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Acer unveils the Aspire R7: A twisty, turny Windows 8 hybrid, on sale May 17 for $1000

Acer Aspire R7Check out our review of the Acer Aspire R7 hybrid all-in-one and tablet.

Acer has launched the Aspire R7 at a special event in New York, a gadget which is best described as a laptop/tablet/desktop convertible, which runs Windows 8. Introduced by Acer’s CEO JT Wang, who said touchscreen laptops are amazing, but can be rather awkward to use, it’s designed to give users the best of every popular form factor, without compromising usability.

For this reason, the design is very different to anything we’ve seen before. Made using an aluminum unibody construction, it folds down just like a laptop and the screen can be rotated to sit flat against the base like a convertible laptop; but the keyboard is where we’re used to seeing a trackpad – allowing the screen to stand up in the center of the base. It’s all done with a hinge Acer calls, “Ezel,”, and it brings the screen closer to you, making the touch aspect easier to use. Weirdly, there is a trackpad, but it has swapped places with the keyboard.

All this twisting and turning gives the Aspire R7 four possible configurations. Exel Mode has the screen at its closest to the user, enabling use of the touchscreen, keyboard and trackpad, and the screen can rest on the deck or float above it. Next is Notebook Mode, where the screen sits at the back of the base, just like a normal laptop.

Acer Aspire R7 Rear

Display Mode flips the screen around so the base acts like a stand, and the screen looks like a standalone monitor, which Acer says is great for watching videos. Finally, Pad Mode has the screen laying flat – or angled at a subtle four degrees – for using the R7 like a big tablet.

The complete spec list looks like this: It has a 15.6-inch, 1080p display, and is powered by an Intel Core i5 processor with 6GB of RAM. Inside is a 500GB hard drive backed up by a 24GB SSD, plus dotted around the chassis are three USB ports, an HDMI-out, and an SD card reader. Dolby Home Theater audio enhancements should make the most out of the four, 8-watt speakers, while Acer has placed dual microphones just beneath the space bar for optimum performance. Rounding out the specs is a full-size backlit keyboard, plus Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

The Aspire R7 will go on sale through Best Buy on May 17, and has been priced at $1000. Acer has noted there will be additional Aspire R7 models announced in the coming weeks, so if the spec of this one doesn’t quite meet with expectations, one that does may not be far away.

Acer Aspire R7
Acer Aspire R7 Front

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Andy Boxall
Senior Mobile Writer
Andy is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends, where he concentrates on mobile technology, a subject he has written about for…
Acer unveils $900 Aspire R7 Haswell-powered convertible notebook
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Check out our review of the Acer Aspire R7 laptop/tablet.
In case you're wondering, products launches that coincide with the start of the holiday shopping season are usually not a coincidence. 
Acer is adopting this strategy as well. It just revealed the Aspire R7-572-6423 convertible notebook, a Haswell-powered Windows 8.1 laptop that sports a 15.6-inch 1080p touchscreen, an Intel Core i5-4200U CPU, 8GB of RAM, a 1TB hard drive and a backlit keyboard. The Acer Aspire R7-572-6423's display sports a hinge that will allow you to flip the display back and use the laptop in tablet mode. 
There aren't any big surprises in terms of port selection, which include a trio of USB ports, HDMI, card reader as well as a converter port that supports VGA, Ethernet and USB adapters. The Acer Aspire R7-572-6423 is also WiDi capable. The dual speakers sport 8 watts of power each.
Though sold separately, Acer will also offer a stylus made by N-trig that will be compatible with apps included with the Aspire R7-572-6423. The stylus will run you $49.
The $899.99 Acer Aspire R7-572-6423 will be available exclusively from Best Buy starting in "early December."

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Acer’s Aspire V7 Ultrabook, Aspire V3 gaming notebook rock new Intel Haswell chips

Check out our review of Acer Aspire V7 laptop. 
Now that Intel's Haswell cat is out of the bag, manufacturers are announcing many of their new notebook lines this week at the Computex conference in Taipai, Taiwan. Having already announced Haswell updates to its S7 and S3 line of Ultrabooks earlier today, Acer is continuing with the updates, announcing details about its Aspire V7 Ultrabook and all new gaming notebook, the Aspire V3. Both laptops rock the fourth generation of Intel's Core i7 processor and offer discrete graphics, which is especially impressive for the V7 Ultrabook. 
Based on the specs, the Aspire V7-482PG-9884 is shaping up to be a powerhouse of an Ultrabook. In addition to an Intel Haswell Core i7-4500U processor, it has a discrete Nvidia GeForce GT750M graphics card with 4GB of video memory plus 12GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive. There's no solid-state drive, at least in this initial configuration, but other versions of the Aspire V7 will offer an SSD option.

The Aspire V7 is fairly similar looking to the Aspire V5 that the company showed at its May event in New York City, but the V7 features a 14-inch ten-finger touch IPS 1920 x 1080 HD display. All of this is packed into a 13.39-inch x 9.45-inch x 0.9-inch (at thickest point) package that weighs 4.41 pounds. While it's not the lightest Ultrabook we've seen, the Aspire V7 certainly packs a lot of tantalizing specs into its Cool Steel chassis. The V7 will start at $1,300.
Looking for a notebook with more gaming prowess? Acer's got you covered there, too, with its new 17-inch gaming rig, the Aspire V3-772G. While the base configuration starts at $1,000, we think the model available for $100 more, the Aspire V3-772G-9402 will be more interesting to gamers and multimedia fan. It features a quad-core, Haswell generation, Intel Core i7-4702MQ 2.2GHz processor that can clock up to 3.20GHz with TurboBoost. It's paired with an Nvidia GTX 760M discrete graphics card with 2GB of video memory, plus there's a 500GB hard drive and 8GB of RAM. A fully loaded configuration of the Aspire V3 will hold up to 12GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive. 

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Check out our full review of the Acer Aspire S7-392 ultrabook.
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One our favorite features of the original Aspire S3 was the inclusion of a discrete graphics card. It's still a rarity in Ultrabooks, so we're happy to see that Acer has included an Nvidia GeForce GT735M card on the refreshed model. In addition to the graphics card and the Intel Haswell processor, the Aspire S3 has an option for 1TB hard disk drive. While we haven't heard details on the inclusion of a solid-state drive, it's safe to assume that there will be a hybrid option just like there was on the previous model. 
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