Acer Iconia W4-820

Acer upgraded its original Windows 8-based tablet, the Iconia W3, with a model they just had to call the Iconia W4. The W4 returns the familiar operating system complete with Office Home & Student installed in a nicely-priced package – Acer may no longer stand alone in the 8” Windows tablet market, but the W4 still stands out among the competition.

Having said that, however, we’d also add that the Iconia W4 itself isn’t exactly a show-stopper in terms of look: This device is your typical black-bezeled tablet with the “Acer” brand name on the top side in portrait mode. The brushed-metal finish on the back lends a little texture for easier gripping and gorilla glass protects the entire screen side. The W4’s been slimmed down from its original incarnation as well, losing about 1/3 of a pound while maintaining roughly the same dimensions.

For performance, Acer equipped the Iconia W4 with a 1.33-GHz quad-core Intel Atom processor with 2 GB of RAM. While the RAM is great for running those Windows applications, this chip’s speed isn’t near the top levels of performance in, say, Apple iPads, but it’s clearly quick enough for the typical user.

The Iconia W4 specs are in line – even well above-average – for an 8” tablet, with micro SD card slot, micro HDMI and micro USB ports, but this device will probably win most fans with its extensive suite of apps. Beyond the free Office & Student software, installed from the go are essentially all the standards a tablet owner has come to expect and love: stuff like OneDrive, Skype, Xbox Music, Amazon Kindle, Hulu, Nero BackItUp, Netflix and Norton Online Backup. On top of this, Acer throws in homegrown product such as its Docs, Media, Photo, Portal, Recovery Management and Remote Files apps.

The 8” tablet world may have changed some since Acer broke ground with its first Iconia, but the Iconia W4 shows that the company still brings originality – and fair pricing – to the party.