• Pros
Dual screens equals lots of screen real estate. Innovative touch software bundle. Reasonably priced. USB 3.0 port included. Its TouchBrowser utilizes both screens.
• Cons
Virtual keyboard will anger and flummox most typists. Big and heavy for a tablet or laptop. Bottom screen is hard to use under a bright light. Media card slot reader is an external USB attachment. Gesture editor and number of other utilities are too BETA to use. Paltry battery life. Lacks a good 3D chip for CAD and serious graphics designers.
• Bottom Line
The Acer Iconia 6120 is a unique and innovative take on multitasking, but the virtual keyboard and Acer's touch software pack aren't ready for prime time.
Depending on your taste for the unusual, the Acer Iconia-6120 14-Inch Dual-Screen Touchbook
($1,199.99 street, 3 stars) is either teetering on the edge of madness or pushing the boundaries of innovation. It boasts two 14-inch widescreens that are hinged together like a traditional clamshell laptop, where the bottom screen replaces all the physical keys with virtual ones.Both screens are touch-enabled and are complemented by a hodgepodge of custom software from Acer, ranging from a full virtual keyboard experience to its own Web browser that utilizes both screens. Now we've seen dual screens like this in handhelds like the Nintendo 3DS - Aqua Blue
and Libretto W100-002 U5400 1.2 2GB 62GB 7"
($1,306.29, 1.5 stars), but never one quite this big. If you do a lot of typing, the virtual keyboard will drive you absolutely mad. But if you consume tons of media and fancy a second display, the Iconia is a unique and innovative take on multitasking.
Design
The Iconia is a 14-inch laptop and designed to be treated as such. Even though there are two screens, there's a predefined top and bottom half. In other words, it's not meant to be held like a book, since weight isn't distributed equally between both sides (the bottom half, where all the ports and components reside, is much heavier) and the lack of an accelerometer (to change the screen orientation) seems to point to that. For the same reason, inverting the laptop and using the upper screen with the virtual keyboard isn't an option either. The Iconia is covered in aluminum, which would have been a classier touch had its murky, brownish tint not been so dull. A second screen adds a lot of weight and is the reason why the Iconia weighs 5.8 pounds—at least a pound heavier than other 14-inch laptops like the ASUS UL80JT-A2 Thin and Light 14-Inch Laptop (up to 9 Hours of Battery Life)
($599.00 street, 4.5 stars) (4.7 lbs) and Samsung QX410-J01 14in Notebook Aluminum
($919.00street, 4 stars) (5 lbs). Its heavy frame places it in the desktop replacement category, alongside the Asus K53E-B1 (5.8 lbs) and Apple MacBook Pro MC721LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop
($1,714.94direct, 4.5 stars) (5.5 lbs).Touch Software
The Iconia is also a tablet because both screens are touch-enabled, though they aren't meant to be used with a stylus (since one is not included It behaves like a laptop, but you can't really use it without first understanding how to use the touch-enabled software first. That's mainly because of the virtual keyboard, a critical feature that makes or breaks this laptop. For most users, unfortunately, it's the latter. To bring up the keyboard, you put both palms on the bottom screen (tap the corner "X" to get rid of it). The concept is super neat. But then you start typing on it, and that's where the trouble starts. It's not a haptic keyboard, so there's no force feedback or buzzing noises coming from the keys. It's very similar to typing on an iPad 2: The keys make clicking sounds, but aren't enough to give you the resistance physical keys give you.