Live session has ended. Recorded videos below.

 In the Hangout this evening I presented the Acer W4 (HSPA+ version) and the Lenovo Miix 2 8

YouTube Videos will be made during the show. Bring cold beer. I’m likely to stay on until 2300 for Q&A.

This completes my assessment of every single 8-inch Windows tablet out there today. I’ve fully reviewed the Toshiba Encore WT8, the ASUS Vivotab Note 8 and am currently reviewing the Dell Venue 8 Pro. At MWC last week I got hold of the Lenovo Thinkpad 8, the Lenovo Miix 2 8 and the Acer W4 to complete the flush. I spent as much time as I could trying to work out where they fit and sure enough they all have their position. All three devices I tested at MWC are good tablets but the Thinkpad 8 is definitely the more advanced of the three with its impressive 8.3-inch 1920×1200 screen and light weight. The Lenovo Miix 2 8 is a good looking tablet and offers all the basics in a lightweight and smooth-edged unit but it was the Acer W4 I was most surprised at. With a 19Wh battery, 3G (option), HDMI, two keyboard accessories and a very good IPS screen it seems to have pulled together an impressive product.

In a report by Bloomberg the Acer CEO is said to have blamed early Ultrabook and touchscreen investments as a mistake. Acer had problems in 2013 as share value dropped following poor sales results. “We need to dig ourselves out of a hole.” Jason Chen said.

This is a story that will bounce around a bit today.

You might know M.2 as NGFF, the ‘next generation form-factor’ for plugin modules on laptop and small-form-factor motherboards.  You can find out more here but in short, it’s either a SATA or PCIe interface to modules like SSD, LTE and the like. MyDigitalSSD kindly sent a half-height M.2. SATA over along with a $199 Chromebook so here’s the how-to, video and results of the Acer C720 Chromebook upgrade.

Ah the good old Acer S3. It was one of the first Ultrabooks to hit the market and one that really drove prices down over the 2+ years it’s been available. In June last year Acer announced the new S3 in the S7 style but it’s a little confusing because we’re reading a lot of CES-related news about it now. What’s new? Didn’t it ever reach the market? Oh well, here are the details, possibly again, and a presentation video that MobileGeeks have just posted.

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Following a tip-off that the Acer W4 might actually be shipping in Asia we took a deeper dive into search results and although we can’t confirm the Iconia W4 is shipping it does seem there are some prototypes doing the rounds. An article from Japan gives us some nice pics, comparison with the Iconia W3 and a look at the device manager. There’s an Acer Singapore product page ‘in the wild’ too.

The Acer Iconia W4 is being promoted as a portrait-mode tablet which makes sense given its handheld sizing. It looks like its slightly less wide. It’s not, but it is thinner, and it looks a lot nicer than the W3. Charging comes via MicroUSB port and there’s MicroSD and MicroHDMI…

Stereo speakers, mic, power and volume rocker also shown in the pics. Webcams have been confirmed as 2Mp (front) and 5MP (rear.) For those worries about the screen the article states that the screen is better than the screen on the W3, which was a major issue for many. Broadcom WiFi a/b/g/n module looks like it’s dual-band. As for the accessories, you’ve got the crunch folio and the keyboard stand. We’ve found some RRP pricing in Singapore. The crunch folio is SG$49 (US$40) and the Bluetooth keyboard with folio is SG$89 (US$70) which could make it quite attractive to travellers. With USB charging and the HDMI-out you’ve got a seriously capable, lightweight modular PC.

What do you think? Check out the other Baytrail-T tablet options here  and let us know.

Official Acer Singapore Iconia W4 information.

Source: Mynavi.jp where there are more pics and notes.

Acer must be close to shipping the Iconia W4 Baytrail tablet. Not only has their website leaked the specs and price but Acer Maysia have confirmed the W4 for December.

We’ve added the full specifications to the database here and we’ll start tracking and adding more information as we see it. RRP for the 32GB version is $329.99 but there are a couple of things to note. The battery is a 2-cell, 4960mAh unit which would normally be 34Wh but that just sounds way too big. We think Acer have put two cells in parallel for a 3.7V module, meaning 17Wh.  What is certain is there are ports. MicroHDMI, MicroSD and MicroUSB.

Full Acer Iconia W4 specifications here.

View all the Baytrail-T devices together here.

Mentioned on the Iconia W4-820-2894 page is a “physical keyboard.” We suspect it will be the same unit as shipped with the Iconia W3 and lets keep our fingers crossed that it’s included for the $329.99 price.

Amazon.com have the product in their site (aff.) but it’s not linking to a sales page yet.  B&H also have a sales page and are showing the 64GB model for $379.00. Availability here is shown as “End of” Jan 2014.

Source: Google cache.

Acer Malaysia news source.

It’s getting confusing in the business category as thin laptops get presented as Ultrabooks with non-ultrabook specs. The Dell Latitude E7440 comes in an HDD, non-touch Windows 7 version which isn’t an Ultrabook. Add the SSD and touchscreen and shazam! The problem here is that these HDD-only versions are noticeably slower in use and that they break and lower the value of the Ultrabook brand. The Acer P645 does the same.