Acer Switch 3

Hybrid tablet PCs are the kings of the laptop world right now. They're flexible, they're extremely easy to travel with, and they're popular – with Microsoft's Surface Pro leading the charge. But, it's far from the only horse in town; below it sits the Lenovo Yoga series, the Asus Transformer line, and many budget badged devices, like the Linx 12X64.

Acer were early trendsetters in the hybrid market with the Aspire One, and previous Switch hybrid laptops have been impressive.

The Switch 3 is priced to land somewhere in the lower end of the market, so you could be forgiven for expecting it to pale in comparison to the competition – but you’d certainly be wrong – this is a machine with features and build quality strong enough to stand up to the Surface Pro, even if it compromises a little bit as far as power is concerned. And that's why it has ranked highly in our best laptop list.

And, with Black Friday peeking its head out from around the corner, the Switch 3 stands to become even more of a value proposition when those deals start rolling in.

Price and availability

The Acer Switch 3 came out alongside the Core-toting Switch 5 which is available for about $799(around £600, AU$1,050) , though at only $439 (around £450, AU$560) this is a far more wallet-friendly choice. 

The Pentium architecture means it's pricier than Atom-based competitors, like the similarly-specced Lenovo Miix, but not by much, and the performance increase is significant.

You won't struggle to get hold of one, though it appears Acer is staggering the release; it's currently available in the US, and recently launched in the UK. Like the Switch 12 before it, it could take quite a lot of time for it to show up in Australian stores.

Design

Once you get this hybrid in your hands, one thing becomes immediately clear: Acer's engineers have done a wonderful engineering job. It's weighty, it's solid, and it's built extremely well. The unit feels as if it's been made of quality components and materials, and it definitely feels like it won’t fall apart the second you knock it on something.

Even the included keyboard cover, clad in a sturdy matte fabric which won't stay pretty for long, has a firmness to it that you wouldn't expect at this price point. It attaches via the usual magnetic strip you'll see on other hybrids, with another hinged magnet that attaches to the bottom edge of the screen and angles the keys while you're typing.

Acer's choice of screen, an extremely colorful 1,920 x 1,200 IPS panel, has competent viewing angles and, at 12.2-inches corner-to-corner, impressive pixel density. Its bezels are noticeable but inoffensive. You might even say they're useful, considering the keyboard riser.

Angles

Much of the Switch 3's strength comes from the rigid metal frame running around its edge, which extends into a u-shaped stand, technically adjustable to just about any angle. Technically.

Deeper angles reduce the resistance — damn those pesky laws of physics and leverage – and without any notching or locking, you're pretty much stuck to the full 165 degrees if you're laying it flat for drawing. We found this completely acceptable, but your personal tablet tastes may vary.

The design genius is continued inside the shell. For a device that is entirely passively cooled, the Switch 3 doesn't ever seem to get unbearably hot, even when the Pentium N4200 hits boost mode and pulls its full 2.5GHz.

While that Pentium architecture gives the Switch 3 a slightly thicker profile than typically slender Atom-based devices – and adds a chunk to the price – it’s not that hard to see why it’s totally worth it.

You're not going to be gaming on this device, but for everything else it never feels as if it's lacking power. Web browsing is fast, general Windows operation typically snappy, and screen drawing about as lag-free as it could possibly be.

There's nothing outstanding and nothing in our benchmarks, bar the PCMark battery life test, that's particularly disappointing. Under light load, like our movie test, the Switch 3 performs nicely.

In this machine the benchmarks really don't tell the story, though. If you buy a sub-$500 tablet and expect it to be a performance powerhouse, you've badly misjudged the machine you were looking for. 

Middling performance that's slick enough to impress for the price, though? That's a win, and the Switch 3 never feels close to sluggish.

Digitiser

The Switch 3's consistent speed and syrupy slickness means the Switch 3's active digitiser and pressure-sensitive pen is particularly useable, particularly once you've switched on Windows 10's 'ignore touch input when you're using the pen' setting to skirt around some iffy palm rejection.

We tested Windows' own Ink collection and more intense software like Clip Studio, and there was negligible lag; while there's no angle sensing going on, and we'd suspect this wouldn't play nice with heavier art packages, this could be the best choice around for the sketcher on a budget.

We liked

In short, this is brilliantly constructed tablet that's a joy to use. The added flexibility of an active stylus, decent performance, and its sturdy build quality mean the Acer Switch 3 is far better than its price would suggest.

We disliked

It's not without its flaws. That finicky hinge, the less-than-stellar battery, and the lack of capability next to the Surface Pro might make you look the other way – particularly if you have enough funds to invest in something heftier.

Final verdict

Yes, there are problems. But they're small ones. For us, and for many of you, the Switch 3 is going to do precisely enough to warrant a purchase, particularly considering that it's half the price of its key competitor. This may not turn the tablet market on its head, but it's absolutely changed our view of it.

from TechRadar: Technology reviews http://ift.tt/2uWcDk8