In a year already filled with unusual computer designs, from laptops with slide-out keyboards to all-in-one desktops that double as coffee table displays, Acer deserves credit for coming out with something that stands out as very different.
Acer Aspire R7
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
Acer's flagship Aspire R7 is a combination of laptop and all-in-one desktop, with a 15.6-inch screen mounted on a floating hinge that Acer calls an Ezel. The pitch for the Ezel is that you can move and reposition the screen as needed, but the uniquely hinged screen won't move too much under your fingers while you're swiping and tapping.
While Acer is presenting this as new, it reminds me very much of the 20-inch HP HDX laptop, a short-lived system with a floating hinge from 2007. Unlike the HDX, the screen on the R7 is a touch screen, and more importantly, it flips around to become a large-scale tablet. It can also flip all the way over to face out from the back of the system -- something we call a kiosk mode, and similar to what you can do with a Lenovo Yoga, Dell XPS 12, or Asus Taichi (although they each accomplish this in different ways).
The standard clamshell laptop mode feels like the most obvious use, especially when you use the hinge to bring the display closer to your face, but get ready for a bit of a learning curve with the touch pad. Instead of sitting below the keyboard in the system's interior tray, it's located in a large, blank expanse above the keyboard. That allows you to hinge the screen closer to your eyes, but at the same time, it's very nontraditional.
There may be long-term benefits to this setup, but I have yet to find them, or even acclimate well to the R7's touch pad. Despite a handful of attempts every year, I have yet to see a laptop that plays with touch pad placement in a successful way. I suspect many people will find it counterintuitive.
But that's not the most perplexing thing about the R7. Despite the pitch for this system as a part-time tablet, when you fold the screen down into the tablet mode, it doesn't actually lie completely flat. Because of the curved hinge, it stays propped up a bit on the top edge. When using it, that little angle actually makes for a more comfortable on-lap typing and navigation experience, but kills the clean lines and makes it hard to carry as a tablet.
The touch-pad placement and not-flat tablet mode both strike me as missteps in an otherwise potentially very useful 15-inch hybrid. That's too bad, because at $999, this is a decent price for a bold experimental laptop with solid midrange components.