The Acer Aspire Switch 10 E (pricing starts at AED 1,299) is a full-featured, detachable-hybrid Windows tablet for people who just can't bear to be without a hardware keyboard. And the keyboard dock adds much needed storage so you don't have to leave your music, photos, and videos behind when you travel.
Starting at just AED 1,299, you know this 10.1-inch tablet isn't going to be a speed demon, but it has enough extra features to unseat many of the popular detachable-hybrid tablets out there on the market.
When docked to its keyboard, the Switch 10 E looks like a compact laptop. The polycarbonate top and bottom lids are textured for a better grip, and the keyboard deck and screen bezel have a matte-black finish. The tablet weighs 650-gms by itself, and a little more than 1.27-kgs with the keyboard dock attached.
The tablet measures 7.1 by 10.31 by 0.43 inches (HWD) alone, and increases to about an inch thick when you add the keyboard. The tablet is a bit top heavy, so if you open it all the way to the hinge's limit, it may tip over. That said, its balance is better than its predecessor.
Like the Acer Aspire Switch 10, the Switch 10 E has a magnetic latch. You can lift the Switch 10 E by its screen, and the sturdy magnetic latch won't disengage. You need to pull on both the screen and the keyboard to detach the two.
You can also attach the tablet to the keyboard with the screen facing in the opposite direction, allowing you to view videos on the tablet with the keyboard out of sight. The system's modes include the traditional Notebook mode, Tablet mode (either with the tablet detached or backed by the closed keyboard), Tent mode, and Display mode.
At 1,280 by 800, the 10.1-inch screen's resolution is lower than some of the other tablets we've reviewed. And it has a 16:10 aspect ratio, as opposed to 16:9 for 1,366 by 768. That means webpages and Office documents will display more information when the tablet is held in Landscape orientation, but 16:9 videos will have black bars above and below the picture. You're unlikely to notice the difference in casual use, though.
The Gorilla-Glass-covered In-Plane Switching (IPS) panel is very crisp, with good viewing angles and a responsive 10-point touch system. Acer includes a BluelightShield mode, which shifts on-screen colours from blue to yellow, to ease eyestrain. There's also an Extra-Contrast mode for when you use the system outside or in a sunlit room.
Given its price, the Switch 10 E's other features are understandably light. There's only 2GB of memory and a 32-bit version of Windows 8.1 with Bing. The tablet will start to slow down if you keep a lot of browser tabs open or if you try to edit a lot of photos simultaneously, but most Office and day-to-day programs should run just fine, and as we saw in our testing, the Switch 10 E proves itself perfectly capable compared with other tablets.
The tablet and keyboard together provide ample storage. There's a 32GB solid-state drive (SSD) in the tablet that acts as its boot drive, along with an extra 500GB, 5,400rpm SATA hard drive in the keyboard dock. This is an improvement over other detachable tablets.
Acer's SwitchLock utility locks the hard drive automatically when you undock the tablet. That secures the hard drive, even if you lose the docking keyboard, or if the hard drive mechanism is removed from the keyboard.
Connectivity is solid, with some caveats. The tablet uses a micro-USB 2.0 connector for charging, and there is a USB 2.0 port on the keyboard dock for mice and hard drives. Neither one is a full-speed USB 3.0 port, so any file transfers will take some time. The tablet portion has a micro-HDMI port, so you'll need an adapter to connect the tablet to an HDTV and a microSD card slot.
In testing, we found that transferring files via microSD card was much faster than with the USB 2.0 port. Integrated 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 handle wireless connections. You can free up some storage space on the SSD by deleting the pre-installed programs.
The Switch 10 E comes with a quad-core Intel Atom Z3735F with Intel HD Graphics. The processor isn't as advanced as the Intel Atom x7, but it is certainly fast enough for day-to-day tasks. The system scored a respectable 1,462 points on the PCMark 8 Work Conventional test, which is on par with other Windows-based tablets we have tested.
The system's 32-bit operating system and 2GB of memory prevent it from running the CineBench and Adobe Photoshop CS6 tests, but it was able to complete the Handbrake test in a relatively leisurely time of 9 minutes 10 seconds. 3D gaming scores were in the single digits, like other tablets in the category. It's best to stick to browser-based games on this tablet.
Battery life is where the Switch 10 E shines, lasting an impressive 9 hours on our rundown test. That's more than enough juice to keep your kids occupied on a long drive or flight.
With its long-lasting battery power, more storage than its rivals, and the extra versatility you get with a keyboard dock, the Acer Aspire Switch 10 E a winning entry-level tablet. The Acer Aspire Switch 10 E's lower price, longer battery life, and 500GB of additional hard drive storage make it a good buy.
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