At the end of April Acer launched two new 2 in 1 machines, the Acer Switch 3 and Switch 5, which seemed like alternatives to the Chromebooks, albeit pricier and maybe a bit better specced. They were pretty popular, especially since the Switch 3 won a Red Dot Design Award. Well, we had the pleasure of unboxing it below, for your viewing pleasure.
The machine is priced at $399 and comes in a huge box, perhaps better suited for a laptop, rather than a tablet, even a 2 in 1 slate. Anyway, inside this box we find the tablet, its keyboard and the charger, also hefty. We’re dealing with a 12.2 inch device here, with a Full HD IPS panel, that offers a 178 degree view angle. The product has an adjustable kickstand at the back, a metallic body and it’s solidly built.
It’s also quite heavy, at 900 grams, but the keyboard is very slim at below 6 mm and very, very light. It attaches via magnets (strong ones) and special pins and has 1.4 mm key travel. Acer Switch 3 comes with an USB Type-C and Type-A port, microSD card slot and audio jack.
It relies on a proprietary port for charging and also has a HD webcam to offer. Other specs include 4 GB of RAM, 32, 64 or 128 GB of storage, as well as an Intel Celeron or Pentium chipset. This device supports Acer Active Pen interaction and its battery should offer 8 hours of functioning time. Stereo speakers are also here, plus WiFi ac, Bluetooth 4.0 and a mic.
Of course, this whole machine runs on Windows 10 it seems like a Chromebook rival, one able to handle Office work, video playback and maybe some mild gaming, nothing serious. The keyboard is very impressive and the kickstand grows on you. We’ll be back with a full review soon. You can find the tablet here.
