The Acer Live Blog… eh… blog (Final update)

Friday

So it’s 8am and I am sitting on a train with some trepidation wondering what I am letting myself in for.

I am heading towards London City Airport to meet up with other Bloggers attending this weekends Acer Live Blogging event where Acer will be showing off some of their new technology. This won’t be one of your staid press conference though – oh no – this is a weekend in Dublin carrying out various Irish themed challenges to test out the gadgets.

You can follow my adventure here. Let the fun and games commence. Actually I’m really looking forward to it and Acer have recently been launching some pretty cool gadgets.

11 am gathering at London City Airport. Really impressed with the automation. Although the bag drop weighing had a few minor issues.

Seems a good crowd. Looking forward to the tech challenges. Flight ✈ next.

4pm

Initial briefing underway Acer Aspire Switch 10E looks good – nice step up. Iconia One 8 Tablet  has a novel ability to use a pencil as a high precision stylus.

5pm Liquid Jade Z unboxing – a bit of a challenge holding the camera and doing the unboxing

6PM well having  a few technical issues with the first unbox video (it finally uploaded when I got home)  but here is a second actually taken with he Liquid Jade Z – its a pretty good camera especially in low light.

7PM So its ready steady Cook – we’re at Cook’s Academy in Dublin learning how to put together a Starter and  a Main Course and then use the Acer Phone to take some food photos. Have to say although the light isn’t the best the pictures are coming out very well.

For a group of bloggers we made a fine and tasty risotto.

Although I’m not sure we were supposed to cook this…

Kate Bystrova holding the formerly flaming dishcloth

Saturday AM

So its off the Gaelic Games experience where we are going to learn the bodhran drum and then play Handball (a bit like squash without the bats, Gaelic Football ( which is a really exciting game involving bits of almost every other team ball game) and Hurling (a kind of cross between Lacrosse and Hockey with shoulder charges thrown in to boot) Again we are testing the cameras and the video on the Jade.

The drumming was surprisingly rhythmic and actually worked in time to the music at the end.

Not quite enough drums to go round but I did get a go. (Credit to Kate for the Photo above)

The Gaelic Football was challenging but great fun and then came the Hurling… which was brilliant we had a full blown match with much enthusiasm and a little rivalry.

Somehow I was credited with the best block (I just threw in the way of the  ball – probably not my best thought pattern).  All really good fun and the Jade Z camera was able to capture the action really well (As I was playing I don’t have video on my camera to upload but will hopefully have some later)

Saturday PM

On just about recovering from the Gaelic games in the morning, we were set off around Dublin in a series of challenges. Including taking photos of an Acer symbol in the grounds of Trinity College, Finding the oldest pub, Drawing Acer in the top of a pint of Guinness and drawing the River on the Acer One 8 tablet with a pencil. Yes a pencil – this tablet has a really neat mode where it will accept high resolution input using any stylus like device (including a pencil) – this worked really well and I couldn’t see any evidence of pencil marks. My one criticism would be the screen was really difficult to see in sunlight.

Back to base and all videos and photos uploaded onto the Acer Revo One. I’m really impressed with this small (smaller than some other people’s NAS boxes) desktop PC that comes in a variety of flavours including a Core i5. http://www.acer.co.uk/ac/en/GB/content/series/revoone

I’m also impressed with the Acer Switch 1oE, as I mentioned earlier this seems a real step up from last year’s Switch 10. Available in a variety of colours and with an improved hinge and balance of weight between the tablet part and the keyboard meaning it’s easier to balance.

• Operating System Windows 8.1
• Processor Intel Atom Z3735F Quad-core 1.33 GHz
• Screen 25.7 cm (10.1″) WXGA (1280 x 800)
• Memory 2 GB
• Storage 32 GB Flash Memory

Sunday AM

Time to fly home with some sore bodies from the previous day’s Gaelic Games and a few sore heads (although not mine 🙂 )

We did have one further adventure with London City Airport being evacuated for a fire alarm and our pilot telling us we were delayed indefinitely which was a little scary but fortunately it soon reopened and we were able to land.

All in all a really fun weekend. It had been a good way to show case the recent Acer tech. I was particularly impressed with the Switch 10e and the Revo One – hopefully we can review them both soon.