GEAR
REVIEW
Acer Iconia A1
With the A1 a solid mid-range tablet enters the market.
What does Acer offer with this Iconia?
The tablet race is far from
over and a number of new
devices are entering the
market to compete at a
different price-points. The
Acer Iconia A1 comes in
at just below R4 000 for a
7.9" unit. These 8" or below
tablets seem to have hit
the sweet spot, offering a
device large enough for
easy browsing, gaming
and reading, but small
enough to handle with
one hand. The Acer A1 is
no different, providing an
11.1 mm thick unit that
does pretty much what is
expected of it.
All onboard
For many, Apple’s
excellent iPad mini has
become the standard for sub 8" tablets.
The A1 is not as sleek as the mini, with its mostly plastic design not
winning any awards in the look and feel department. It does share
the same screen size and resolution as Apple’s small one (768 x
1024, a so-so 162 ppi) while offering good viewing angles thanks to
IPS technology. Although we watched movies on the device it could
definitely have delivered louder audio quality. Onboard is a MediaTek
(MTK 8125) quad-core processor running at 1.2 GHz per core, while
making use of 1 GB of RAM. It keeps things flowing smoothly, with
the device delivering decent performance across the board.
Two nice features that might find appeal are Touch WakeApp and an
interesting photo display option. Touch WakeApp allows you to wake
up your A1 from
sleep directly into
The Acer Iconia A1 offers a solid
your favourite app
mid-range option in an increasingly by pressing either
five fingers or two
crowded 8" tablet space.
thumbs on the
screen. You can also use your A1 as a digital photo frame, since it
can be set to display photos when it is charging (stand not included).
To the point
The Acer Iconia A1 offers a solid mid-range option in an increasingly
crowded 8" tablet space. This quad-core unit gets the job done
in most cases, although we would have loved a bit of metal in the
design and better quality speakers. For R4 000 for the 16 GB version
without 3G it competes directly against the iPad mini, which will make
life very tough for the A1. [MJ]
*The A1 was received as a seeding unit.
22
Dell
Inspiron 14z
It has been a while since a small to medium sized
ultrabook has landed on our desk for review, but Dell’s
14z is just that, along with a few surprising inclusions.
To start with, the 14" ultrabook is actually lighter than it looks at 1.87
kg, if a bit heavier than the excellent Dell XPS 13 (1.3 kg), which
impressed us no end when ultrabooks first become de rigueur.
This one though, was also well built and attractively designed,
combining black, silver and a gunmetal gray aesthetic to create a
chassis that is both modern and smart looking. While solid hinges
held the screen firmly in place, the notebook’s base felt similarly
sturdy to the touch and proved free of creaking; the screen, however, did exhibit some flex under pressure.
Sweet spots
We have long suspected that as with tablets, there is a size sweet
spot for notebooks for those who intend it occupying their lap
for long periods of time. To our minds, as the 14z confirmed, 14"
seems to claim this honour.
The Inspiron 14z turned out to be quite an all-rounder
with regards to usage.
Moving on though, proportions and design aren’t the only things
we found to like about the notebook. Its non-touchscreen was also
bright (400 nits) and offered rich, saturated colours, although its
resolution was a par
for the course 1366
x 768. We certainly
didn’t lament the
touchscreen’s absence,
considering that we
actually use Windows
8’s touch rarely. Alas, its
viewing angles didn’t fare
quite so well. That being said,
on our review unit we did find
an AMD Radeon HD 7570M
catering to gaming,
along
with a DVD
drive which is not
common on ultrabooks.
This also accompanied other
noteworthy upper-midrange specs, including the ever faithful Core
i5 (3317U) CPU, clocking in at 1.7 GHz, and a nice, above average
dollop of 6 GB memory.
Final analysis
Not surprisingly, these delivered very good performance across the
board, with the Inspiron 14z turning out to be quite an all-rounder
with regards to usage. In short, the Inspiron 14z is certainly a
capable and competent Windows 8 ultrabook. It has a RRP of
R11 000. [RN]
October 2013 | TechSmart