Acer just wrapped up its global press-conference in New York, and headlining the show was an all new dual-screen touch-enabled laptop.
The device - which was rumoured a few months ago - will be called the Iconia and run a tweaked version of Windows 7 Home Premium. In fact, the manufacturer has been working with the people at Microsoft to make the most out of the unique interface. The result is that there will be special windows management tools to make use of the form-factor beyond just replicating a keyboard and trackpad or supplying an area to keep widgets.
According to the demonstration, the system will be designed to respond to a series of special touch-based commands. For instance, placing ten fingers on the lower screen will instantly make the keyboard appear, whereas five fingers will pull up the Acer menu, giving easy access to touch-enabled media management programs and a specially built browser.
As for the hardware, the Iconia will be powered by a choice of dual-core Intel Core i5 CPUs and 4GB RAM with storage provided by a hard-drive up to 750GB. The screens both measure 14in and will sport resolutions of 1,366x768px.
Apparently the battery will be a modest four-cell power-pack that's good for somewhere around three hours of use away from a wall socket. As for connectivity, the Iconia will support HDMI and VGA for video, USB 2.0 and 3.0, 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G mobile broadband and Ethernet.
The whole package will weigh in at around 6.18lbs (2.8kg), meaning that, while it's not huge, this certainly isn't an ultraportable. Acer is planning to launch the Iconia laptop on January 16 in the UK at a price of somewhere around £1,500.
Of course, if that doesn't grab your fancy, Acer is also planning a 10in Windows 7 tablet running on an unnamed AMD processor. That's pretty much all we know about this little beauty, but we're sure that the manufacturer will be more than happy to fill us in when the time is right.
