Acer R7 Review: Something Different
by Jarred Walton on August 15, 2013 12:45 AM ESTAcer’s marketing material mentions that they rethought everything about the notebook when designing the R7, and I’m definitely not going to dispute that. Yes, this is still a laptop at its core, but things have been moved around in some surprising and perhaps interesting ways. The Ezel hinge and touchscreen are the primary discussion here, and the R7 comes with supposedly five different operating modes: regular laptop, laptop with the screen shifted forward, tablet, floating table, and presentation mode (flip screen laptop). The question most people will have is whether or not the changes made to accommodate the Ezel hinge are actually worthwhile.
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Realistically, the floating table mode is pretty much useless as far as I’m concerned, and the presentation mode is only marginally interesting. Still, some people might occasionally use those modes. It’s the other three modes that are going to pull the lion's share of the duty, so let’s look at each of those.
First, you can just open up the display and use the R7 as a regular laptop. What you’ll immediately notice however is that the touchpad isn’t where it’s supposed to be, and in fact there are no palm rests. Some people might hold their hands above the keyboard while typing, but I tend to rest my wrists on whatever surface is in front of the keyboard – be that palm rests, desk, or something else. I can type reasonably well on the R7, and I have no real complaints about the keyboard layout – in fact I actually like it – but the missing palm rests definitely detract from the overall typing experience. The good news is that if you’re the type that has issues with inadvertently activating the touchpad while typing, that won’t happen with the R7. The bad news is that the touchpad is in a weird location, and I should also note that the notebook feels quite back heavy due to the weight of the touchscreen and cover.
The second mode, and the one that I’m most likely to use with the R7, is as a laptop with the screen pulled forward. You still have the issues associated with the missing palm rests, but the idea is that the touchscreen is easier to reach this way. I should mention that the touchpad works okay, and it uses Elan Tech hardware, but it can still be a little bit choppy. The touchscreen on the other hand works well as an input device, providing a smooth scrolling experience and all of the other usual gestures. Except, not all applications fully recognize the touchscreen gestures, so for example swiping with a single finger to scroll doesn’t always work. This is mostly a problem with third-party apps that haven’t been updated to recognize Windows 8 gestures, but it still happens more than I’d like. Also, grabbing smaller elements like scrollbars for the edge of a window to resize can be difficult with a touchscreen – there’s just not enough precision to pull it off properly.
On the whole, this is certainly an interesting idea, and for people that really like touchscreens it might actually be preferable to a standard laptop design. However, I do think there needs to be a bit of tweaking to the current design to get it right. Mostly, the laptop just feels a lot heavier than you would expect, and being heavy means you are less likely to carry it around which means you’re not using it as a laptop. In a sense, the R7 is like a smaller, portable all-in-one that happens to have the ability to function as a laptop if you need it.
Finally, we have tablet mode, where you lay the top panel flat against the keyboard (or at least almost flat). I’m not sure most people are interested in a 15.6-inch tablet, and when you add on the bulk of the keyboard and hinge it becomes an even more difficult prospect to carry around. This is definitely the heaviest, largest tablet that I’ve ever tried to use, and while it can work as a tablet, it’s not something I found necessary on a regular basis. Showing friends or family pictures on a 1.5 pound tablet is one thing; passing around a 5.3 pound tablet is another!
Of course, any time you use the touchscreen you also run into the usual touchscreen problem: fingerprints. On a laptop with a 15.6-inch screen, I find this is an even bigger issue. It’s pretty easy to wipe off the touchscreen on a smartphone, but even a 10-inch tablet usually requires that you have a microfiber cloth on hand. With something the size of the R7, fingerprints run wild! And even when you’re careful, there’s always the chance that a stray spec of grit will leave a scratch instead of just wiping off. I also feel like the LCD backlight needs to be brighter; I measured maximum white levels of just shy of 300 nits, where most smartphones and tablets are more likely to hit 400+ nits. Obviously, having a large display running at higher backlight levels can easily chew up a lot of battery life, and as we’ll see in a moment battery life isn’t one of the strong points of the R7.
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themossie - Thursday, August 15, 2013 - link
I sit 3-4 feet from my monitor depending (it's on an arm) - 27" 16:9 is quite wide, and not all that long ago a 27" monitor was unheard of for consumers :-)Can you show me some popular examples of this 'type search right -> glance left design' ? You
may be right, but can't think of any programs I use that do this other than CTRL+F in web browsers.
All programs I use:
1. "annoying popup in middle of screen for search" (sigh)
2. search bar along top/bottom
I strongly prefer glancing up or down (like reading a page of text) to left/right (switching between two pages of a book?) - maybe that's just me.
rainking430 - Thursday, August 15, 2013 - link
I upgraded from 7 to 8.0 on a non-touchscreen 27" monitor myself and hadn't been bothered as much about that difference. That said, have you used the 8.1 Preview? All search results show up in the search bar now.themossie - Thursday, August 15, 2013 - link
Haven't seen this, just looked up some screenshots. Thanks for the information!I'm still on Windows 7, that observation was from running Windows 8 in a VM. Might fire up 8.1 for fun.
sheh - Thursday, August 15, 2013 - link
I was checking at Panelook. Can't say how accurate they are, but they SEEM like they should be.If it is 6-bit and you can't see it, perhaps the DPI helps.
themossie - Thursday, August 15, 2013 - link
pg. 2: *lion's share of the duty. Late or spellcheck failure :-)"It’s the other three modes that are going to pull the ***lines share of the duty, so let’s look at each of those."
Thanks for the article!
JarredWalton - Thursday, August 15, 2013 - link
Actually, it was Dragon Naturally Speaking. I picked that back up and have used it for some of the dictation in some of my recent articles. Funny that they missed that one.damianrobertjones - Thursday, August 15, 2013 - link
"Also, grabbing smaller elements like scrollbars for the edge of a window to resize can be difficult with a touchscreen – there’s just not enough precision to pull it off properly." - Increase the DPI. Personally I don't see an issue."this design revolution comes up a bit short – much like Windows 8 itself." - Please, just stop already, it's obvious that you, personally, do not like Windows 8.
"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" - But as you suggested there's a whole load of people that DO like Windows 8.
Certain sections of this article really do need to be changed as it's painfully obvious what the agenda is. If a reviewer doesn't like Windows 8 then just give the device to someone else to review.
rainking430 - Thursday, August 15, 2013 - link
Agreed. This is labeled a review, not an opinion article. It's a shame really, because I've enjoyed Jarred's reviews up till now and thought he was doing a decent job. Hadn't noticed such extreme bashing before.JarredWalton - Thursday, August 15, 2013 - link
All reviews are opinions, and when a laptop/device is very clearly designed around the idea of Windows 8, that's going to be a major part of the review. Increasing DPI doesn't address the Excel issue. Without going into a menu, make a cell bigger, using just a touchscreen. To do this, you have to adjust the column width or row height, but while you can double-tap to get the autosize option, you cannot actually press and drag to create a custom size. Period.The response is of course the Steve Jobs line: "You're doing it wrong! It's not what I do, so why would anyone else want to do that?"
Anyway, I wasn't aware that we had any sacred cows in the computing industry. I'll make a note of the fact that any time I have an opinion that may ruffle some feathers, I should turn over a review to someone that doesn't have an opinion on the matter. Is that really what people need?
I'm trying to bring up some hard questions, and other than a lot of "you're totally wrong", "you should just stop", and "you just need to give it a try without bias", no one is actually giving any real solution to the problem. The problem is that I and a lot of others don't like the Windows 8 Start Screen or Metro apps, specifically on a desktop or full laptop. What is the end game here, and how does it play out?
I didn't love Vista at first blush, but I didn't find it horrible (other than driver support for some devices). Win7 was basically thumbs up from the start, and the same goes for Windows XP, 98, and even 95. (I left out WinME on purpose.) Windows 8 on the other hand is Windows 7 in so many ways, but then with the whole new world of Metro overlayed in ways that often frustrate. Get rid of Metro and it's fine, except when Metro tries to rise from the dead (like creating a new user account).
I'm not a huge Apple fan, having never really enjoyed using OS X much, but I'll go on record and say that it may be years or even "never" before Apple tries to integrate touchscreens and iOS apps into OSX. Microsoft did something Apple has so far been unwilling to do (trying to combine two disparate OSes and apps into one unified whole). Until we get screens that don't smudge or scratch, and applications for everything (not just consumption) that are designed to work well with touchscreen input, I at least am not clamoring for touchscreens.
ddriver - Thursday, August 15, 2013 - link
2 different 3D mark tests but not a single actual game? Does 3d mark synthetic performance tests favor intel's IGPs?