Gadgetory

well hey this is David with The Verge and we're taking a look at the Acer Iconia W 510 it's one of a sirs first Windows 8 devices it's a convertible which is a hybrid of a tablet and a laptop and it's one of the first Windows 8 design devices we've had a chance to use for more than a few minutes on the one hand this device is a tablet it has a nice black and white look it weighs about 1.3 pounds and it looks just like most Android tablets we've tested it is a 10.1 inch screen again like a tablet but it's 1366 by 768 resolution is much more like a laptop there are plenty of other laptop like features here too from the Intel Atom z to 760 processor to the full size USB port on the side again this is very much a mix of a tablet and a laptop and it's trying to be both the same time there's also a dock which is what turns the W 510 into a full-fledged laptop the dock has a full keyboard a trackpad and a big battery inside and when docked the whole thing weighs a little less than three pounds so it's a pretty light laptop the dock has a big kind of clumsy hinge it can rotate 270 degrees and act like a viewing stand which is pretty cool but it's really hard to move and it kind of feels like you're going to break it every time you try to move it there are two cameras on the debate 510 an 8 megapixel camera on the back and 2 megapixels on the front and though I bet you won't really use either one they're pretty good cameras as tablets go we're going to see a lot of hardware like this in the next few months so this was a really good device to use to really test Windows 8 the biggest thing that jumped out is just how easily it makes the transition from touch to non touch environments whether you were typing and then picked it up to use on the couch or vice versa it's a really smooth operating system kind of no matter what you're doing Acer did let us know that this isn't final software for the device and a few things like trackpad gestures aren't available yet but Windows it really does feel at home whether you using it by touch or with a keyboard there's a big learning curve either way as you figure out which gestures map to which keys and which menus you bring up and how to switch between apps and things like that but once you figure out a lot of the navigational stuff it's really easy and pretty smart I will say I found myself tending to default to touching the screen rather than mousing around even when it was docked like a laptop Windows 8 in general is also just really really smooth the W 510 isn't particularly impressive hardware and the OS is still really responsive and fast there are a few stutters here and there launching an app for the first time can take a while and switching between them can be a little clunky every once in a while but the vast majority of things work really really well and that's really the overall impression I'm getting from the w5 10 it's a good device there's nothing particularly special about it but it seems like on a lot of hardware that's going to look and feel just like this Windows 8 is going to run really really well they're going to be three different models of the w5 10 starting at $4.99 you'll get just the tablet with 32 gigs of storage and you can get 64 gigs for $5.99 for 749 you'll get the tablet plus 64 gigs of storage and the keyboard dock and that's really when this starts to become interesting we're going to be curious to see what happens in the next two weeks as we get up to the launch of Windows 8 on October 26th but if the W 510 is any indication there's going to be a lot of good stuff on sale this fall