Acer Iconia W510 Tablet: A Tale Of Intel Vs. ARM And Acer Vs. Apple

[Guest]

Some folks still say that the x86 ISA will never catch up to ARM when it comes to efficiency. Our granular power analysis demonstrates just how efficient x86-based CPUs can be, though. But how does Intel compete when we dig deeper into user experience?

Acer Iconia W510 Tablet: A Tale Of Intel Vs. ARM And Acer Vs. Apple : Read more

 

[Priox]

"Because shipping was on my tab and only the keyboard was broken, I shipped it on its own."

You made a massive assumption here to save yourself a few bucks in shipping costs. Your assumption was wrong, and the delay in processing your RMA is all on you.

Acer manufactures and sells the dock together as a single unit. They separate physically but they are still both part of the same product. It is very reasonable and logical that they would want to examine both together in order to determine the cause of the problem.

It is not reasonable or logical to compare the Acer W510 dock to a keyboard or mouse for a Mac Pro. Keyboards and mice are not system specific and are highly interchangeable. Your Acer tablet may function without the dock, but the dock does not function without the tablet; it's a system dependent peripheral.

Next time you make an assumption that turns out to be wrong, I hope you'll accept some responsibility for it.

 

[ta152h]

What does "Since I never notebooks for repair with their hard drives, I spent time scrubbing my data." mean?

As if the whining about having to send the full unit in wasn't bad enough (anyone with any technical knowledge would know to send the complete system, instead of being miserly), but then bad English.

This was a really bad article.

 

[Bloob]

Not surprising, I have yet to buy anything Acer which works well. The products may just fill the exact function they are advertised to, but not a hair more.

 

[adgjlsfhk]

so pretty much what I got from this was that
a. this is a good tablet, much better than an ipad
b. it crashes if you try to do things that no ipad could ever do (full pc games)
c. customer service sucks

don't read the article, this has all the info

 

[mayankleoboy1]

The Google Octane benchmarks are completely bogus for IE10 VS Chrome on SB-E .

Chrome currently performs best in Octane. Nearly matched by Firefox. IE10 is nowhere near these two.
Either you took a busted Canary build, or there is something wrong with the test setup.
BTW, why are you testing a Canary build here ? Those are very unstable, and perf goes up and down.

Could you try the latest release Chrome and retest ?

 

[hons]

so pretty much what I got from this was that
a. this is a good tablet, much better than an ipad
b. it crashes if you try to do things that no ipad could ever do (full pc games)
c. customer service sucks

don't read the article, this has all the info

Plus -------- Acer needs him to pay the shipping charge!!!!!!!!

 

[xtremeways]

I agree, this was a bad article. Acer's customer service is widely known as crap. Nothing new there, but as someone in the IT field you should have already known this. Armed with this knowledge you should have done everything by the book and not assumed you could just send the dock. I rather had read one of those 20 picture articles than this one. Sorry dude.

 

[duckwithnukes]

Who is this guy? Why the rant? Very poor article.

 

[Onus]

I just don't get it. So many companies no longer understand, that service is everything. Niche consumers (e.g. do-it-yourself enthusiasts) may not need service, but they're a niche; a tiny percentage of the market. To everyone else, if the product isn't perfect, the service better be, or they'll find something else. Could this explain why so many people are willing to pay the "Apple Tax?"

 

[ojas]

I have performance numbers for an overclocked six-core PC in there just to remind everyone that the death of the desktop is still a premature proclamation.

I have a 9 year old 1.7 GHz Single core Pentium M that can prove the same. Sunspider (0.91) score running Chrome (v24) was 544.6 +/- 6%. 1GB DDR RAM, Windows XP, Intel IGP. Don't remember the clocks.

Sunspider's sensitive to IPC and clock speeds, doesn't seem to care much about core count, as the rest of my little test went like this:

Core i7-3517U @ 2.4 GHz + Turbo = 208
Core 2 Quad Q8400 @ 2.77 GHz = 210.3
Core 2 Duo P8600 @ 2.4 GHz = 262.4

All within a 2% error margin.

 

[ojas]

Forgot to mention, operating systems were:
Win 8
Win 7 HP
Mac OSX Snow Leopard

All x64.

 

[godfather666]

What the PC business really needs is a company with Apple-like customer service and build quality. Too bad all the players are in no position to pull that off.

 

[ojas]

Agree with your Win 8 eval, well, mostly.

Intel had sent me a Sony Vaio E14A and an XPS 12. Both touch enabled.

On the Sony, i only used metro to pass time (basically to try it out), otherwise i sat n the desktop...and to be honest, the additional $250 for a touchscreen didn't seem worth it. I did feel like poking at metro, so that's a win, probably, but the entire UI was so cut up...

You constantly had to juggle between both and...every time i'd want to click the start button, i'd freeze, remind myself what was going to happen, and then either avoid clicking or...well, click.

Charms are weird with the mouse. I finally figured why it's called the charms bar: you have to wave your cursor like a wand!

But yeah...it's just too cut up. Same for the XPS 12 in tablet mode. Had to keep going to the desktop for some odd thing, and touch is difficult there. There was also one time when the software keyboard didn't show up, i couldn't understand how to force it, so i had to resort to useing the old on-screen keyboard.

Did you notice how you can't reposition the text cursor by tap-and-holding? You have to use those arrow keys on the keyboard! WP8 is better, thankfully, though that lacks a file system and a decent music app (and a task manager, and a...)...

By biggest complaint with Dell ultrabooks is that they insist on blowing hot air into your lap. Total hybrid-ultrabook killer.

 

[ojas]

Forgot to add: the E14A was a pretty well built thing, except that touch + win 8 was unnecessary. Solid performer, though, beat the reference i7-960 in Cinebench 11.59 (1.31 single core, 5.85 multi-core).

Didn't break 72*C under prime95 (any test) for 10 mins, holding 2.93 to 3 GHz. A core i7-3632QM is mean.

Sad it had Windows 8, touchscreen. It's funny, last year Windows 7 was awesome but OEM bloat and general designs were sub-standard. This year the trend seems to be reversing...

Why can't we edit comments anymore?

And please don't bring the new comments section to these articles!

p.s. Forgot to mention, was a good insight to what's going on behind the scenes at Intel. The only other person except you (Chris) that has writes stuff like this is Anand Shimpi. Real World Tech's David Kanter seems to know a lot about stuff like this too. Of course i'm sure i'm missing a lot of people though!

p.p.s. I wish Intel and AMD would team up to crack mobile. Some sort of agreement that lets them split profits/market share, say 55-45 or something. Not happening, i know

 

[ojas]

[citation][nom]duckwithnukes[/nom]Who is this guy? Why the rant? Very poor article.[/citation]
Yeah not the assumption i'd make either (shipping the stuff separately), but you can't really say "who is this guy" on this article.

Unless you're new, in which case you're partially forgiven. Partially.

 

[vigliottec]

this article has some misinformation as well. this tablet does not cost $599.99. i bought it from Microcenter for $379.99

 

[bystander]

The only thing I disagree with in the evaluation of Windows 8, is the complaint about going to the desktop and Metro. The desktop is legacy support. It isn't really part of the Windows 8 experience, other than letting you use legacy software. It is not meant to be used in the future, with future apps. It should be looked at as a big plus, as it lets you use software that most new systems wouldn't.

 

[ddpruitt]

Sorry but this article is anything but. To quote XKCD "While the author's wildly swerving train of thought did at one point flirt with coherence, this brief encounter was more likely a chance event". Here's a quick breakdown of the problems:

1. Anything that can be done on a CISC instruction set can be done on a RISC instruction set, it just takes more instructions. Intel's microcode is RISC not CISC. Why? because it's a hell of a lot easier to optimize. It's clear Chris doesn't have a clue as to what this means or why this ties into ARM vs Intel x86
2. Intel didn't optimize their architecture for performance, they just move more of the work onto the CPU
3. Intel worked optimizing schedulers and hardware interfaces for x86, a laudable goal but the same optimizations can easily be applied to ARM
4. Aside from the Windows RT tablet the benchmarks are significantly different systems, not particularly useful
5. The rant is more of a service issue than a hardware issue, important yes but has no bearing on the article other than a broken keyboard

And most importantly
6. The title is misleading, there is no head to head against ARM or Apple. It's optimizations Intel has made to make things work better

 

[ojas]

[citation][nom]bystander[/nom]The only thing I disagree with in the evaluation of Windows 8, is the complaint about going to the desktop and Metro. The desktop is legacy support. It isn't really part of the Windows 8 experience, other than letting you use legacy software. It is not meant to be used in the future, with future apps. It should be looked at as a big plus, as it lets you use software that most new systems wouldn't.[/citation]
Legacy, huh?

 

[bystander]

[citation][nom]ojas[/nom]Legacy, huh?[/citation]
Yes, legacy support. Windows 8 programming is meant to be done in Metro, but the desktop supports old software that doesn't work in Metro.

Whether you prefer legacy software or not is up to you, but that doesn't change what it is.

 

[lunix]

I don't get the whining about an alleged user error in only sending the broken part. Yes, it's part of the package, that's the only reason you could come up with.

The broken part can be tested without the original pad.
The pad part is functional and sending it in steals productive time with the device, adding insult to injury in a way.
The broken part is not interchangeable with other models, but it's interchangeable with other tablets of this type and can be replaced separately.

I also think customer service is a factor when you buy a $600 device, and should be at least discussed in a review. Sure, knowing Acer you probably already know their service sucks, but if the service had been outstanding, it would have been a bonus for Acer. Fair's fair, you mention the good, the bad AND the ugly.

If you don't think service is important, then by all means rush to buy the tablet.

 

[loops]

I tend to hate reading about Apple when the unit is not an Apple unit. That said, Acer seems to have a systemic service problem that rules out a buy from me.

 

[ojas]

[citation][nom]bystander[/nom]Yes, legacy support. Windows 8 programming is meant to be done in Metro, but the desktop supports old software that doesn't work in Metro.Whether you prefer legacy software or not is up to you, but that doesn't change what it is.[/citation]
Yeah right. Way to buy into marketing.

16-bit programs are legacy. Not the desktop or non-metro programs. It's legacy for the Win 8 PR team pushing windows 8. Not for any other consumer OS out there, or consumers for that matter.

Let's just call it desktop and metro? apps and applications? Lets not pretend a mobile UI-oriented OS has reached the point of maturity where it's superior for all tasks?

Heck cmd.exe is still here because well, it had some advantages over the GUI. How many power users get their jobs done without interfacing with CLIs?

So yeah. I think i drifted a bit, but original point: Desktop isn't legacy except for marketing purposes.

 

[bystander]

[citation][nom]ojas[/nom]Yeah right. Way to buy into marketing.16-bit programs are legacy. Not the desktop or non-metro programs. It's legacy for the Win 8 PR team pushing windows 8. Not for any other consumer OS out there, or consumers for that matter.Let's just call it desktop and metro? apps and applications? Lets not pretend a mobile UI-oriented OS has reached the point of maturity where it's superior for all tasks?Heck cmd.exe is still here because well, it had some advantages over the GUI. How many power users get their jobs done without interfacing with CLIs?So yeah. I think i drifted a bit, but original point: Desktop isn't legacy except for marketing purposes.[/citation]
Legacy is just an example of old software. The old way. Yes, 16-bit is legacy software. Technically, 32-bit is legacy software, but it is done seamlessly in todays machines.

Metro is the way MS wants new software to be written for. They desire to have all future software to use Metro. They do not intend for us to ever use the desktop, except to access old style software. It is there so we can access it, as they do know most software currently runs there.