Acer Iconia W700

“As a demonstration that tablets can use Ultrabook-class processors and still get by as tablets, the W700 is a fine device. As something you should run right out and buy right now, it falls short—upcoming Ivy Bridge and Haswell look to address most of its faults, and based on what we've seen of Haswell so far they'll be as thin as these Ultrabooks-turned-tablets can get before Broadwell chips start coming out in 2014. Hold off on this one, but rest assured that these kinds of tablets don't have to sacrifice battery life for performance.”

“As slates go, the W700 looks good when you’re on the go. The aluminum chassis is streamlined, cool, and sturdy. The screen looks good, too. But general difficulties with Windows 8 and a poorly-conceived cradle system just don’t help you make the most of your investment.”

“The Acer Iconia W700 works best if you plan to take it on the road without its keyboard and are comfortable using it on a desktop with a minimal variety of viewing angles. If you're seeking a Windows 8 tablet that will also serve as a laptop, look elsewhere.”

“The W700's cradle design doesn't make much sense. A dock with a built-in keyboard (and perhaps a touchpad and spare battery) would have been a simpler, more compact solution, and you wouldn't have had to give up much in the way of extra ports. It would have been more versatile too -- the sort of thing you could use in the office or on the road, in a hotel room. Ultimately, you could pack up the tablet and keyboard separately, but it's not ideal: it's a bit of a pain, and the components will take up more space in your bag. We suggest you use the case as a stand instead, but with the understanding that you'll have just one USB port: the one on the tablet itself. So, the quirky design doesn't rise to the level of a dealbreaker, but we do hope that Acer reconsiders the keyboard dock as it designs the inevitable follow-up product. After all, for a portable device like this, less would almost certainly be more.”