Acer’s 8-inch Iconia W3 is the first one-handed Windows 8 tablet

 

A month ago, an eight-inch Acer tablet running Windows 8 mysteriously showed up on Amazon, only to be removed from the site a few hours later. Well, today Acer is finally making the diminutive Iconia W3 official. The company is confirming that all of the specs listed on Amazon were correct: it weighs 1.10 pounds, measures 0.45 inches thick, features an 8.1-inch 1280 x 800 LCD display, and is powered by an Intel Atom Z2760 Clover Trail CPU. Storage is handled by 32GB and 64GB of flash memory, which is further expandable thanks to the W3′s microSD slot. A $79.99 full-sized keyboard can also turn the device into a tiny Windows 8 laptop (sans mouse, although one can be added) that can run all of your classic Windows apps, making it an intriguing option for students and others looking for a small dual-purpose device. Even more so with the complementary bundled copy of MS Office.

Acer points out that the W3 is actually the first eight-inch tablet to run the full version of Windows 8, but with a full week of announcements at Computex in Taiwan, and Microsoft reportedly planning to announce a 7-inch Surface tablet shortly thereafter, it likely won’t be the only one with that distinction for long. The suggested retail price for the W3 is $379, and while Acer isn’t saying exactly when this month it will start shipping.

Source: Engadget