At the IFA 2014 tradeshow, Acer has just shown off the Acer R 13, R 14, and the Switch 11 series. These are all Windows powered, touch-centric laptops that will be available this fall.
R 13
The design of this laptop is a bit eccentric. The screen can pivot inside its casing, so that when you close the lid, you can end with the screen facing up, covering the keyboard. This model for touch laptops has been popular for quite some time, especially with Dell. It is nice for things like taking notes on your desk. You can also position the screen in a variety of other ways, some that are hard to describe – I’ll let Acer show you in the video below.
The R 13 comes with a 1920 x 1080 screen, upgradable to 2560 x 1440, an optional digitizer, i5 or i7 Intel processors, up to 1 TB hard drive, and up to 8 GM of Ram. Battery life for the 1920 x 1080 display is estimated at 8 hours. This model is planned to be released in October, starting at $900.
R 14
The R 14 is pretty much the Yoga. Imagine a laptop with a screen that you can tilt back … all the way until it hits the backside of your keyboard. The hinges provide 360 degree movement, and you can use the laptop in a display, tent and pad mode. You can view Acer’s video below.
Specs wise there is more flexibility. You can get a Pentium processor, or an i3, i5, or i7, there is an optional NVIDIA GeForece 820M graphics card (very surprising where most convertibles merely have integrated graphics), up to 1 TB storage, and up to 12 GB of RAM. It will be available in October also, starting at $600 (although that won’t have the goody’s that you’re probably thinking about after reading those specs).
Switch 11
Last but not least is the Switch 11. This is an 11.6 inch hybrid. You can detach the screen from the keyboard and position it in various ways. You can watch Acer explain it below.
You can get a lower powered Atom processor or an i5. The Atom model comes with a 1366 x 768 display, 2 GB RAM, 64GB storage. The i5 model comes with a 1920 x 1080 display, 4GB RAM, and 128 GB of storage. It will be available in October as well, starting at $400.
