Acer R7 Review: Something Different
by Jarred Walton on August 15, 2013 12:45 AM ESTTaken as a whole, I definitely agree that Acer has stepped out of their comfort zone and tried to do something fundamentally different than what most laptops have been doing for years. This is a laptop that seems to be designed to bring the touchscreen into the foreground, and it generally succeeds at doing that. The problem is that I don’t think touchscreens work all that well for Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 – not until you are able to completely leave behind Windows desktop apps does a touchscreen become better than a touchpad. In fact, even simple things like word processing and working with spreadsheets benefit from having a touchpad versus a touchscreen.
Windows Desktop: Not a great place for a touchscreen
Try resizing cells for example in Excel using a touchscreen; I can’t get it to work. Well, I actually can, but it involves: long-press (on column header), column width, then guess a number... or go into the menus and on the Home section find Format->AutoFit Column Height/Width, or something similar. Basically, it's definitely not easier than using a mouse or touchpad to accomplish the same task. Selecting text in pretty much any application is also difficult – oh, you can do it with a touchscreen, but it’s far easier to do with the touchpad or a mouse, especially if you only want to select part of a word or sentence. I think the problem with selecting text using a touchscreen is that your finger is obscuring what you’re selecting; I have similar problems selecting text on Android tablets and my iPod Touch. A mouse or touchpad – or even a stylus – simply works better for this type of interaction.
Perhaps Windows just needs a paradigm shift in order to make some of these things work properly with a touchscreen, but at the same time they need to continue to cater to people who want to use a mouse or a touchpad. This is one of my biggest issues with Windows 8 – it tried to meet the needs of both tablet and notebook/desktop users, and in the process I think it came up short in both areas. I can get around most of the complaints I have with the notebook experience, simply by installing a Start Screen alternative and using it like Windows 7, but when I do that I just have to wonder: why did Microsoft even waste so much time and energy creating the Start Screen? Call me old-fashioned, but I’m perfectly happy with the Start Menu. Windows 8 has some other cool features, but none of them require the Start Screen (e.g. faster boot times and potentially improved battery life are part of the kernel, not the Windows 8 interface).
Windows 8 Start Screen: Built for touchscreens, lacking in apps
Getting back to the Acer R7, in many ways I feel like it was built to try and make use of Windows 8 features that aren’t actually all that useful. Acer did a reasonably good job on most areas, but it’s the whole operating system and software ecosystem that needs to change before touchscreens can become truly useful in Windows. Android and iOS have the advantage of starting from scratch with no legacy applications to worry about; Windows doesn’t have that luxury, and trying to shoehorn features into the OS isn’t helping. Acer has rethought a lot of our preconceptions about Windows notebooks, and kudos to them for trying something new and different. I’m certain there are going to be a subset of users that actually really enjoy using the Acer R7, but for me running the current release of Windows 8, this design revolution comes up a bit short – much like Windows 8 itself.
If Windows 8 works so well with a touchscreen, then a touchpad wouldn't be necessary. Clearly Acer wasn't willing to omit the touchpad entirely, so they shifted the keyboard forward and moved the touchpad back, which ends up being a poor design decision in so many ways as both typing and using the touchpad become far less than ideal. So why did Acer do it this way with the R7 instead of going whole hog and eliminate the touchpad entirely? I think the answer is in the above commentary: Windows desktop applications just don't work all that well with touchscreens, at least not to the point where you can totally omit the touchpad. Well, that and the fingerprints; even if the touchscreen interface worked ideally with every application out there, I at least would be unhappy about the amount of smudging regularly found on my display.
Obviously, this is just one man's opinion on the subject, but if you scour the web you'll find many others with a similar take on Windows 8. There are people that like the new interface, though, so for those users something like the Acer R7 might fare better. But it's still a very big, very heavy hybrid, which again is going to limit the mass appeal.
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Wrapping up with some positive thoughts, again I have to state that this is probably the best built Acer laptop I’ve ever encountered. Perhaps that’s also part of the reason why it feels so heavy – the metal is definitely thicker than you’ll find on a lot of budget laptops. The sound quality is good as well, with speakers that provide a nice listening experience. The best part about this laptop though: the display. It’s not that the display is perfect by any means, but I’m happy to see a decent quality 1080p panel in a $1000 laptop from Acer. The panel is from AU Optronics and it uses their AHVA (Advanced Hyper-Viewing Angle) technology, which is basically their take on IPS. Colors are good, viewing angles are good, and while it’s not going to displace the MacBook Pro Retina by any stretch of the imagination, it won’t make you want to scratch your eyes out and you can run at its native 1080p resolution without squinting.
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safcman84 - Friday, August 16, 2013 - link
If Acer had gone for Win RT, then you be fair to compare to tablets. However this hybrid-ultrabook isnt competing in the same market. This is not a consumer tablet deviceIf Acer had gone for iOS or Android it wouldnt be able to run full desktop apps, and therefore would lose its appeal to the market it is aiming for.
You wont see the full impact of Win8 for another year/year and a half. The company I work at (120k employees globally) is rolling out win8 next year and abandoning the iPads it started to roll out last year. Why? cos iOS cannot handle the applications that win8 can, and they want their workstations, laptops, phones, laptops etc to run the same ecosystem so business users dont have to learn how to use 3 seperate OSes
JarredWalton - Friday, August 16, 2013 - link
Except, they'll still potentially have three different OSes:Windows 8.1 for desktops/laptops and expensive tablets
Windows RT for inexpensive tablets, unable to run full Windows applications
Windows Phone, which is another separate platform.
So unless they only go with full Windows 8.1 devices, they'll still face a fragmented set of platforms, and the phones and RT devices will need new apps, and using RT and Phone is not the same as using Windows any more than iOS and OS X are the same.
bearinthevalley - Friday, August 23, 2013 - link
hmm then you should work at a better company. the one i work at with 70k employees allows its employees to choose any platform he/she wants. it's called "any device" or "bring your own device" concept. we don't live in an age where corporate IT has to heavyhandly force devices and platforms on its users, but rather empowering its employees to be efficient and productive in the platform/device/OS they personally prefer. it's proven that employees are far more productive and satisfied if they could choose their own devices. hence if you come to our office you will see a diverse ecosystem of devices coexisting, from thinkpad to ipad, from macbook air to retina pro, from surface to android, you can use anything and all our corporate apps will just work (ideally at least)gxtoast - Wednesday, August 21, 2013 - link
I think that it should be noted just how immature Windows 8 Metro is as an OS and as a platform for touch centric applications. I think, as an OS, it is pretty good and can certainly keep up with IOS and Android. However, usability is a key aspect in the new touch world and Microsoft is struggling to adopt this new requirement.If you take a look at Apple it becomes clear that they have made usability the centerpiece of their OSes. From this position they have encouraged, through marketing and culture, all of their developers to match or better any Apple usability innovation.
It remains to be seen whether Microsoft can fully embrace and realize usability in their own applications and OS, and push their developers to do the same.
I've been using Windows for a long time and have recently come back to the Apple eco-system looking for a range of apps. What I have discovered is that most Apple applications have a refinement and usability excellence that just isn't present in the majority of Windows apps. It is quite astounding, actually. Apple developers just seem to go deeply into usability and produce beautiful user interfaces that ooze fuctionality. Windows is very clearly playing catchup in this way.
Another misstep that Microsoft has made, and I think it is a major one, is their INSISTENCE of a 16:9 display ratio for all Windows 8 devices. This is THE biggest reason why my next tablet will be an iPad and NOT a Windows tablet. Microsoft talks about Content Creation, but their insistence on 16:9 puts them squarely in the Content Consumption category. A big fail I think.
MrSpadge - Saturday, August 24, 2013 - link
But we're comparing the products here, not what the market thinks, don't we? Your task as a reviewer is not to say "people have not bought it in masses, so it can't be good" but rather "This and this are the strengths of the product, whereas these are weaknesses. It's worth buying in this and this scenario, but not in that one."themossie - Thursday, August 15, 2013 - link
FWIW, I still have yet to meet anyone who uses the touchscreen on their laptop -and- runs Windows 8.Most professionals who need a touchscreen for their work don't benefit from Windows 8.
Most (not all) consumers don't see the value proposition in paying more for it.
Those consumers who do see the benefit of a touchscreen tend to just buy an Android/iOS
tablet
damianrobertjones - Thursday, August 15, 2013 - link
This does not make sense. I've seen people using keyboards with their ipads and you'd bet that if they had a mouse they'd not be touching the screen. Think about it... . I have a Dell 24" touchscreen in front of me... Do I 'touch' the screen? No. Why buy it then? BECAUSE I CAN.themossie - Thursday, August 15, 2013 - link
Kinda confused by this post...Plenty of consumers use iPads as their primary computer device, so they end up buying a keyboard. This is cheaper, lighter, easier to use (for light consumer workloads) and has a lot more touch apps than a good lightweight touch Win8 laptop.
Why would they use a mouse with it? Have you seen anyone use a mouse with an iPad? I haven't tried it, but with an Android tablet a mouse is a miserable experience - because everything's designed for touch.
Buy a 24" touchscreen you don't touch "because you can"? Huh? Isn't that >2x the regular price for a feature you won't use?
karasaj - Thursday, August 15, 2013 - link
To be fair the first year of android tablet sales weren't exactly spectacular. It wasn't until the kindle fire that they really began to catch on. And I think windows 8 is a better tablet OS than android was back then with its 6 android tablet optimized apps... So its quite possible 8.1 and $200 tablets could help a lot.Microsofts issue is charging $90 for an OS in a world where all of the other major competitors provide it for free. That eats into an OEMs margins, which either drives the price up or makes them unwilling to adopt. It HAS to be cheaper or free. Like, $10.
nafhan - Thursday, August 15, 2013 - link
I'm curious what you mean by "fully functional". Runs windows apps?