Acer unveils Iconia W3, the world's first 8.1-inch Windows 8 tablet

Acer has made a string of announcements at the ongoing Computex, and one of the major ones among these announcements is the Iconia W3. The tablet is the industry’s first 8.1-inch tablet running on Windows 8. It is worth noting that the tablet runs on an Intel chip with Windows 8 instead of an ARM-based chip on Windows RT. This means that the 8.1-inch tablet will have all the capabilities that a typical desktop PC does.

The 8.1-inch LED display has a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels, which gives it a pixel density of 186 ppi. The tablet is capable of displaying videos at 720p resolutions just fine. It is equipped with two cameras – both being 2 megapixel shooters.

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The Iconia W3 has a micro-HDMI port that allows users to connect it to a TV or external display. There is also a micro USB port that allows connection to devices such as phones, MP3 players, USB drives and even a mouse. It comes in two variants—32GB and 64GB capacities. Both variants have microSD card slots with support for cards up to 32GB.

The tablet runs on an Intel Atom chip that is said to be optimised for mobile devices. All of this is kept alive by a battery with a quoted life of 8 hours. The device uses Connected Standby, which helps the battery life by turning the display off while the tablet remains powered on to perform other tasks in the background. Connectivity options on the Iconia W3 includes Wi-Fi.

The Iconia W3 is the world’s first 8-inch Windows 8 tablet

The tablet comes with Microsoft Office Home and Student 2013 pre-installed, which includes softwares like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. The company claims that the tablet is small enough to operate one-handed when it comes to simple tasks like reading and web browsing.

The Iconia W3 weighs in at 540 g and is 11.35 mm in thickness, which makes it one of the most portable Windows 8 tablets that we’ve seen. The tablet can pair with a full-sized Bluetooth keyboard that can hold the device upright. This makes the tablet a portable replacement for a laptop. The keyboard mirrors the size of a 13.3-inch notebook. The company claims, however, that the tablet was made with thumb-typing on the virtual keyboard in mind.

Since the Acer Iconia W3 runs Windows 8, it can keep files, photos and contacts synced across other Windows 8 devices, so users can work on documents and programs on the go and then access the most current version from another device.  Because it runs full Windows 8, the Acer Iconia W3 is also compatible with x86 legacy Windows programs.

Both the 32GB and the 64GB variants of the tablet are expected to hit store shelves in Q2 2013. As of yet, Acer has not revealed the pricing for the Iconia W3.