A New Device From Acer Will Be Launched Later This Month

Windows 8 is joining the 8-inch tablet bandwagon with a new device from Acer that will launch later this month and come with a price tag between US$400 and $500.

Acer unveiled the Iconia W3 on Monday, a day before the start of the Computex trade show being held in Taipei this week. Acer claims the device is the world's first 8-inch tablet to run Microsoft's Windows 8 OS, which has been struggling to grab consumer interest.

The Iconia W3 has a 1280 x 800 pixel resolution and is equipped with Intel's Atom Z2760 processor, a dual-core chip with a clock speed of 1.8 GHz. It weighs 500 grams, comes in white color, and has a battery life of up to 8 hours. Both the front and rear have a 2 megapixel camera.

The tablet's small size makes it ideal for use with one-hand, said Acer president Jim Wong, who also highlighted the device's productivity features. The Iconia W3 is installed with Microsoft Office Home & Student 2013, and will also be available with an attachable keyboard. Without the keyboard, the product will be priced between $400 and $500.

On Monday, the Taiwanese PC maker also showed off a 5.7-inch Android smartphone that will arrive in the market in this year's third quarter. The Liquid S1 runs Android 4.2, and has a 1280 x 720 pixel screen resolution. It's powered by a quad core 1.5 GHz chip, and has a battery life of 11 hours. A 2 megapixel camera is fitted on the front, while an 8 megapixel camera is attached to the rear. Acer has yet to determine the product's price.

In addition, Acer has updated 29 laptops and desktops with Intel's latest Core processors code-named Haswell, which were announced this week.

The 23 Aspire laptops are priced between $600 and $1,700, and include thin-and-light S- and V-series ultrabooks and standard-sized laptops. Acer also updated six gaming and mainstream desktops to the Haswell processor family.

"The fourth-generation Intel Core processor family represents the most significant battery life capability improvement in Intel history, delivering amazing battery life," said Acer spokeswoman Erin Davern in an email.

The new PCs will be available this month.

The Aspire S7-392 ultrabook has a 13.3-inch touchscreen and will start at $1,399. It will have either Intel's Core i7-4500U or i7-4200U processor, 8GB of RAM and solid-state storage of up to 256GB. It weighs 2.87 pounds, and has USB 3.0 and HDMI ports. Acer said this new S7 has 33 percent larger battery over the previous generation. The device can also come built with a screen resolution of 2560 x 1440, or a lower resolution of 1920 x 1080.

The same Haswell processors will also be offered in the Acer Aspire V7-482PG ultrabook, which has a 1920 by 1080 high-resolution touch display, and is priced starting at $1,299. The V7 will also have 12GB of memory, a 1TB hard drive and an GeForce GT750M graphics card. The ultrabook weighs 4.41 pounds.

Acer's gaming laptops include the Acer Aspire V3-772G laptop, which has a 17.3-inch high-definition screen, and a Intel Core i7 4702MQ processor. It will have an Nvidia GeForce GTX760M graphics, 12GB of RAM a 1TB hard drive. It will be priced starting at $1000.

All the laptops include webcams, SD card slots, Wi-Fi, HDMI, USB 3.0 and Ethernet ports.