Wanting to spice up its PC convertibles, Acer has come out with a device that can take on five different shapes with the help of a flexible kickstand and a detachable wireless keyboard.
Like other convertible PCs, the Acer Aspire Switch 12 can be used as a traditional clamshell laptop or a tablet, but its 360-degree hinge and kickstand allow it to take on three other shapes with different viewing angles: display, tent and desktop.
The Aspire Switch 12 has a 12.5-inch display with a 1920-by-1080-pixel screen covered with Corning’s Gorilla Glass.
It has a low-noise, fanless design and uses Intel’s low power consumption Core M processor, a chip designed to bring PC performance to thin tablets.
The Acer Aspire Switch 12’s various usage modes.
Intel has previously said its Core M chips can run as slow as 800MHz in tablet mode, scaling up to 2.6GHz when in PC mode.
The Switch 12 has a battery life of up to 8 hours when playing videos, runs Windows 8.1, and will come with either 30 GB or 120 GB of SSD storage.
Acer’s product is similar to a PC convertible made by Toshiba, which the Japanese company claimed could switch into seven different modes.
The Taiwanese PC maker isn’t saying when its device will launch in the U.S., but it will arrive in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia by year-end, starting at 649 Euros ($810).