Acer Aspire Switch 10 Hybrid Review

Name: Acer Aspire Switch 10 Hybrid Review
Brand: Acer

by Joshua Gulick — Thursday, November 13, 2014, 12:00 PM EDT

Battery life is important in any laptop or tablet, but in system like the Acer Aspire Switch 10, low battery life would put a big dent in the system’s claim to versatility. We put the Switch 10 through our standard Web Browsing test, which refreshes a Web page regularly to simulate typical browsing. It’s a light-duty test that’s useful for comparisons. How our results will relate to your own experience depends on what you use the system for.

The Aspire Switch 10’s battery life won’t knock you over. It came in at 9 hours 1 minute in our Web browsing test, which is well below some of the tablets we’ve seen recently. Then again, they didn’t have keyboards attached. We also added the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 series convertible to the mix, which puts the Switch 10 in a better light. That system, which also has a keyboard, didn’t last nearly as long as the Switch 10. Even so, 9 hours on a light test like this is lower than what we’d expect.

The front camera is solid and handled typical office lighting reasonably well, though it doesn't match the clarity of higher-end, discrete webcams. Because the screen and lens are on the same side, it’s not meant for taking photos, but we snapped a few just to get a feel for the camera’s overall quality.

As you can see, the built-in camera takes clear shots in optimal outdoor conditions, but the quality suffers when you’re dealing with interior lighting.

Tags: Acer, Aspire, Hybrid, switch, convertible, review, Bay Trail, Windows 8.1, 2in1

Joshua Gulick

Josh cut his teeth (and hands) on his first PC upgrade in 2000 and was instantly hooked on all things tech. He took a degree in English and tech writing with him to Computer Power User Magazine and spent years reviewing high-end workstations and gaming systems, processors, motherboards, memory and video cards. His enthusiasm for PC hardware also made him a natural fit for covering the burgeoning modding community, and he wrote CPU’s “Mad Reader Mod” cover stories from the series’ inception until becoming the publication editor for Smart Computing Magazine. A few years ago, he returned to his first love, reviewing smoking-hot PCs and components, for HotHardware. When he’s not agonizing over benchmark scores, Josh is either running (very slowly) or spending time with family.