Acer Announces Predator 8 Gaming Tablet With Intel Atom x7 And Android 5.1
by Brett Howse on September 3, 2015 11:10 PM EST
Acer has introduced a dedicated gaming tablet called the Predator 8. This is a new play from Acer and has some pretty interesting hardware packed in. All of it is squeezed into an 8.7 mm thin package which weighs in a just 350 grams.
We’ve seen quite a few Android devices being powered by Atom lately, but most have still been on the 22 nm Silvermont cores. There have been a couple of 14 nm Airmont devices announced, and Acer has gone right to the top of the stack with the Intel Atom x7 processor. We’ve taken a look at the new Cherry Trail platform on the Surface 3 Review, and found it to be quite potent especially when you look at the physical chip size. But where it is potent is actually in CPU performance, which has traditionally been Intel’s strength. GPU performance, at least on the Surface 3, was not class leading. It would be great to see this in an Android device though so we can compare it apples to apples with the other top end gaming tablets like the NVIDIA Shield.
| Acer Predator 8 | |||||
| Predator 8 Tablet | |||||
| SoC | Intel Atom x7 | ||||
| RAM | 2 GB | ||||
| Storage | Up to 64 GB eMMC | ||||
| Display | 8" 1920x1200 IPS LCD with enhanced touch | ||||
| Speakers | 4 Front Facing with Virtual Surround Sound | ||||
| OS | Android 5.1 | ||||
| Price | $299.99 | ||||
| Availability | 06-Nov | ||||
The Android 5.1 tablet features a 16:10 display with a 1920x1200 resolution. This is a zero air gap IPS panel which should reduce reflections and refractions within the display stack, and Acer claims it covers 100% of the NTSC color space, which is actually really close to Adobe RGB. This is a wider gamut than most displays can handle but it is actually a problem on Android since it has no color management. Having a gamut that is larger than sRGB means that colors will be oversaturated.
It also has four front-facing speakers and virtual surround sound, which might be kind of interesting on a gaming tablet. You can get the tablet with up to 64 GB of storage, and it also features microSD support for an additional 128 GB of space.
One interesting addition is what Acer is calling Highly Precise Touchscreen. The tablet features smaller touch sensors which are packaged with a higher density on the display which Acer says leads to greater control and accuracy which they say is useful for gaming. It also supports any device with a 2mm fine tip such as a graphite pencil or the optional Acer Accurate Stylus.
Acer has partnered with Newegg on distribution, and Newegg will have an exclusive two week period to offer this tablet starting on November 6. It will retail for $300.
Source: Acer
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WhisperingEye - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
Surface 3? Same specs, Windows 10. Two inches larger. $200 more.GreyFox7 - Friday, September 4, 2015 - link
To me it would have been more interesting with a Tegra X1 SoC.Mr Perfect - Friday, September 4, 2015 - link
I'm going to show my ignorance here, but how are they running Android on x86? The last I heard, the only implementation of Android on x86 was the unofficial android-x86.org project. Are they really using a community made port?shades - Friday, September 4, 2015 - link
Android on x86 has been around for a few years now. The first phone I remember running on x86 (non android-x86.org) was the Orange San Diego circa Q3 2012. I personally have a Memo pad 7 from Asus that is well over a year old and it runs android 5.0 just fine.royalcrown - Friday, September 4, 2015 - link
IMO, it DOESEN'T need windows 10 at all because:8 inches is too small to do "real work". "Ooh, look, my spreadsheet cells are .25 inches each !" Too bad you can't see all the windows "stuff" I just did. /common sense
deppman - Friday, September 4, 2015 - link
Lots of folks are wondering if this tablet has the GPU chops. Anand's review of the X7 in the Surface 3 shows it's far behind the Tegra K1, with somewhere between 50-75% of the performance. And that's in a more relaxed thermal environment: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9219/the-surface-3-r...I'm not seeing a benefit over the Shield Tablet pretty much anywhere. It performs worse than a tablet release 14 months ago and costs $100 more. And Nvidia's build-in Direct Stylus 2, low-latency WiFi-direct controller, Grid, game streaming, and exclusive titles all seem to tilt the balance in the Shield favor. On top of that, the Shield is a good looking tablet. The predator is, um, fugly?
If Nvidia releases an X1 update on the Shield tablet (Please Nvidia, I've been waiting!), this looks even worse.
V900 - Friday, September 4, 2015 - link
WHY are people saying this needs to come with Windows?!?It's a gaming tablet. For Android games. Android games are usually ports of iOS games made to run on weaker SOCs, which is why an Atom SOC with its weak graphics sorta makes sense here.
But on Windows?!? Can you suggest any Windows games besides Solitaire, that you'd like to run on an Atom CPU with a cut down Intel GPU?!?
THINK before you post people!
WhisperingEye - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
I play Civ5 at medium setting on my Surface 3. I'd guess that about 20 of the games in my library would run on it at some capacity. I also play Test Drive Unlimited 2 with a Xbox 360 Controller, same for Grid:Autosport. I could write about all of them, but the Three games I just mentioned are better versions of genre than any android version.WhisperingEye - Thursday, September 17, 2015 - link
Fun Fact: I've been playing Dark Souls again, since I was inspired by my own comment to find out what else would work. I use a PS4 controller via Bluetooth with DS4Tool. I tried using DSfix and found that because it changes the game solely for the point of running at more clarity, it makes it unplayable. However, in it's vanilla form, it runs smooth and is just as good visually as the PS3 version. Android for gaming? Never again. Maybe I'll try DS2 when I get a surface 4.V900 - Friday, September 4, 2015 - link
Why would anyone get an Android tablet for gaming?!?Thanks to piracy as well as platform fragmentation, all the good games are either iOS exclusives, or come out on iOS first, with a weak Android port out later.
The whole concept doesn't make sense. (Nvidias tablet excluded though)