With Windows 8 featuring a touch-friendly interface, we’ll see a fair amount of touchscreen laptops later this year and early next year. The key will be to minimize the tradeoffs between thickness, weight, battery life and cost when adding touchscreens to the mix.
Acer’s Aspire S7 series Ultrabooks will be available in 11.6- and 13.1-inch flavors, both with full 1080p HD multi-touch screens that fold open 180 degrees. And Acer is promising up to nine hours of battery life for the 11.6-inch model and up to 12 hours for the 13.1-inch model, while keeping the thickness of both models at around half an inch.
Here’s a video demo from The Verge:
[youtube=http://youtu.be/0hNVU5OIOxM]
No word on a firm release date, other than an expectation of sometime this fall when Windows 8 is due. Pricing will reportedly start at $1,000 and work its way upward.
More coverage:
- Acer Aspire S7 pictures and hands-on [Pocket-lint]
- Acer Aspire S7 Ultrabook Hands-On: Super Thin, HD Screens [Laptop]
- Acer introduces Aspire S7 Windows 8 touchscreen ultrabooks (hands-on video) [The Verge]
- Acer Aspire S7 touchscreen ultrabook hands-on [SlashGear]
- Acer announces Aspire S7 Ultrabook series with 11.6- and 13.3-inch touchscreens (update: hands-on!) [Engadget]