| Acer Iconia 6120 Dual-Screen Laptop |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Notebook | Compact PC | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Written by David Ramsey | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wednesday, 27 April 2011 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Acer Iconia 6120 Notebook Review
Manufacturer: Acer Full Disclosure: The product used in this article was self-supplied and purchased by the author. We've seen little innovation in laptop design in the last few years. Most companies seem to think that using a brushed aluminum finish or adding Intel's latest mobile CPU is all they need to do to freshen a product line. Still, Acer's not the first company to introduce a laptop with dual screens; the short-lived Toshiba Libretto W100 comes to mind, and gScreen Corporation's Spacebook has been touted since 2009, although it's still not available at the time of this writing. The Acer Iconia 6120, though, is a computer you can buy right now. Its dual screens offer new capabilities but come with some drawbacks as well. Benchmark Reviews takes a look at this unique laptop to see if it's worth your consideration. Laptop computers started outselling desktops around the middle of 2005, and while tablet computers are now the fastest-growing hardware segment, there are times when only a real keyboard will do. The average laptop (not netbook) computer sells for well under $1,000.00, and companies like Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and others offer dozens of models to choose from in this price range. The Acer Iconia 6120, at $1,200.00, is significantly more expensive than most while coming in under machines like Apple's Macbook Pro line or the higher end of HP's Envy series. This price gets you a well-equipped machine with two 14" displays, one where a keyboard and trackpad would be on a "normal" computer.
The main question you might have about the Iconia is "What does the extra screen buy you functionally?" Acer has several answers for you, and I'll cover them in this review. Iconia 6120 Features
Closer Look: Acer IconiaThe Iconia's box isn't big on specifications or other useful information. Instead, you're presented with flowing images of Acer's "Acer Ring" software and its associated touch-based applications.
Included with the computer are a manual, the power supply, an optional filter for the power supply (noisy AC lines can apparently cause problems with the computer's touch screens if you use the computer while it's connected to AC), a tiny USB card reader, and a multi-language "Quick Guide". The USB card reader can handle Memory Sticks, SD and micro-SD cards, as well as "M2" Memory Stick Micro cards. As with most Windows laptops, there are no recovery disks, although Acer has a recovery partition on the hard disk and includes a utility to burn the 5 recovery DVDs you'll need if your hard disk dies. The absence of recovery disks is especially annoying considering that the incremental price increase would be well under $5, and you'll need an external DVD burner to make your own. On a $350 netbook, the lack of recovery disks is perhaps understandable, but on a $1,200 premium laptop, it's not.
The Iconia 6120 itself is a largish slab rendered in aluminum and black plastic. The "Intel Inside" and "Microsoft Windows" logos near the hinge are silk-screened onto the case, rather than being removable stickers. Since the Iconia's special drivers and software only exist for Windows, this is understandable. Notice the rubber strip across the top edge of the screen.
Opening the screen reveals what's different about this laptop: instead of a keyboard and trackpad on the lower half of the case, there's...another 14" screen. Both screens are multi-touch enabled, have a resolution of 1366x768 pixels, and are sheathed in Dow Corning "Gorilla Glass" with an oleophobic coating that makes it easy to wipe your greasy fingerprints off.
On the left side of the computer are the "keyboard button" on the edge of the hinge, the power supply plug, ventilation holes for the internal fan, an HDMI port, and two USB 2.0 ports. Pressing the keyboard button once invokes the virtual keyboard on the bottom display. Pressing it twice quickly is equivalent to CTRL-ALT-DELETE.
The right side of the computer has microphone and headphone jacks, a Superspeed USB 3.0 port, a slot for a Kensington security lock, an analog VGA port, a gigabit Ethernet port, and the power button mounted on the edge of the hinge. If you think you've missed something in looking at this computer, you're right: despite its size and weight, there is no optical drive.
Let's examine the Acer Iconia more closely in the next section. Iconia 6120 Detailed FeaturesThe power button's surrounded by a thin blue glow when the computer is on, and, although it's hard to see in this view, there's also a small blue light just to the right of the power switch icon on the front of the metal part of the hinge. The Acer Iconia automatically goes to sleep when you close the lid, but you'll have to press this button to wake it up...just opening the lid again won't do it.
The bottom of the Iconia 6120 is an aluminum plate with two rubber feet (two more feet are mounted on the bottom of the hinge assembly) and a number of ventilation holes. The front feet are latches that slide inward to release the bottom panel.
With the bottom panel removed, we can see the 640GB, 5400-RPM Western Digital hard drive at the upper left, and two 2G SO-DIMMs. To the right of the DIMMs is the CMOS battery. Upgrading the hard disk and memory is easy, but you'll see no visible trace of the 3000mAh main battery. Presumably it's underneath all the stuff we do see. It's certainly not user-replaceable.
The 180-degree hinge allows you to lay the computer out flat (but that's as far as you can go: you can't fold the screens back-to-back). The rubber ridge on the upper edge of the top display serves as a cushion to support the lid. Although this image makes the lower section of the laptop (at the right side) appear to be hovering above the surface it's resting on, it's actually supported by the four rubber feet on the bottom panel.
You can use the lower display of the Iconia 6120 in two ways: first, as an input device. The image below shows the virtual keyboard with its virtual trackpad, but there are other options I'll cover later in this review.
Second, you can extend the Windows desktop across both displays. Windows "sees" the dual screens as two 1366x768 monitors arranged vertically. In this mode you can enter text with an external USB keyboard or use Windows' keyboard widget. The image below shows Firefox 4 extended across both displays. Note that the Windows task bar is still visible at the bottom of the top display.
But what advantages does this arrangement really bring? Acer provides a lot of software to explore the possibilities. First, though, we have the obligatory performance tests. Performance Testing and ResultsNobody (except gamers) buys laptops for performance. Laptop users typically value portability and size over performance, so laptop manufacturers try to optimize these characteristics within the limited power envelope provided by batteries. The Iconia 6120 starts out with a severe disadvantage power-wise since its extra 14" screen means that it will suck a lot more power than a "normal" 14" laptop. Still, performance counts for something, as disillusioned users of low-end netbooks discovered once the thrill of the low price wore off. Benchmark Reviews doesn't test many laptop computers, so I had no equivalent modern laptops to compare the Iconia's performance to. For this comparison I used an ASUS Eee PC 1201N netbook, which has a Hyper-Threading capable dual-core Atom 330 processor running at 1.6gHz and first-generation NVIDIA ION graphics. Compared to the 2.66gHz Core i5 480M and recent-generation Intel HD Integrated Graphics in the Acer Iconia, you might think the netbook would be thoroughly outclassed...but then again, you might be surprised. Acer Iconia 6120 Test System
ASUS Eee PC 1201N Test System
ResultsMany people use a laptop as their main system these days; as I noted previously, laptop computers started outselling desktops in 2005. Either of these machines is easily "fast enough" for most non-gaming daily use: web browsing, e-mail, word processing, and even moderate spreadsheet work. As someone who collects some of the old-style desktop systems I started my programming career on in the 70s and 80s, I can say that even the humble ASUS netbook is literally thousands of times faster than the machines we had back then. Of course, we're asking them to do a lot more, too, even in simple stuff like the user interface. Windows 7's "Aero" theme with its live window dragging, translucency, and animation effects requires graphics horsepower undreamed of a couple of decades ago. But by modern standards, these simply aren't very fast computers. That said, while either is adequate (and both handle Windows Aero just fine), the Acer Iconia feels much faster than the Eee PC, except when doing disk I/O, where its sluggish 5400RPM hard disk really holds it back. The ASUS Eee PC netbook didn't come with an SSD, but I'd installed one after I bought it, and the result is that in launching programs it's way faster than the Iconia. At Benchmark Reviews, we've long said that adding an SSD will give your computer the single biggest performance boost of any accessory. Fortunately, the Iconia's design makes adding an SSD much easier than on the ASUS, which requires near-total disassembly of the chassis. Only one of the benchmarks I ran considered HDD speed at all, so most of the results should be representative of a stock ASUS 1201N. CINEBENCH R11.5Maxon CINEBENCH is a real-world test suite that assesses the computer's performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on Maxon's award-winning animation software, Cinema 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. Maxon software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia, and many more. CINEBENCH Release 11.5 includes the ability to more accurately test the industry's latest hardware, including systems with up to 64 processor threads, and the testing environment better reflects the expectations of today's production demands. A more streamlined interface makes testing systems and reading results incredibly straightforward. The CINEBENCH R11.5 test scenario comprises three tests: an OpenGL-based test that models a simple car chase, and single-core and multi-core versions of a CPU-bound computation using all of a system's processing power to render a photo-realistic 3D scene, "No Keyframes", the viral animation by AixSponza. This scene makes use of various algorithms to stress all available processor cores, and all the rendering is performed by the CPU: the graphics card is not involved except as a display device. The multi-core version of the rendering benchmark uses as many cores as the processor has, including the "virtual cores" in processors that support Hyper-Threading. The resulting "CineMark" is a dimensionless number only useful for comparisons with results generated from the same version of CINEBENCH. That said, running CINEBENCH on laptops like this is almost cruel, and the results show why.
The Iconia manages a feeble 1.27 frames per second on the OpenGL test. The ASUS' ION graphics subsystem performs more than three times as fast, managing almost four frames per second! The software rendering results are similarly low, although looking back at previous Benchmark Reviews processor tests I see that the Iconia's Core i5 480M is reasonably close to the Core i7 920 (0.85 vs. 0.96) in the single-core tests, although it lags far behind in the multi-core tests. Here we can also see that the Atom processor is in no way a competitor with any of Intel's other mobile or desktop processors. Then again, it does use only 2.2 watts of power, whereas the Core i5 480M uses 35 watts. Street Fighter IVThe picture doesn't improve much with Street Fighter IV. In my testing of the Fast Enough Budget Computer, using a low-end AMD Athlon X2 processor and a Radeon 6850 video card, I got 1680x1050 frame rates well over a hundred frames per second. However, at a lower resolution of 1366x768, the best the Iconia could manage was 14 frames per second, while the ASUS 1201N turned in 18 frames per second. Normally, Street Fighter IV favors processor horsepower, but the ION's advantage over Intel's HD Graphics is just too much, giving the win to the netbook. In the Fast Enough Budget Computer article, I said your netbook would probably make a perfectly adequate Street Fighter IV machine. I was wrong.
I'll continue performance testing in the next section. Performance Testing ContinuedPCMark VantageI admit to being conflicted about PCMark Vantage: it's a widely-used and respected test suite that exercises every part of your system, but the choices Futuremark made when weighing the different system components for each test (shown below) sometimes seem a little strange. For example, note how gaming test #2 weighs hard disk performance for 100% of the score. In fact, according to PCMark Vantage the video card only impacts 23% of the total gaming score, but the CPU represents 37% of the final score. As our tests have already proven many times, gaming performance has a lot more to do with the GPU than the CPU, and especially more than the hard drive or SSD (which is worth 38% of the final gaming performance score). TV and Movies Suite
Gaming Suite*
Music Suite
There's no surprise here, really: the much more powerful Iconia trounces the ASUS netbook, although the latter's ION-based graphics subsystem and SSD allow it to almost equal the Iconia in the gaming suite. The Iconia's much more powerful processor dominates in the TV & Movies and Music suites. PassMark PerformanceTest 7.0The PassMark PerformanceTest allows you to objectively benchmark a PC using a variety of different speed tests and compare the results to other computers. PassMark comprises a complete suite of tests for your computer, including CPU tests, 2D and 3D graphics tests, disk tests, memory tests, and even tests to determine the speed of your system's optical drive. PassMark tests support Hyper-Threading and systems with multiple CPUs, and allow you to save benchmark results to disk (or to export them to HTML, text, GIF, and BMP formats). Knowledgeable users can use the Advanced Testing section to alter the parameters for the disk, network, graphics, multitasking, and memory tests, and created individual, customized testing suites. But for this review I used only the built-in CPU, 2D graphics, and 3D graphics tests (with the graphics tests set to their defaults). PassMark computes a composite score based on the scores of the individual tests:
Again, the Iconia shows its sheer CPU muscle compared to an Atom-based system, with a score that's 4.5 times higher than the ASUS 1201N. The graphics scores seem closer visually, but the Iconia's 2D score is 3 times higher and its 3D score is 3.7 times higher. Although the graphics tests were run at their (very low) default settings, portions of the 3D graphics tests were very jerky, with frame rates below 10fps. AIDA64 Extreme Edition TestsAIDA64 Extreme Edition is the evolution of Lavalys' "Everest Ultimate Edition". Hungarian developer FinalWire acquired the rights to Everest in late November 2010, and renamed the product "AIDA64". The Everest product was discontinued and FinalWire is offering 1-year license keys to those with active Everest keys. AIDA64 is a full 64-bit benchmark and test suite utilizing MMX, 3DNow! and SSE instruction set extensions, and will scale up to 32 processor cores. An enhanced 64-bit System Stability Test module is also available to stress the whole system to its limits. For legacy processors all benchmarks and the System Stability Test are available in 32-bit versions as well. Additionally, AIDA64 adds new hardware to its database, including 300 solid-state drives. On top of the usual ATA auto-detect information the new SSD database enables AIDA64 to display flash memory type, controller model, physical dimensions, and data transfer performance data. AIDA64 v1.00 also implements SSD-specific SMART disk health information for Indilinx, Intel, JMicron, Samsung, and SandForce controllers. All of the benchmarks used in this test- Queen, Photoworxx, ZLib, hash, and AES- rely on basic x86 instructions, and consume very little system memory while also being aware of Hyper-Threading, multi-processors, and multi-core processors. Of all the tests in this review, AIDA64 is the one that best isolates the processor's performance from the rest of the system. While this is useful in that it more directly compares processor performance, readers should remember that virtually no "real world" programs will mirror these results.
And the trouncing of the ASUS EeePC 1201N is complete. The closest the Atom-powered netbook comes to the Iconia is the Queen test, where it's 48% as fast. Text InputThe Acer Iconia 6120's signature feature is the second screen where a keyboard would be on a normal laptop. The virtual keyboard is very good, certainly one of the best I've ever used, but there's no getting away from the fact that you're typing on a piece of glass, with no tactile feedback at all. The meanest, cheapest $5 throw-away keyboard at your local office supply store is infinitely better. That being the case, Acer does their best to make a case for why you should put up with this. First, I'll cover the input system. Virtual KeyboardYou have four ways to enter text on the Iconia 6120; each method has its advantages and disadvantages:
You invoke the Acer virtual keyboard either by pressing the keyboard button in the left hinge, or (and this is much cooler, especially if you're showing the computer to someone) by simply placing your hands on the lower screen in a typing position, letting all 10 fingers rest on the glass at the same time.
As you can see from the image above, the virtual keyboard and track pad occupy the entire lower screen. This means the key size and key spacing are the same as a "real" keyboard, which makes it easier to type on. Only the function keys are shrunk to make room for some extra controls at the top of the keyboard. At the upper left are controls for switching between the virtual keyboard and the handwriting input panel, enabling and disabling the track pad and the T9 predictive text feature, and opening the keyboard control panel. At the upper right are media playback controls and the keyboard close button (a large "X"). With a touch-sensitive keyboard, Acer had to deal with the problem of parts of your hand resting on the glass. You don't want this to enter characters you didn't type! Their solution is to only register a keystroke when you stop touching a key, and only if less than a certain amount of time has elapsed. If you touch a key too long, removing your finger doesn't cause a character to be typed. This works well but lends a certain, subtle cognitive dissonance to using the keyboard: the key click sound is played when you touch a key, but the character isn't entered until you stop touching a key. I found the disconnect between the time of the sound and the time when the character appeared to be slightly unnerving, but it's something you can get used to. After a few days' experience, I can type on the Iconia's virtual keyboard about 70 percent as fast, overall, as I can on a physical keyboard. In fact, much of this review was typed directly on the Iconia. Note, though, that the virtual keyboard is useless for many games. For example, although Valve's "Portal" plays well enough, you can't move your character with the WASD keys, since holding down a key doesn't register as it does with a physical keyboard. And a physical keyboard is the only workaround for this. The virtual trackpad below the keyboard works as you'd expect, with left and right buttons and a dedicated scroll area at its right edge. Although Acer claims that mouse motions started inside the touchpad area will be continued if your finger drags outside the touchpad area, this didn't work for me: the mouse cursor simply stopped after I hit the edge of the touch pad. This is harder to deal with since the lack of tactile feedback means that you have no idea where your finger is on the touchpad area. You can, of course, simply plug in an external pointing device, but the virtual trackpad has one significant advantage: it "knows" that when you're using it, the bottom screen's a keyboard rather than a general purpose display device, and it won't let you drag the cursor down off the upper screen. External pointing devices don't constrain the cursor and it's easy to "lose" the cursor on the keyboard screen. The keyboard offers T9 predictive text input by touching a control at the upper left of its display. T9 will consult its internal dictionary on the fly, as you type, and offer both suggestions for completed words and auto-correct many common misspellings. It can significantly increase your typing speed on the virtual keyboard, but it also sometimes gets in the way. For example, it insists on trying to correct the word "Iconia" to "Icons". You can backspace and re-type the word, but that adds time and is frustrating, and there seems to be no way to add news words like "Iconia" to the dictionary. I went back and forth and wound up turning it off. An external keyboard provides the best input speed and accuracy, but somewhat obviates the point of the Iconia. Still, I found this setup to be a workable one: 
Using a stand designed for the Apple iPad, I was able to use the Iconia as a dual-screen system with an external mouse and keyboard. If the virtual keyboard isn't to your taste, touching the little keyboard icon at the upper left of the screen will invoke a very capable handwriting recognition input system.
You can write with your finger or a capacitive stylus in the yellow area, and use editing and other keys on the right. The handwriting feature supports a number of useful editing gestures that you can use to split or join groups of letters, erase text, and pop up a menu of word suggestions. And the handwriting recognition itself is brilliant, about the best I've ever seen on any device. But the handwriting panel isn't really very useful. In my opinion, handwriting input only really makes sense when you can write anywhere on the screen. Since the handwriting input panel occupies the entire lower screen, there's no space advantage over using the virtual keyboard, which will provide much faster text entry for most applications. Dual Screen SoftwareThe text input methods described in the previous section aren't advantages of the Iconia 6120's dual screen configuration, but rather attempts to work around the disadvantage of having no physical keyboard. But Acer does provide a lot of software designed to exploit the extra display area the Iconia provides. Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7First is Microsoft's "Touch Pack for Windows 7", comprising programs like Microsoft Blackboard, Microsoft Garden Pond (yes, really), and Microsoft Surface Globe. The latter is what Microsoft frequently uses in their Surface computer demonstrations, and it's basically a touch-controlled Google Earth that's fun to play with. Overall, though, it's just a group of "technology demo" programs that have no real utility. The screen saver that lets you drag your finger through rippling water and chase small fish in real time is visually impressive the first couple of times you play with it, but it gets old quickly. Acer RingAcer provides their "Acer Ring" utility, which you invoke by placing five fingers on the screen in a grab gesture (look at the illustration on the front of the box for an example). One limitation is that this grab gesture cannot be made on top of the virtual keyboard. 
Acer Ring is not sure what it wants to be when it grows up. What is is now is:
The only thing I wound up using the Acer Ring for was to launch the various "Touch" programs. The gesture editor and gesture launching work well, but would be much more useful if I could make the gesture at any time; as designed, I must first invoke the Acer Ring, and then draw my gesture in the middle of it. Extra Windows controlsNow, this is actually useful: Acer adds two additional controls to all standard windows: 
In this screen shot the two controls are at the left of the Minimize control. The double-arrow control quickly switches a window from the top screen to the bottom screen and vice-versa. This is great for moving a progress display, status window, or e-mail program to the bottom screen while you continue to work on the top screen. The second control invokes Acer's Window Manager: 
The front most window gains several new features with Window Manager: each corner gets a "finger friendly" disk you can use to size the window from that corner, while the three numbered buttons at the lower right of the window will (from left to right) maximize it to fill both screens, switch it to the top screen, or switch it to the lower screen. If you have more than one window open, the bottom screen shows a window list: 
All open windows are shown in this list, which you can scroll horizontally with a finger swipe. Touching any window brings it to the front and equips it with the extra controls described above. The Acer Window Manager is actually quite useful when managing multiple windows across two touch-enabled displays. My only criticism is that if the virtual keyboard is up when the Window Manager is started, it will vanish (since the Window Manager takes over the bottom screen), and will not automatically re-appear when the Window Manager is closed. This is a minor issue since simply resting both hands on the lower screen will bring the virtual keyboard back. In the next section, I'll discuss Acer's included touch-enabled applications. Acer Touch-Enabled ApplicationsAcer provides a suite of touch-enabled programs with the Acer Iconia 6120. I mentioned these briefly in the previous section: they're the programs you can launch directly from the Acer Ring utility. By default, these applications open and run on the lower screen, and tapping the question-mark "Help" button opens Internet Explorer on the upper screen, displaying (local content) help for the running application. TouchBrowserThe first application is the Touch Browser, a touch-enabled web browser. 
This screen shot shows TouchBrowser extended across both screens, although tapping a button at the bottom will flip it between the top screen only or both screens (oddly, you can't configure it to run just on the bottom screen). TouchBrowser seems reasonably capable, and having the address bar and controls at the bottom of the screen makes "touch browsing" easier, since you don't have to extend your arm to reach the top of the top screen. When in dual-screen mode you'll need to use Windows' on-screen keyboard widget to enter text, although you can build up and pick from a list of favorite sites. You can use the Web Clip button (third to the right of the address bar) to grab live clippings for Touch Scrapbook or My Journal. The performance of TouchBrowser seemed similar to Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 4. You can quickly extend either of these browsers across both screens with the Window Manager, but the Windows task bar will remain, obscuring part of the browser display. SocialJoggerThis is a simple application designed to display your Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr accounts all on a single page, with automatic updating of their contents at defined intervals. This app works well when left open on the top or bottom screen while you so something else on the remaining screen. 
TouchPhoto, TouchVideo, and TouchMusicThis applications all make good use of the Iconia's dual screens. I'll cover TouchPhoto; TouchVideo and TouchMusic are substantially similar. TouchPhoto will open on both screens by default: 
You can scroll through your photo library on the bottom screen; touching any image displays it on the upper screen. You can page through your images on either screen by swiping left or right, and zoom in or out of an image by pinching. If you're using the virtual keyboard, TouchPhoto runs on the upper screen, and the large photo display overlays the thumbnails. You can play slide shows of your images and allows you to rotate them in 90-degree increments. TouchMusic and TouchVideo offer similar interfaces to manage and play/display your music and video files. While TouchVideo, TouchPhoto, and TouchMusic all make good use of the Iconia 6120's dual displays, they all maintain their own libraries. If you've thousands of photos in Picassa, for example, you'll have to import them into TouchPhoto to see them there. It could be argued that since you'd be starting with a new computer, you might want to use the included Touch applications instead of their more-established alternative like Picassa and iTunes, and that's a valid argument. But functionally all these programs have to offer is their dual-screen user interfaces; otherwise, they're much less capable than their competition. ScrapbookThis program is pretty much what it sounds like. You can create and manage a "scrapbook" comprising an arbitrary number of pages. Each fixed-size page accommodates finger-drawn scribbles, screen captures, and photos from your TouchPhoto library, which you can resize, rotate, and arrange as though you were dealing with physical wallet-sized photos. The screen shot below shows Scrapbook running on the bottom screen with the help feature on the top screen. 
My JournalAccording to Acer, this is a "...handy place to keep clippings of web sites and other information you may want to refer to later." This might sound a lot like Scrapbook, but it's really quite different. 
This screen shot shows two Web clippings in My Journal's "Technology" tab. The difference between this and Scrapbook is that the Web clippings are live, and will update their content when you open the My Journal application. Since the clippings are live, links within them work. For example, tapping the "Intel Sandy Bridge Overclocking Guide" link in the BmR Featured Content clipping above would open your default web browser on the upper screen with this link. My Journal is clever, but very limited. While you can rename the tabs, you can't delete tabs or add new ones. The content of each tab is limited to the single screen under it; tabs can't be scrolled or paged. There doesn't seem to be any limit to the number of web clippings you can have under a single tab, but once they start to overlay each other, managing them becomes clumsy, especially since you must tap the "Edit" control (indicated by a little pencil on a notepad) to move a web clipping. In the next section, I'll discuss my final thoughts and conclusion of the Acer Iconia 6120. Acer Notebook Final ThoughtsAcer started showing Iconia prototypes last year (at this point I should note that Acer's using "Iconia" to represent a range of products, including a smart phone and a traditional tablet computer), and I was excited to see the 6120: it seemed almost like a prop from a science-fiction movie with its minimalist aesthetic and swoopy Acer-scripted demos.
The actual retail product is both more and less than I expected: more, in that the $1,200 price is reasonable for a cutting-edge product of this type, and its size and weight are both unexpectedly large; and less, in that Acer has failed, in my opinion, to provide a compelling reason to buy this laptop over less expensive alternatives that most people would find more useful. For example, Hewlett-Packard's beautiful Envy 14 notebook in its base configuration has the same Intel Core i5 480M processor and 4G of RAM, but adds a discrete Mobility Radeon 5650 GPU with a gigabyte of dedicated RAM and a slot-loading DVD burner, all in a package that weighs a pound less and is $200 cheaper. Still, truly innovative products rarely make much sense when they're introduced. The first Macbook Air was almost impossibly thin and light, but it was also very slow and hideously expensive. Two generations later, it's a much less expensive and more usable machine. Microsoft Windows itself provides another example: arguably, it didn't become really useful until Windows 3.1 (some would argue for Windows 2000). The current Iconia 6120 is large and heavy for a 14" laptop computer, and the backlights for its dual screens suck enough power that in the two weeks I've had it, I've yet to hit 3 hours of use on a full charge. Acer's eclectic collection of included touch software ranges from the silly and useless to the genuinely intriguing, although even the best of the applications don't really make a convincing case for the computer. There are, however, glimmers of possibilities here, and it's easy to envision a future version of this machine- perhaps with thinner, lighter OLED displays, a decent GPU, and more advanced software- that's a real alternative to your father's laptop. Acer themselves doesn't seem sure where this machine fits: on their web site, it's listed under "Tablet Computers", but the included manual refers to it as a "Touchbook", a term they seem to have invented themselves. The main problem the Iconia 6120 struggles against is that Windows simply isn't designed for touch-screen operation, as more than a decade of failed Windows tablet computers has proven. Apple's iOS, Google's Android, and Palm's (now Hewlett-Packard) WebOS are designed for touch input, and don't require operating system patches or specially-written programs to take advantage of touch operation. But tablets can't replace laptops for many users, and the Iconia 6120 attempts to bridge the divide between the two types of systems. Its success in doing so is decidely mixed, but it's a decent first step. But I hope Acer sticks with it, and I'll be waiting to see future products in the Iconia line. Acer Iconia 6120 ConclusionAlthough we strive for objectivity here at Benchmark Reviews, please remember that each author perceives these points differently, and our conclusions and recommendations will necessarily differ from others. Also, prices can fluctuate and designs change after publication, so that the product we review might not have the same price and specifications of a product that's available later. Please do not base any purchase solely on our conclusion, as it represents our product rating specifically for the product tested, which may differ from future versions. Benchmark Reviews begins our conclusion with a short summary of each of the areas that we rate. Taken as a whole, the performance of the Iconia was good...specifically, CPU performance was very good but graphics performance was pretty bad. Although the Intel HD Graphics integrated into the Core i5 480M processor is perfectly capable of handling Windows Aero and general scrolling and UI tasks across two displays, it's utterly useless for almost any type of gaming. The Iconia's been criticized for not using the latest Sandy Bridge mobile processors, but I don't think this would have made any real-world difference. The CPU performance of the 480M is quite adequate, and even doubling the performance of the integrated graphics (Sandy Bridge graphics are about twice as fast as the previous generation integrated graphics) wouldn't help. The Iconia 6120 has a sleek appearance, with brushed aluminum dominating the top and bottom views. When open, the appearance of the two displays is striking. The quality of construction is excellent. The easily-removable bottom panel exposes the memory and hard drive, both of which are simple and quick to replace. However, the main battery is buried deep within the machine and will probably require professional service to replace. Acer has obviously put some thought into the exterior design of the computer; little touches like the symmetrical power and keyboard buttons, and the rubber strip at the top leading edge of the screen, show that someone actually used the prototypes. The functionality of this computer is a mixed bag. The lack of a physical keyboard makes some things, like playing FPS games, impossible, while other things like typing long reports are merely difficult. But it's easy to construct scenarios where the dual-screen feature is a real win, enabling a type of workflow impossible on a standard laptop. The trouble is that many of these scenarious are just that: scenarios, rather than actual real-world use cases. Still, some of Acer's included software shows hints of where this type of laptop might be going. The Acer Iconia 6120 is available for $1,199.99 at Newegg. Considered as a piece of cutting-edge innovation, that's not bad; the display is the most expensive part of any laptop, and you're getting two of them. But you can buy many single-display computers with equal or better hardware and performance for hundreds of dollars less, or a significantly more powerful computer for the same price. Although the Iconia 6120 as a first iteration is unconvincing, I hope Acer (and Microsoft) stick with it and produce more compelling products in the future. Pros:
+ Unique dual-screen design Cons:
- Large, heavy, and expensive Ratings:
Final Score: 7.9 out of 10.Questions? Comments? Benchmark Reviews really wants your feedback. We invite you to leave your remarks in our Discussion Forum.
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Comments
And how come the cheap and weak 3000maH battery is not user-replaceable? Why even bother giving a battery from the first place?
And, don't believe in the stability of hybrid USBs. Let alone in the known-for-not- being-so-durable Acer units.
Thank you for the review that reveals how spooky the laptop is.
Will wait for at least 3rd generation of this product before even start looking at it seriously.
Indonesian Acer users don't really need Bluetooth v3.0, and most that I know don't even need an internal Bluetooth at alol. External USB Bluetooth is already satisfying as well as easily replaceable in the case of any damage/malfunctioning, since durability is not Acer?s brag-ables anyway, is it? BTv3 is a cheap marketing trick initiated by Toshiba as a cover-up for their poor-sounding (Conexant audio!) and poor imaging (bad webcams) but yet expensive laptops. Yet no one buys Toshiba for that reason!
I agree, a user replaceable battery is a must.
This looks like it has a lot of promise as a dual screen system if you just add a keyboard, and allow the user to look at the system sideways.
Actually, you can change this, but when you do, you get an error dialog warning that the positions and rotations of the displays cannot be changed, and then after about 15 seconds, they switch back automatically.
I assume this is because most of ASUS' included software (like the various Touch apps) require this configuration.
Until now I didn'ti have any problems playing games with arrow keys nor awsd.
Battery CAN be removed, but you have to ipen the coverplate so that you can press 2 buttons. It even have the lock key for battery ((at first I thought I can't remove battery too), but I think there are a lot of alternatives to the build in battery performance (UPS for example - #en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninterruptible_powe r_supply) or external battery. In case you are watching a movie, you can of course turn off it's second monitor (they can be turned off one or another, or both). My record of battery usage is nearly 3 hours of watching movies (of course my model have even bluetooth 3.0, which models in USA don't have, at least as far as I know, but I am in europe and we have a slightly different model ...)
And best of, the price wasn't even that high ... only 850? (which is something like normal laptops cost in my country - Slovenia).
Click on Completely restore system to factory defaults. It will use these data. And than you can create a disk with factory defaults items installed.
If I install windows on it again, Ill probably need the programs for the touch pad and acer ring right?
Yes, if you reinstall Windows, you'll need to reinstall the Iconia utilities and drivers.
If you don't have a recovery partition and can't make the install disk set, then you need to go to Acer's web site to find and download the software. But I just looked and wasn't able to find anything about the "Iconia 6120", so you might be out of luck there. I suppose you could always call Acer tech support.
"C:\OEM\Preload\Autor un\AutorunX\". Inside that folder look for a file called "AutorunX.exe". Run it, click on "Contents" and install all files you see on the list that appears.
If you don't, please reply and I will try compressing it for you (it is 3 gigabytes large). Hope this helps.
if you get to pack this, can you please send me the share to it... I'm also having issues with getting this Keyboard and Ring to work.
PLEASE!
Anyway, here is the link:
ardentangel.com/iconia/OEM.rar
Anyway, here it finally is:
#ardentangel.com/iconia/OEM.rar
Extract it to your C:\ drive directly (using Extract here option)
After that, go to "C:\OEM\Preload\Autor un\AutorunX\" and launch the program called "AutorunX.exe"
Once it launched, you will be able to get a list with all drivers and applications (programs) to install (which are all already included, so you won't have to redownload them), including the Touch Engine, which actually is the Virtual Keyboard and Acer Ring. There is another thing to install to get all of the Acer Ring applications on the list, if you won't be installing everything that is there (however, I advise you that you do install everything ... don't worry, there are no demo games, that are preinstalled on ICONIA once you buy it).
Anyway, I learned of the existance of this AutorunX appliacation the hard way ... Acer support sucks and they insist that there is NO WAY of getting Virtual Keyboard nor Acer Ring installation executables. But I did managed to get it after all. :)
And that's why I am helping you on the first place, because I know how they sucks now (at least the UK one ... I am from Slovenia, so US acer did not wanted to help me, since they couldn't verify my model number or whatever ...). =P
If you have any more question, ask.
Many thanks...
#store.griffintechnology.com/a-frame
It holds the Iconia very well and there was no movement when using either touch screen.
#store.apple.com/ca/product/H1060ZM/A?fnode=MjA1MTEyODY
thanks david!
First....I booted up the pc for the first time and went through all the steps and to my surprise the ACER WALLPAPER (which i think is VERY cool) was not on the screen....I have looked through ALL the files and folders and cannot find this wallpaper. I am wondering if maybe I was sent the european version (i live in the us) because I also received the USB card reader which I was NOT expecting to get.
Also could someone please tell me what the DIFFEREMCES between the 2 models are and if someone could point me to where I could get that wallpaper, it would be GREATLY appreciated!
Thanks
Mine worked fine for the year or so I had it. I'm sorry you've had so many problems with yours.
I will go home tonight and start playing with it and let you know the outcome.
All, if your system seems unstable, please install the Touch Engine only and not the rest of the MS Touch applications.
edisk.ukr.net/?do=dir#cdir=shared
user name: iconia
password: 123456
Changing language pack tutorial:
youtube.com/watch?v=6lf8lAaop3c
Thank you in advance.
Agradeco