"The fact that there are two screens means that, theoretically, you could be watching football clips of the 1998 World Cup and upload your weekend’s photos on to Facebook at the same time"
Matthias Scherer
Overpriced gimmick or clever innovation in the tablet market? PC Site take a look at the Acer Iconia 484G64N Dual-Touchscreen tablet.
What we like best
The Acer Iconia 484G64N is the world’s first 14 inch dual-touchscreen tablet, and it sure does look pretty futuristic. The two screens open up like a book, and the display is very sharp. The Iconia 484G64N offers very good viewing angles – you can gather a group of friends or colleagues round, and everyone will have a good view of what it is you’re trying to present.
The bottom screen doubles up as a virtual QWERTY keyboard, which is pretty cool – all you have to do is touch the lower screen with both palms, and the keyboard appears. Users can also view webpages spead over the two screens (great for longer articles and posts), via the press of a single button.
Similar to the Acer Iconia W500 tablet, the way to access applications on the Acer Iconia 484G64N is via the somewhat ominously named Acer Ring, a tool that lets users scroll through a circular list of applications – a nice twist on the clickwheel idea.
SocialJogger (another weird name) is an application that lets users access most of their social network platforms (Facebook, YouTube) through a minimum of touches. The fact that there are two screens means that, theoretically, you could be watching football clips of the 1998 World Cup and upload your weekend’s photos on to Facebook at the same time.
Flash 10.1 is supported, and the Acer Iconia 484G64N comes with a two-year guarantee.
What we like least
While the virtual keyboard is a nice idea and sizable enough to look real, it sadly doesn’t feel very realistic. For starters, getting it to appear on screen can be tricky and might require more than one try.
Then, once it’s up and you’re ready to type, it definitely takes some getting used to – the predictive text might be of help to some, others might tear their hair out after a few minutes. But then again, smaller, single-screen tablets have similar keyboards, and maybe we should all just get used to the fact that this is how we all will type in 10 years time.
The Acer Iconia 484G64N is also quite heavy – 3.3Kg will not go lightly on your back, so portability is somewhat limited. Then there is the fact that for such a heavyweight device (both literally and in terms of processing power), the lack of an optical drive is a somewhat glaring omission.
Also, £1,500 seems like a pretty ridiculous price for a tablet.
Some good ideas, and the displays are snazzy and sharp, but the two-screen feature isn’t enough to distract from the sometimes limited user-friendliness. What do you really need two screens for? Surely if you want one big screen, you just opt for a laptop or a PC instead? If you’re on the go, you don’t really need a massive screen, you want a device that responds quickly to your commands, and this is where the Acer Iconia 484G64N just falls short.
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Processor Speed
2.66 GHz
Processor
Core i5
RAM
Up to 4 Gb
Screen Size
2 x 14 inch
Graphics
UMA
Hard Drive Storage
Up to 640 Gb
Battery
Up to 3 hours
Multimedia
Stereo Speakers
Webcam
Ports
2 x USB
Headphone jack
Weight & Size
(W) 347 x (H) 31.9 x (D) 248.5 mm 3.3 Kg
Connectivity
WLAN
Bluetooth
Operating System
Windows 7 Home Premium
What you’ll notice first about the Acer Iconia 484G64N, is that it is a dual screen touch tablet, the first to be released. It draws many a furrowed brow since we’re all getting used to the one screen variety. What people will come to appreciate about the Acer Iconia 484G64N will be that the two screens allow it fold into a laptop position with one screen functioning as a keypad.
Acer Iconia 484G64N
Acer Iconia 484G64N is great for versatility, reading e-books will be all the better since you can actually hold it like a book, granted a large and rigid one but nevertheless better then holding a single pad, right?
Acer Iconia 484G64Npacks some pretty innovative notions, a melding of tablet tech with powerful pc laptop components make the Acer Iconia 484G64N quite a remarkable machine.
If you want to find out more about its features, read the PC Site Acer Iconia 484G64N review.
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