Taiwanese PC maker Acer is rolling out an 8-inch Android tablet, set to arrive in the third quarter.
The Iconia Tab 8, announced on Friday, features 1920 by 1200 pixel resolution and an Intel Atom quad-core Z3745 processor code-named “Bay Trail”. It follows Acer’s announcement of two smaller 7-inch tablets, the Iconia One 7 and Iconia Tab 7, a month ago.
Both those tablets have a screen resolution of 1280 by 800 pixels, and were meant to target lower-end consumers. In the case of the Iconia One 7, the device uses an older Intel “Clover Trail” processor, and has a starting price of US$129.99.
The pricing for the Iconia Tab 8 was not disclosed, but Acer wants to build affordable tablets with great value, said Maverick Shih, president of the company’s tablet business, on Thursday.
“We want everyone to be able to enjoy the features you can find in high-end products,” he added in an interview.
The Iconia Tab 8 weighs 360 grams and has a metallic back cover along with anti-fingerprint coating on its display. The tablet runs Android 4.4 and promises 7.5 hours of battery life when watching videos.
Acer made no mention of its memory features, but the device has a microSD card slot to add more storage. The PC maker also declined to name which markets the product will be available in. But Acer’s Shih said on Thursday mainland China has become a big focus for its tablet business.
“Before, we didn’t really value the Chinese market enough,” he said. To change that, the company has started a new China-based team focused on tablets, he added.
Acer’s upcoming tablets will also incorporate more of its own software. Lately, the PC maker has been promoting its consumer cloud services, called “Build Your Own Cloud.” These services are already pre-installed on Acer devices and work by letting users automatically synchronize the files and multimedia on their different devices.