Acer has an awful support

They are all equally bad and we are all beta if not alpha testers. Is just part of life on the bleeding edge. Just be glad that Acer has no redacted anything yet. Earlier this year a major intro'ed a new 7" tablet with HDMI that would require a not yet available adapter. A few month later all references to HDMI were removed and replaced with "AllShare", something so limited that I would credit to Apple.

In general I give a vendor a chance to see how they treat customers. Please, do not blame the help desk people, they are all operating from scripts. I have often been able to warn them of things their employers are doing.

Frankly I am delighted with the W510, I consider it a game changer and coming in $100 less than an iPad with the same memory is brilliant.

Almost as much as my new toy, Android on a stick that just plugs into an HDMI connector on the back of a TV. Have already had several guests go nuts trying to figure out where the computer is. Now all we need is a touch screen overlay for flat panel TVs.

But back at Acer, the major problem I have had is getting the thing to boot from different media ( see previous postings on "Safe Boot". Now have my mind around the problem and suspect I know why you cannot turn UEFI off on a W510. It may be contactual but is probably physical.

Am reminded a bit about WORD macro viruses in the late century and Microsoft issuing a macro-based fix that turned out to be a tutorial on how to write a macro virus. Acer has already issued one or more firmware update packages (they actually seem to be a combo of BIOS and Windows drivers). Should be easy for a BIOS programmer (are a few left, is just 8086 code) to create a BIOS in "Legacy" mode that will boot anything. Anyything except the Acer recovery disks which terminate with an error if they do not find UEFI.

So meanwhile give it a day an we'll see what and if Acer has anything to say. Its been today for a while there.

Well some of us have a fairly wide audience. Normally I would not spend this much time on a new device but this is different, the first of what I see as a whole new breed (actually have been thinking about such a device since the last century) but here we are seeing a reall collision of technolgies.

Are really two markets these devices are going to define: corporate and automotive. For the average user, it is just a side benefit.

The question is whether Clover Trail (the 2760) is robust enough compared to an I5 just as will Medfield take over Smart Phones (I doubt it) ?

What the 2760 does is to provide long lived and light tablets and there are some trades which people here are seeing. I expect that When the i5 equivalent comes along next year the 2760 will be pushed down to 7" class devices which is going to emerge as dominent (hint: look at the double DIN form factor).

The really interesting point is that the W510 is being marketed by Microsoft since the Surface 8 Pro (I5) has been delayed. Think of the implications.

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/en_US/pd/ThemeID.27509700/Acer-Iconia-W5101674-Tablet/productID.258447300

What I am personally interested in is how easy it is to integrate TouchScan, Streets and Trips, and EZCap and run all simultaneously. Is why I really need a car charger cord even if I have to buy another power supply and build one.

The rest is play over the Christmas break.

Key is being able to break through the script desk to the real developers who are kept from contact with the outside world. Only question is what are they living on now that Twinkies were discontinued. Jolt alone is not enough.

I believe the W510 is doing exactly what Microsoft and Intel designed. If you consider that it is intended to run only Windows 8 then it is accomplishing that. It is us strange people who want it to do more that are stymied because it is not supposed to do more.

The fact is that after the IBM Technical manual that came out with PC-DOS 3.0 around 1986, manufacturers stopped publishing the BIOS code. After that we had to use the Phoenix BIOS book but there was no real change until now.

The UEFI is a game changer. Ostensibly it is for anti-virus but it also is handy if you want to limit what operating systems a machine can run. Now the specification (current is 2.3.1) tells us what the BIOS does but remember, the BIOS is just machine code in firmware. Further settings are just in the CMOS memory. Those who remember things like writing to Clock$ know how simple it is.

Some body is going to write a tool to dump the CMOS and since MSINFO32 can detect the BIOS mode it is likely to be there (or the modern equivalent, I haven't done BIOS programming in a while.

But all we really need to know is what certificates are in the UEFI. I suspect that at the moment there is only one, Microsoft's, though Acer may have one of their own. No big. Do hope they are at least 2048 bit SHA and not MD5 like some weak ones. These are interesting times.

ps just submitted a ticket to ask two things:

1) if the procedures in documents 26604 and 27045 do not work on a W510 and the elements in the BIOS cannot be changed how do we change the BIOS Mode from UEFI to Legacy ?

2) What certificates are in the UEFI store ?

Never received an answer to my earlier question, will see what happens with this one.

I know, evidently we are the Alpha testers. OTOH just a WAG but maybe the W510 is not an Acer design at all. Or maybe Acer provided the manufacturing and the form factor but not the programming. The mother board appears to be from HannStar, memory from Elpida, MMC from SanDisk. There is an Acer warrenty sticker but that is all. Makes you wonder who did the BIOS programming, my Asprire BIOSes do not look like this.

There is usually a signature at the TOM. Did just notice something odd, debug will invoke but the cursor never appears and is unresponsive. Is this something odd about mine or do other W510s act this way ?

Just go to search>apps and enter "debug", it should find "debug.exe" , when selected it executes & a DOS box will open but the cursor never appears. Anyone else have this happen ? I may need to use a different tool but it works just fine on my tower with Windows 8.  Debug.exe looks the same on both.