Acer, like every other computer manufacturer, has been aspiring towards a lot of things through its Aspire series. They have been competing directly with Asus’ Eee PC with their Aspire One brand of netbooks and this time they seek to enter the market of high-end all-in-one systems with the Acer Aspire Z5610-U9072.
Truth be told, this is actually a mid-level device that boasts of a HD multitouch display as its main highlight. It has a 23inch multitouch display with a native resolution of 1920×1080 pixels, giving it the capability to display images in true HD resolution.
The specs are, however, not as compelling as the latest from Sony, the Vaio L 1080. The Z5610 is powered by an Intel E5300 2.6GHz dual core processor with 4GB RAM and 320GB HDD. Graphics is handled by an ATI Radeon HD4570 512MB card. Since this is a multitouch device, it comes with Microsoft’s Touch Pack and Acer’s own TouchSuite applications.
The Z5610 also packs in a DVD burner, gigabit Ethernet, WiFi (b/g/n) and an eSATA port. There are also 6 USB 2.0 ports, along with 5.1 audio output. It comes with a wireless keyboard and mouse as well. Plus there is a nice light under the screen, which if the set is placed correctly, might enhance the room’s décor. But in most cases, it will look like what it really is – a plain gimmick.
The multitouch is limited to two fingers it seems and there is support for gestures such as pinching and swiping. The whole touch experience will depend completely on two things – how well the touchscreen responds and how many useful apps are there to be used with the touchscreen. Since there are more and more Windows-based multitouch devices, there is likely to be a rise in the number of third party applications.
This new form factor has been catching up but once you realize that the screen is vertical and not horizontal, you will see having a touchscreen on a desktop is not all that fun. That’s because you have to keep your arms raised in order to manipulate things on the screen and it will tire you out very soon. This is not like sitting down on a table to write but is like painting your fence. The touchscreen feature seems to be working well to sell these devices though, so I reckon we will see more of these for while.
Acer has also launched the AS5738PG-6306 multitouch notebook. It runs on Windows 7 and has a multitouch enabled display that has a native resolution of 1366×768. It too supports two finger touch gestures like pinching and swiping. It is powered by an Intel 2.20GHz T6600 processor and has 4GB RAM and ATI Radeon HD 4570 512MB graphics. Storage is in the form of a 320GB HDD and there is a DVD burner, WiFi (a/b/g/n-draft), HDMI and 4 USB 2.0 ports. You also get a biometric (fingerprint) scanner that sits under the multitouch trackpad. Anyone who has ever seen a spy movie or the like will know that fingerprint scanners are ridiculously easy to fool.
The AS5738PG comes with the same touch applications as the Z5610 mentioned above. The main problem here is that you can’t use the notebook like you would a slate. So you are stuck touching the screen while it is vertical to you. In my eyes that severely reduces the usability of a touchscreen on a portable device.
At least the price is more or less reasonable at $799.
