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Acer Iconia B1-710 tablet swings by the FCC (updated)
Back when Acer unveiled the Iconia A1 tablet, it slipped out an upgrade to its starter Iconia B1 series, the B1-710. That refresh has at last surfaced in the US -- through the FCC, anyway. The 7-inch, WiFi-toting slate has cleared the FCC's approval process with its subtle design tweaks and doubled 1GB of RAM in tow. Unfortunately, Americans aren't much closer to actually buying one. While Canadians may get a turn when we've spotted a (currently unconfirmed) $230 Acer Canada listing, the new B1 is primarily bound for Europe. It should cost £110 / €129 (about $166) for the WiFi model's June release, and £129 / €179 (between $195 and $230) for a 3G-equipped B1-711 edition arriving in July. Update: The Canadian listing now appears to be an A1, not the B1 we saw earlier.
Acer confirms 10-inch Iconia A3 tablet, wants to sell 10 million slates this year
Acer's senior VP Scott Lin recently confirmed that a new 10-inch Iconia A3 tablet will arrive this summer and was quick to include it in some very ambitious sales plans. The device (not pictured) has yet to be priced or specced (or even seen), but nonetheless, Lin hopes it'll make up some of the 10 million slates the outfit aims to sell in 2013. He also announced a refresh for the $150 Iconia B1 this summer with a dual-core CPU, updated design and 1GB of RAM, and said that 1.5 million units of that model have shipped so far this year. The company would like to move another 1.5 million by year's end along with 5 million of the recently announced 8-inch Iconia A1 tabs and 2 million Iconia A3s to make up the balance. Considering that competitor ASUS sold 3 million tablets in Q1 and has the hit Nexus 7 to peddle, it seems a lofty goal for Acer -- especially since it only reluctantly leaped into tablets not so long ago. Update: We've also received word that Mr. Lin confirmed that there is an 8-inch Windows 8 tablet in the works (the W3, perhaps?) and suggested it should be available by June.
CES 2013: Tablet roundup
The tablet landscape has changed greatly in a year's time, at least if you gauge what we've seen on the CES show floor. The 2012 expo was led mostly by high-end Android tablets. This year, Windows 8 understandably garnered much more of the spotlight now that it's available, while Google's platform mostly surfaced in the budget category, where it was much more prevalent than before. Whatever the platform, we saw our fair share of experimentation -- some companies weren't happy with just a spec bump in a familiar form factor. Check past the break for some of the more daring (or at least well-executed) examples from CES 2013.
