In addition to the Liquid S2 smartphone, Acer introduced during IFA 2013 the new 10.1 inch Iconia A3 Android-based tablet, and a refreshed Aspire R7 notebook sporting a new Acer Active Pen that's based on N-trig DuoSense technology. The updated notebook will also have Windows 8.1 out of the box, meaning don't expect it to appear on store shelves until after mid-October.
Unfortunately, Acer is light on the details regarding its new Iconia A3 tablet. A brief description states that it will have a 10.1 inch IPS screen with a 1280 x 800 resolution, which is surprisingly low given that many rivals of the same size have HD screens or higher. It will also be powered by a quad-core Cortex-A7 chip clocked at 1.2 GHz, and a battery promising up to 11 hours of smooth HD video playback.
"The Iconia A3 also debuts Acer’s IntelliSpin technology that expands the tablet's screen image rotation feature, so even when lying flat, the screen image will rotate to match the user's orientation when turned," the company said on Tuesday.
CNET adds that the model on hand at the IFA 2013 show features a micro HDMI port, a micro SD card slot for extra storage, and a 5MP camera on a white plastic backside (the front is also plastic with a metallic finish). Connectivity options include Wi-Fi only and added 3G support, the latter of which will reportedly arrive one month after the Wi-Fi model hits store shelves.
As for the refreshed Acer laptop, the Aspire R7-572 follows the original model that launched back in May. The Ezel hinge allows the device to switch between four modes: traditional desktop, touch display, table top pad and Ezel, the latter of which allows the screen to float over the keyboard in various angles. The updated model also sports a Full HD 15.6 inch screen, a full-size backlit keyboard, fourth-generation Intel Core "Haswell" processors, up to 12 GB of memory, up to 1 TB on an HDD or up to 256 GB on an SSD.
The big promotional push with this laptop is Acer's new Active Pen, aka N-trig's DuoSense Pen 2. This stylus uses electromagnetic induction technology and responds to varying degrees of pressure sensitivity like an actual pen, enabling more natural writing and accurate line weights in compatible drawing apps. The pen can also be used with gesture controls, allowing the user to resize a picture with a pinching gesture, and then adjust the fine details with the pen.
"With these upgraded [DuoSense G4 Series 100] controllers, the touchscreen continues working even in excessively noisy environments," N-trig said. "The active pen's new conductive tip material provides an enhanced user experience, while the pressure sensitivity pursues it even closer to pen-on-paper feel. Additionally, the pen hover provides a precise navigation tool for small icon activation when a finger touch is simply too large to be accurate on high resolution screens. The DuoSense advanced palm rejection allows users to place their hand on the screen for a natural and intuitive writing experience."
In addition to the new pen, Acer said the updated laptop also ships with its Touch Tools app suite including MemoryBinder for creating a personal photo album complete with brush tools and messages, Screen Grasp for screen capturing and sharing, AccuFinger for accurately acquiring items on-screen with a finger, and Scrapboard for collecting ideas and images from the web.
U.S. pricing and shipping dates for the Iconia A3 tablet and the Aspire R7-572 laptop were not available as of this writing.
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