Despite the downward sales figures of PC sales worldwide, Acer’s new Aspire R7, staring at $999 offers fresh thinking into notebook design with some unusual twists.
At first you might be thrown off with a notebook that when first opened, its clamshell mode has the touch pad above the keyboard instead of the traditional spot below it.
Has this design gone mad, just to be different?
That was my first thought, but when I started swinging the R7’s hinged screen in its other three modes, I realized the cleverness of the touchpad placement.
Running on Windows 8.1, the R7 uses a swing-out “Ezel” hinge to a tabletop pad, display screen or a variable mode allowing you to change the screen angle and height, including down to the top of the keyboard, hiding the touchpad.
This last compact mode minimizes the R7 footprint for use in tight spaces like airplanes, buses or sofas. What replaces the hidden touchpad? Why, the touchscreen of course! Brilliant!
The brilliant Full HD 1920×1080 wide view IPS screen becomes your touchpad which as most folks know is made to work with Windows 8 two modes without a keyboard or mouse. I actually found using the hidden touchpad mode productive with some apps, even desktop ones as the screen is closer to you. If you tire of this placement, simply raise the screen up and back to expose enough of the mousepad.
I did find it a bit chunkier in tabletop mode, the whole mechanism is solidly built.
It has three USB ports, two of which are USB 3.0, a full HDMI out, full backlit keyboard and a convenient converter port supporting VGA, RJ45 and USB. This model has 6 GB RAM and a combo 500 GB hard drive and 20 GB SSD. The Dolby speakers are huge and hugely impressive.
It includes a smartly designed stylus for an even better touchscreen experience depending on the Windows Acer Memory Binder app for organizing and displaying photos.
Check out Acer’s other new Windows 8 models:
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