UMPCPortal – Acer Iconia W3 official, shows up on Acer Finland with full specs
The Acer Iconia W3 leaked a few weeks back and while the renders looked official it was still considered to be a rumour. Now Acer in Finland has posted an official page for the W3 with specs and press shots which confirms the device is real and offers more information.
Asus Teases ‘We Transform’ for Computex 2013 — Expect Haswell Designs
Asus loves their teaser videos. Last week they put out a teaser about their forthcoming appearance at the annual Computex conference in Taipei, Taiwan. There’s not much to go on except for their slogan ‘We Transform’. With their commitment to convertible designs over the last year, we expect to see more of the same (a good thing). This time around, expect thinner and lighter devices with better battery life thanks to Intel’s forthcoming Haswell processors.
Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11S available online, comes to BestBuy June 23rd
The Lenovo Ideapad Yoga 11S, the smaller version of the currently available 13″ version has now become available to order on Lenovo’s website, with BestBuy also listing it for preorder with expected availability on June 23rd.
Asus UX51VZ with 2880×1620 Display; Asus Quietly Joins the Retina Club with an Ultrabook Alternative
Back in June of 2012, Apple revealed their MacBook Pro with ‘retina’ display — a super high resolution panel. Since then we haven’t an answer in the Ultrabook or Ultrabook-alternative world by anything higher than 1920×1080 (likely due to Windows’ poor scaling support). It looks like Asus will be the first to make a comparable offering. A new variant of the UX51 popped up quietly on Amazon.de sporting a 15.6 inch 2880 x 1620 panel.
Asus Transformer Book available May 21 in the US
The wait for the Asus Transformer Book in America looks to be coming to an end soon with the 13.3″ version slated to be available within a week on May 21st, Liliputing reports via the official Asus North America Facebook page.
HP Split X2 – new Core powered Windows 8 hybrid
Transformer Book competition? HP has just outed the Split X2, a Core powered 13.3″ touchscreen Windows 8 hybrid with WiDi, HDMI, and a keyboard dock with an extra battery and a 500GB HDD. Is this a viable alternative to the Transformer Book?
See Average Battery Life and Check for Connected Standby on Windows 8
Posted by Steve Chippy Paine in How To on May 15, 2013
What’s Connected Standby? It’s the hardware and software that turns a PC into a smart device. Always on, Always Connected! You can find more information here and I encourage you to read it and to consider this ‘seal of efficiency’ for your next laptop or mobile PC which, in 2013, can only be an Ultrabook or a Clovertrail or BayTrail based laptop, tablet, convertible or dockables.
Here’s a way to check for Connected Standby, battery capacity and to view historical battery life reports. Useful to use quickly in the PC store!
Dell Latitude 6430U Review
Posted by Steve Chippy Paine in Review on May 14, 2013
Some Ultrabooks focus on getting things done and although the end result is often a little on the dull side you can sense that you’re moving faster than with some other laptops and Ultrabooks. The Dell Latitude 6430u is one of those Ultrabooks and we’ve just had the pleasure of a few weeks testing it. Full review below.; Overview review video at the bottom of this post.
Acer Aspire V5 and AMD Temash Testing (Live Session Notes)
Posted by Steve Chippy Paine in Announcement on May 10, 2013
Update: The Live Testing session is over. Some notes below.
I’ve just started a live stream while I test the Acer Aspire V5 122P, the AMD Temash-based laptop. The stream will run from now and at 2100 Berlin (15 minutes from this post) I’ll start to introduce the Acer and do some interactive active testing, Q&A with anyone that joins in the chat.
It’s all happening on the live page right now.
Notes from Live Session below.
Update: A more controlled set of tests have now been completed. See results here.
Acer Aspire V5 122P Unboxing, AMD Temash A6-1450 First Tests
Posted by Steve Chippy Paine in News on May 10, 2013
The Acer Aspire V5 122P is an 11.6” sub-notebook running on an AMD Temash processor which I’ve highlighted before as being potentially interesting for mobile Windows 8 because it, theoretically, offers performance that sits between netbooks and Ultrabooks while offering very good efficiency. I’ve unboxed the Acer V5 122P and found a well-balanced, very good value touchscreen notebook that could appeal to many people looking at the sub-$500 bracket. It’s not an Ultrabook in terms of raw performance but it feels like it hits a nice sweet-spot.
Update: Detailed processor performance tests are being performed here.














