Acer Iconia dual touchscreen tablet announced

Acer Iconia tablet - launching in January
Acer Iconia tablet - launching in January

Acer has announced the arrival of the Acer Iconia – a dual touchscreen tablet that's been created in close collaboration with Microsoft.

The device is a curious one. It looks like a laptop but is very much a tablet hybrid. There's no mouse or traditional keyboard. Instead either screen can act as a virtual keyboard.

The tablet/laptop is powered by Windows 7 Home Premium and is packing some not-too shabby specs.

These include: an Intel Core i5-480 chip, 4GB of RAM (par for the course on a Windows 7 machine), 640GB storage and a four-cell battery.

It's the four-cell battery that is a worry – Acer has told TechRadar that you will get around three hours' play out of it. This means that you will be mostly using the Acer Iconia as a desktop replacement, rather than a carry everywhere tablet device.

Iconia conectivity

Connectivity on the Acer Iconia comes in the form of three USBs, one of which is USB 3.0, HDMI and there's 3G and Wi-Fi on board.

The two screens are both 720p, so great for watching movies on, and can be used completely independently of each other.

Acer has added an overlay to Windows 7 that's called Acer Ring. This is where you have access to all your of your media, like movies, pictures and social networking.

The Acer Iconia dual touchscreen tablet has a UK release date of 16 January and will cost £1,500.

But you don't have to wait that long to read what the tablet is like...

Check out T3's exclusive video of the Acer Iconia

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.