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Sharing my experience just to add to the group zeitgeist...
I was looking for a new laptop to replace our aging and low resolution TN screen Asus K50.
1920x1080 IPS screen was the first requirement since I try to use these for light photo editing when on vacations. Doing that on the old asus was painful. Since everything new now has windows 8, it had to be a touch screen, as I can't see using win8 without it. more than 4GB of ram and 128GB storage was also a requirement.
You're looking at 700 bucks minimum for those specs, so we decided to look at tablet combos. The Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro, Sony Flip 14A and the Acer R7 for a couple hundred more. (well, in the case of the Lenovo, about 500 more....)
The Lenovo was simply out of our league, pricewise. Plus it has a noted and obvious problem where true yellow shows as an ugly mustardy brown color. Plainly obvious in the store when playing with paint applications. Fatal flaw for the thing.
So it came down to the Sony Flip 14A and the Acer. With Christmas upon us, we decided to pick up the Sony as a Christmas present to ourselves. We decided on the Sony due to the smaller size/lighter weight and its true tablet form after "flipping" vs the Acer R7's slightly angled deck.
The Sony had some documented issues with fan noise and a fidgety touch screen that was solved with a BIOS update, and I experienced both the issues and the fact that the BIOS update fixed them. Things were much better after all BIOS and software updates were installed.
The form factor was nice, the weight was not too bad for a tablet, though 14" is just a tad too big. I think 13" is the perfect size for a convertible, but the good ones are all really expensive.
The big issue with the Sony, for me, was that their digitizer for the touchscreen made the IPS screen behave like it had the poor viewing angles of a cheap TN panel, with about a 30% (guesstimated) falloff in brightness from the center of the screen to the edges when looking at the ideal viewing angle. For a picture guy, it was a deal breaker. I used it for several hours a day for a few days in a row, and just could not get over the light falloff from center. Really annoying.
So, we traded it in for the larger Acer. While the Acer is somewhat unconventional in layout, the positioning of the track pad above the keyboard is actually quite brilliant. You bring the screen forward so the bottom is mated to the deck immediately above the keyboard, bringing it closer for your fingers to use as the touchscreen and completely eliminating the need for the touchpad. When we had the Sony, I noticed that after about 15 minutes of swiping, that I had to keep lifting my elbows off their support to use the touchscreen, and it was becoming tedious. The closer position of the Acer screen to your hands does make a difference in ease of use in laptop mode. It feels quite natural. And the screen itself is brilliant. Rich, sharp, clear, no noticeable falloff in normal viewing, though there is a drop when you go off angle, which again I think is a function of the touchscreen digitizer. But its not near as bad as the Sony.
Also, we noticed between the Acer and the Sony that the Sony screen was just more fidgety in terms of accuracy of touch than the Acer is. The Acer is just all around a smoother, more seamless experience. And the sound is incredible for a laptop. The not-quite-flat tablet mode is actually a boon, as normally when putting a tablet down to use without your hands holding it your looking for something to keep it from being absolutely flat, and the natural angle of the Acer's tablet mode is actually quite useful, eliminating the need for a prop.
The Acer is also quieter in terms of fan noise than the Sony, even after the BIOS fix of the Sony. I think the larger form factor just gives it more room for a better cooling solution.
All in all, the Acer feels like a better computer in almost every way. The only place it "falls down" is its size and weight as a tablet. Since our planned usage for it is not primarily as an ultra-portable media consumption device like a kindle or ipad, it is not a problem for us.
And win8.1 isn't really a problem. Just different, and the familiar desktop is there just like before.
If you're in the market, and are willing to spend around what the Acer and Sony cost, I highly recommend the Acer. Note there are two versions of the Acer, the R7-571 and a newer R7-572. The older model does not have the latest Haswell processor, has less RAM and a documented issue with the wireless that seems to be fixed with the 572. The only place the 572 falls down relative to the earlier one is that the 571 had a hybrid SSD/platter HD while the 572 has just a standard HD, though at 1 TB is double the size of the original version. I would not recommend the 571 due to the shorter battery life due to non-Haswell and the wireless problems - though a cheap USB wireless dongle will solve the latter.
BB
I was looking for a new laptop to replace our aging and low resolution TN screen Asus K50.
1920x1080 IPS screen was the first requirement since I try to use these for light photo editing when on vacations. Doing that on the old asus was painful. Since everything new now has windows 8, it had to be a touch screen, as I can't see using win8 without it. more than 4GB of ram and 128GB storage was also a requirement.
You're looking at 700 bucks minimum for those specs, so we decided to look at tablet combos. The Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro, Sony Flip 14A and the Acer R7 for a couple hundred more. (well, in the case of the Lenovo, about 500 more....)
The Lenovo was simply out of our league, pricewise. Plus it has a noted and obvious problem where true yellow shows as an ugly mustardy brown color. Plainly obvious in the store when playing with paint applications. Fatal flaw for the thing.
So it came down to the Sony Flip 14A and the Acer. With Christmas upon us, we decided to pick up the Sony as a Christmas present to ourselves. We decided on the Sony due to the smaller size/lighter weight and its true tablet form after "flipping" vs the Acer R7's slightly angled deck.
The Sony had some documented issues with fan noise and a fidgety touch screen that was solved with a BIOS update, and I experienced both the issues and the fact that the BIOS update fixed them. Things were much better after all BIOS and software updates were installed.
The form factor was nice, the weight was not too bad for a tablet, though 14" is just a tad too big. I think 13" is the perfect size for a convertible, but the good ones are all really expensive.
The big issue with the Sony, for me, was that their digitizer for the touchscreen made the IPS screen behave like it had the poor viewing angles of a cheap TN panel, with about a 30% (guesstimated) falloff in brightness from the center of the screen to the edges when looking at the ideal viewing angle. For a picture guy, it was a deal breaker. I used it for several hours a day for a few days in a row, and just could not get over the light falloff from center. Really annoying.
So, we traded it in for the larger Acer. While the Acer is somewhat unconventional in layout, the positioning of the track pad above the keyboard is actually quite brilliant. You bring the screen forward so the bottom is mated to the deck immediately above the keyboard, bringing it closer for your fingers to use as the touchscreen and completely eliminating the need for the touchpad. When we had the Sony, I noticed that after about 15 minutes of swiping, that I had to keep lifting my elbows off their support to use the touchscreen, and it was becoming tedious. The closer position of the Acer screen to your hands does make a difference in ease of use in laptop mode. It feels quite natural. And the screen itself is brilliant. Rich, sharp, clear, no noticeable falloff in normal viewing, though there is a drop when you go off angle, which again I think is a function of the touchscreen digitizer. But its not near as bad as the Sony.
Also, we noticed between the Acer and the Sony that the Sony screen was just more fidgety in terms of accuracy of touch than the Acer is. The Acer is just all around a smoother, more seamless experience. And the sound is incredible for a laptop. The not-quite-flat tablet mode is actually a boon, as normally when putting a tablet down to use without your hands holding it your looking for something to keep it from being absolutely flat, and the natural angle of the Acer's tablet mode is actually quite useful, eliminating the need for a prop.
The Acer is also quieter in terms of fan noise than the Sony, even after the BIOS fix of the Sony. I think the larger form factor just gives it more room for a better cooling solution.
All in all, the Acer feels like a better computer in almost every way. The only place it "falls down" is its size and weight as a tablet. Since our planned usage for it is not primarily as an ultra-portable media consumption device like a kindle or ipad, it is not a problem for us.
And win8.1 isn't really a problem. Just different, and the familiar desktop is there just like before.
If you're in the market, and are willing to spend around what the Acer and Sony cost, I highly recommend the Acer. Note there are two versions of the Acer, the R7-571 and a newer R7-572. The older model does not have the latest Haswell processor, has less RAM and a documented issue with the wireless that seems to be fixed with the 572. The only place the 572 falls down relative to the earlier one is that the 571 had a hybrid SSD/platter HD while the 572 has just a standard HD, though at 1 TB is double the size of the original version. I would not recommend the 571 due to the shorter battery life due to non-Haswell and the wireless problems - though a cheap USB wireless dongle will solve the latter.
BB
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