardware that differentiates this Acer from the ASUS T100? Maybe better build quality with less plastic, but the performance should be about the same. Then again, if the price is lower then that is not a bad thing.
Price is the question, I usually prefer Asus to Acer in most models they make anyway…
While that clock speed difference does account for up to a 16% difference in GPU performance and that’s enough, for say passmark scores, to go from 1061 for the Z3740 to 1209 for the Z3745…
The difference isn’t much but it’s there… though, I’d say the lack of the USB 3.0 port would still make it so many would prefer a good price on it that should be noticeably lower than say the Asus T100… Otherwise people would still prefer the T100 and the USB 3.0 port that its’ keyboard dock provides, IMO…
Cool. Keep these netbooks coming. Well, as long as they’re aren’t purposely gimped or reduced in quality somehow like the tail end of the last netbook wave.
I am hoping it does better with Win 8.1 than my netbook did with Win 7 starter (was slow and froze up a lot).
Hmm, only USB2.0 on a device almost inevitability going to be hooked up to external storage is a little sad, if the specs are accurate. Otherwise, nice enough idea if the price is right.
Hopefully, at least that port on the keyboard dock is a USB 3.0 port. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen a USB 3.0 port that wasn’t blue. At least I think it’s a USB port.