Acer just
recently introduced its first liquid cool 2in1 coming out this year in May
starting at a price of US$599.00. This is Acer’s fan less 2in1 tablet with a detachable
keyboard and a built in kickstand. Although
it bears a pretty strong resemblance to the Microsoft Surface and Surface Pro
line, Acer is saying that this device has got a few tricks up its sleeves.
Design
First of
all it has the brushed metal body on the back. It opens up very much like a
Microsoft Surface Pro 4. The Acer Alpha 12 has got a touchscreen and it supports
an Acer Active stylus if that’s something you want. It has got a full size
keyboard, very nice key response. The keyboard dock is actually held together
by magnets and you can do a couple of different angles, you can use it flat or
tilted up at the front. The magnets are pretty strong, if you want to join the keyboard
all you have to do is to bring the tablet closer to it and it will automatically
join.
It comes
with a highly responsive wide glass touch pad. At the back it has got an
adjustable hinge, more like a kick stand that allows you to place it in a number
of positions at a wide variety of angles for better experience for whatever you
want to do. It has a rubber edge for better friction.
If you go
to the side of the machine you will see a full size USB 3.0 port with A USB C
port just below it. There is also a standard power jack and a 3.5mm audio jack.
On the other side it has a standard windows home button and some volume rocker
and a power button as well. At the back it has a camera and its speakers are
located at the top of the screen.
Display is
a 2160*1440 IPS display with great viewing angles. There is also a 1080P Full
HD camera with 88 degree wide angle lens.
The
dimensions of the device are 11.5*7.9*0.4. The tablet weighs about 900 grams
and with the keyboard attached, it will be weighing about 1.27kgs.
Performance
At entry
level Acer Alpha Switch 12 device will have a 2160*14440 pixels display. It
comes with a windows 10 Software and an Intel Core i3 Stylet processor and 4 GB
Ram and 128 GB of storage. Models of this 12 inch 2in1 will be available with all
the way up to a Core i7 processor, Up to 8 GB of ram and up to 512 GB storage.
Clearly it will cost more if you want all of those specifications. The device
has a got an eight hour battery life which is impressive for a device with such
processing power.
The Acer
Alpha 12 liquid cooling system
The problem
when using slimmer lighter devices is the cooling and Acer came up with just a
great invention and solution for that which is probably their strength point
on the 2in1 devices. Acer created the cold loop liquid cooling system, “Liquid
loop” as they like to call it. The way it works is, the coolant passes
through the loop over the CPU, and the expanding gas pushes the coolant back
around the circuit so the process repeats itself thereby cooling the CPU. In other
words, the heat generated by the coolant system will become the energy used to
circulate the liquid. No matter which model you buy, whether a Core I series as
opposed to a Core M, there won’t be any performance issues, thanks to the
liquid cooling system design by Acer.
Overall,
this is a great device and with its cooling system, it’s spectacular for heavy
users (gamers in particular) like myself whilst still maintaining the
cool slim and light design.
