Taipei, Taiwan — Acer began its Computex Taipei product rollout by introducing an 8-inch Windows 8 tablet and two upgraded Ultrabooks.
Two versions of the W3 tablet are on sale for pre-order starting today. The 64GB version is priced at $429 and the 32GB model at $379. Both will ship within a few weeks, the company said.
The 8.1-inch tablet comes bundled with Microsoft Office Home & Student, a package that includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. The tablet weighs 1.1 pounds and is just less than 0.5 inch thick. There is also an optional Bluetooth keyboard dock.
It runs on an Intel Atom Z2760 processor, and has front- and rear-facing 2-megapixel cameras and MicroHDMI and MicroUSB ports.
The W3 joins the recently released 7.9-inch Android Iconia A1 now shipping at $199.
Acer Ultrabook introductions include the company’s new flagship Aspire S7 and Aspire S3. Both models will not ship until the third quarter; pricing was not available.
The S7 has a 13.3-inch 10-point touch display with a resolution of 2,560 by 1,440. The model now incorporates Acer’s TwinAir cooling, which reduces fan noise by 20 percent, and features WiDi technology for pushing content from the Ultrabook to a TV.
Acer upgraded the battery life by 33 percent, the company said, giving it seven hours of power. The S7 is powered by a fourth-generation Intel Core processor, has a 256GB solid-state drive and weighs less than three pounds.
The S3 was given the S7 cooling and power upgrades, and the company reported the newer Intel processors increase performance by 15 percent. It has a 1TB hard drive and Nvidia’s GeForce GT 735M graphics, and will also ship in the third quarter. Pricing was not announced.
