New Aspire R13 and R14 series revealed by Acer at IFA

Acer is the star of the first day of IFA, with gadgets all over the place, including the new Aspire R13 and R14 series revealed at the trade show. The two new laptops are in the convertibles category, both running Windows 8.1. The new Aspire line promises extreme flexibility and tons of viewing angles with Acer’s Ezel Aero Hinge design in place.

The Aspire R13 is a laptop equipped with a 13.3 inch Corning Gorilla Glass 3 display, resting on Acer’s own Ezel Aero Hinge. Thanks to the hinges, the screen can be rotated 180 degrees and offers six viewing positions, which is a really neat feature to see. The Aspire R13 will be available in two different display configurations: a full-HD 1920*1080 display or an HD 1366*768 display. You can also choose the Aspire R13 in two CPU configurations, as well:  Intel Core i3 or Intel Core i7. The R 13 series is also Skype-certified. The notebooks also include dual-array mics and software to eliminate ambient noise.

The R13 is a powerful laptop with an SSD of up to 1TB with RAID-0 support and 8 GB RAM. You can also opt to get the Active Stylus Pen with palm rejection if you want to capture screen content or just scribble away. The device is 25.4 mm thick and weighs about 3 punds. The laptop will be available in the U.S. starting in October for $899 and for €899 in Europe starting in November. Both the R13 and R14 include dual-array mics and software to eliminate ambient noise.

The Aspire R14, on the other hand, features a 360 degrees rotation possibility thanks to its dual-torque hinge design. It allows four different viewing modes, according to hands-on experiences. This Aspire laptop will be available in three processor configurations, i3, i5 and i7 and will sport up to 12 GB RAM. You can also choose whether you would like 500 GB or 1TB HDDs. The device rocks an integrated NVidia GeForce 820M graphics card which should be enough for most gamers out there. The Aspire R14 comes with a 14 inch HD display with 1366*768 resolution, equipped with Zero Air Gap and an Active Stylus Pen. The R14 will go on sale in the U.S. in October for $599 and mid-October in Europe for €499.

Both of these notebooks are targeted at those who would like tablet flexibility but don’t want to sacrifice notebook performance. They are not extremely well-specced laptops, but for the prices that are listed, they are worth a try and might just perform quite well. All the same, the screen rotation technology that Acer has implemented will surely be one of the notebooks’ main selling points.