Acer Iconia W4: A Second Chance in Better Hardware and Software

Even offering a copy of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2013 - which can cost over $100 on its own - preinstalled on Acer's last 8-inch Iconia W3 couldn't drive sales for the fundamentally flawed small tablet. This time around, running the new Windows 8.1 and fixing some of the basic hardware issues that tanked its earlier tablet, the Iconia W4 is back to boost Acer's reputation.

Acer's second entry into the 8-inch tablet market comes with several improvements in hardware from the previous generation.

First, Acer's Iconia W4 has one of Intel's new Bay Trail processors, the Atom processor, which saves on power consumption, while being faster. The Iconia W4's Atom is clocked to 1.8 GHz.

While still retaining the 8-inch screen, some similarities in its look, and a 1,280 x 800p resolution, the W4's display is much better than the Iconia W3's WXGA LCD touchscreen. Instead, Acer used "Zero Air Gap technology" to make sure its IPS display had no air between the LCD and the panel, so not only will you get better viewing angles, brightness, and color reproduction on the IPS, but the screen also will suffer from much less glare.

Acer has also made its tablet less heavy and a little thinner. Instead of over a pound, the Acer Iconia W4 is slightly under a pound, at 0.91 lbs, and it's 0.42-inches thick instead of 0.45-inches.

The camera got an upgrade from the 2-megapixel bare-minimum main camera on the back of the Iconia W3 to a decent, but undazzling 5-megapixel affair. The 2-megapixel front-facing shooter stays the same.

A few things are staying the same with the new Iconia W4, but they're welcome features: micro USB, a microSD card slot, and a micro-HDMI port.

Since Microsoft Windows 8.1 was just released on Thursday, you can bet the Iconia W4 comes with the improved operating system preinstalled. That means you get the new Windows 8.1's improved Metro screen for small 7 to 8-inch tablets, which allows for a live-tile layout in portrait mode that makes more sense.

There are other improvements for Windows 8.1 including gestural control, a Start button, better multitasking, expanded search, which you can read about in full here. It suffices to say that Windows 8.1 will be another decent selling point for the Acer Iconia W4 matching its other hardware improvements on the screen.

Of course, for the work-obsessed, the Acer Iconia W4 also features an optional full keyboard. It's still larger than the tablet itself, which doesn't look very pretty from a symmetry standpoint, but certainly helps you get the job done without cramping your fingers too much.

Acer might have had the chance to introduce the first 8-inch tablet running Window 8, but now it comes into a market with increasing competition. The Lenovo Miix2, for example, also runs windows 8.1 on an 8-inch display, powered by a Bay Trail processor.

But the improvements at least give Acer a chance, with its 32GB Iconia W4 retailing at $329.99 and the 64GB version selling for $379.99. Expect the Acer Iconia W4, still preloaded with Office Home and Student 2013 Edition, to hit the shelves this month.