Acer W700 is it really that bad?

Hi all, hoping to benefit from your experiences with the Acer W700.

The W700 is looking like a competitively priced windows tablet acer are running a cashback deal until the end of november), so I'm thinking of getting one as a basic windows tablet.

Would you recommend the Acer W700 tablet?

I'm a little scared off by the:

- Wifi Issues (hopefully resolved by updates)

- Throttling - The Surface Pro deals with this better. (not a deal breaker for me as I won't be gaming)

- Windows 8.1 Compatability (users are having to turn of power savings to run correctly)

- Fan Noise

Is it really that bad?

I'm looking for a companion device (I've got a desktop replacement laptop too), to review or experiment with Visual Studio code on the sofa, or in bed, and the W700 seems like a good fit except for fan noise and also the above issues.

I could opt for the Surface Pro 1 - but its a couple of hunded pound more, the Surface Pro 2 another couple of hunderd. Or go for a cheaper Asus T100.

The Acer W700 sounds like a great match, but only if it actually works!

Accepted answers

All comments

RandyV

FWIW I have an i3 W700 and like it. If you are willing to do some fiddling with drivers and support here, I think it is an excellenet tablet. Windows 8.1 has been more stable than 8.0 for me, and while I did have to adjust the power management settings (put that under the 'fiddling' column) I get excellent performance and battery life.

If what you read about here on the forums doesn't worry you, go for it.

exscentric

I have the 700P and love it. Have had no problems with it as yet, though I have refrained from 8.1 for now due to the "fiddle factor" that I may tackle one of these days. I have not seen any compelling reason to update as yet. I updated a couple other 8 units and thus far haven't seen much to excite me over and above 8.

wmm

I also have the 700P. I never had the wifi problem, and I've never heard the fan (although I imagine it might be audible in a very quiet environment). I did have to tweak the processor low-power settings after upgrading to 8.1, but it doesn't seem to have affected my battery life. I don't use it for long periods on battery, so I can't provide a full-rundown time, but I used it recently for a full hour on the battery and the level only went down by 15% (88% to 73%). I'm very happy with it.

exscentric

As to fan, I hear mine now and then but only when the house is very quiet and normally only when the tablet is first turned on, Lenovo has a habit of running their fan at full on power up. I have a slimline that sounds like it is ready for take off then slows down.

I can feel the fan running now and then since it is warm air on my cold fingers in our cold house :-)

Battery wise, I'm guessing 5-6 hours when surfing/emailing etc. but I've never really timed it. Mine was a recertified and didn't do well at the beginning but has since taken full charges and lasts longer.

jason2234

i have a US i3 model which i'm very happy with. Ive had none of the problems of others, it just worked from day one.

i'm not happy with Acer for putting in a throttle and then making it basically impossible to remove it but it doesnt generally affect my day to day use of the device it only affects the odd game here and there that would benefit from the extra fps.

The tablet is very easy to open unlike the surface and i have changed the hdd for a 256gb hdd which has transformed its use. I would recommend the device but not the manufacturer at the moment. The screen is excellent.

The best thing i did was load windows 8.1 from scratch and i've not had a problem since.

How much are they going for at the moment?

Irrelevant

Many thanks for the feedback - I think I will take the plunge and pick up on i5 3317U based one.

Sounds like the tablet is pretty good, just requires a bit of fiddling to get it going - which I have not problem with at all.

I also really like the idea that these can be taken apart, allowing for battery or mSata replacement at a future date.

Amazon has the i5 3317U 128GB one going for £645 at the moment with £150 cashback from Acer, also with a possible £40 off for acer innovation bonus. This brings it down to either £495 or £455.

The i3 2665M is even cheaper starting at £538 also with £150 and possibly another £40 cashback bringing it down to £388 or £348. But the i3 has the older GPU, and only 64GB disk, so I think the extra £100 is probably worth it.

The i3 could work out cheaper than buying a new atom based Asus T100 in the UK - currently going at £369.

nevetseel

I have the W700 and was interested to read you upgraded your hard drive did you do this yourself and if so how hard was it. I only have the 64gb model so struggle with on board storage space.

I have invested in a usb 3 1 Tb hard drive just to ensure plenty of back up space.

THANKS

Irrelevant

I have seen somebody doing it on youtube.

Doesn't look for the faint hearted, but certainly is possible:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WkDrJq5cc8

nevetseel

Thanks I have seen this video and yes I agree ,whilst I am competant stripping computers this operation is just a bit too far.

ptrkhh

Are you the one who asked the same question on tabletpcreview? Smiley Very Happy

Here is my (same) answer (this might help other people in this forum too)

WiFi issue - Some early products are lemons, if you buy it now I think there will be no problem. However, the signal is not as good as other devices. I tested with several devices including VAIO S, Nokia 820, and Samsung S3. The W700 performs worse than them, but still acceptable.
Usually when the WiFi signal on other devices are still at 1, the W700 is disconnected already.

Throttling - Unless you game on this tablet or pushing this tablet to its limit, you wont notice it anyway.
The CPU never goes below throttled below 1.7 GHz but the GPU suffers from throttling.
The GPU performance result is similar to normal HD3000 laptop (tested with i5-2410M on VAIO S)

Windows 8.1 - works perfectly on my W700, although I performed clean install instead of upgrade
Fan Noise - Just a slight hum, you wont notice it unless you sit in a quiet room

With Haswell tablets around the corner, I would suggest you to wait for Haswell tablets. Acer itself is rumored to release an ultraHD tablet running Haswell.

If you use Core processor for your daily life, and you expect Atom to come close, then I would say Atom will disappoint you. Atom is perfect when you expect Android/iPad-like performance

For use in sofa, bear in mind that some W700 has neither laptop dock nor keyboard cover. Some W700 have Bluetooth keyboard integrated in the case, but that extremely thin keyboard could not replace real keyboard in my opinion.

I find the significant difference between Surface Pros and W700 are just Wacom capability and battery life.
If you prefer to have Wacom capability instead of long battery life, I suggest you to get the Surface Pro 1.
If you want both, theres no better choice than Surface Pro 2 (for now).

nevetseel

No I sm happy with my W700 the only draw back is the hard drive because I only got the 64gb model thetefore restricted to memory . Needless to say I have all the apps and programes I need and still have some free memory.The only time I struggle is when I have some films recirded then find a few more I want.I have invested in a 1Tb usb hard drive to solve the problem.

Irrelevant

Thanks for the response - and yes I posted on a few forums to try and get some feedback. ( i wasn't sure which one was the most active, looks like this forum got the most replies).

In the end I decided not to wait for Haswell devices but went for an i5 W700, 4GB RAM and 128GB mSATA drive.

Dell and Microsoft offer some nice Haswell tablets, but this is really just a bit of a xmas treat, so I was stuggling to justify their high prices. (I already have a powerful laptop, so this is just a companion device - to replace an aging iPad 1).

With Acer offering cashback against these now, the price is just too competitive. It works out only a little bit more than I would have to pay Asus for a T100 (which only has Atom CPU, 2GB RAM and 64GB RAM). My last option was going to be a Toshiba Encore 8 inch tablet - a bargain at £250, but I think a little bit small.

It should arrive tomorrow so I will post my findings.

Many thanks

ptrkhh

Congratulations on your purchase. Honestly, its an awesome device. Its battery life is comparable to Haswell tablets, which is unbelieveable for Ivy Bridge tablet. The screen and speaker are awesome for its class, definitely better than the Surface Pro 2 (yes, two), therefore making it a better multimedia tablet than the Surface Pro 2. The only shortcomings are no Wacom and no keyboard. The W700 with a bluetooth keyboard basically replaces my VAIO S as a laptop and my ICONIA A100 as a tablet. I dont have a reason to touch those devices now. Since it has Haswell-class battery life, I even have no reason to spend another $1000 on a brand new Haswell tablet.

Wow, You got a jaw-dropping deal on your W700, especially when I read that you get the 128 GB model. Where did you buy it?

Let us know when you need help with your W700.

Irrelevant

I've got my new W700 (in fact I'm typing this reply on it).

Seems like a great device, really like the keyboard and case. i Can't believe how sharp the screen is.

I've updated to Windows 8.1 and updated all my drivers, and everything seems fine.

i even gave Half Life 2 a quick go - I can't believe this thing runs it at 1080.

Unfortunately one of the speakers is loose or broken and making a nasty vibration, so i suspect this will be going back to amazon, and I will get a replacement. But pretty sure this is going to be a great ipad replacement.

the £250 was for the toshiba encore, the acer w700 wasnt quite that good a price.

i bought this from amazon for £640, but should get that down to £450 with the cashback deals acer are offering.

nevetseel

Read that you have installed win 8.1 had any problems with bluetooth keyboard.I tried it but couldnt get driver to work on keyboard so went back to 8.0.Also miss tile desktop on 8.1 having 2 desktops the same is not that useful.

ptrkhh

Works perfectly fine here. Im using a Perixx 804 bluetooth keyboard.

Try updating your driver, because my bluetooth mouse stuttered before the update, and it works fine now.

Here is the latest driver http://www.station-drivers.com/index.php/articles/563-qualcomm-atheros-wifi-version-10-0-0-270-bluetooth-8-0-1-308

Dont forget the standard procedure to uninstall the old driver:Remove all connected bluetooth devices from 'PC Settings', uninstall the drivers from 'Programs and Features', restart, open device manager, uninstall every bluetooth and wifi related drivers, restart.

Irrelevant

Just after I posted that message, the bluetooth keyboard went, and stated driver error when reconnecting.

I think this was due to me updating some of the drivers, but having not done the Qualcomm one.

However uninstalling and installing the latest Qualcomms allowed me to get it back.

I've also seem to have lost the option under 'Intel Dynamic Thermal Management' under power options, one of driver updates seem to loose it. (uninstall and installing doesn't seem to bring it back). But I resolved the Windows 8.1 laggyness by uninstalling 'Intel Dynamic Thermal Management'. Battery life seems excellent without it anyhow, but next time I shall record what steps I did (and make a few system restore points) next time.

Not much point me messing with this one much more as I'm going to return/replace because of the broken speaker.

Also the fan noise seems to have gone when idle, when I got it Fans where always on, now they are completely off. I think all the windows updates had been keeping the tablet busy.

deeperblue

I have found the fan noise also effects skype calls. The microphone picks up the fan noise so it sounds like its raining.

I have had my W700 tablet now for 5 months and I'm still very happy with it. When I updated to Windows 8.1 I had quite a few driver issues, especially the intermittent bluetooth driver issue. It was such a pain I reverted back to Windows 8. I eventually found a way to solve all my issues, by installing a fresh clean copy of Windows 8.1 (not an upgrade - see my other posts for how).

nevetseel

Think I'll stick with Win 8 have just done full Win 8 reinstal and everhthings working fine.Since getting 1Tb usb hardrive no problems with storage. Pain in the **** swapping content s of old hard drive to new one .

ptrkhh

I saw this in Acer drivers page: 'You must be install DPTF driver before install LPM'. I dont really know what that means, but it has something to do with the DPTF driver, which might help you.

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