What is the Acer Switch Alpha 12?
The Switch Alpha 12 is Acer’s attempt to create a Microsoft Surface rival. It aims to offer the same tablet-first convertible experience, but at a significantly more competitive £600 starting price. That makes it over £100 cheaper than similarly specified convertibles, such as the Galaxy TabPro S and Surface Pro 4.
The Switch Alpha 12 generally delivers solid performance and will meet most Windows fans’ tablet and laptop needs. However, issues with its touchpad, battery and a minor bloatware infestation make it hard to wholeheartedly recommend over moderately pricier competitors.
Acer Switch Alpha 12 – Design and Build
2016 has seen an influx of Surface Pro rivals. The majority of them are cut-down copies of Microsoft’s convertible and their only real selling point is a moderately reduced price tag. At first glance the Switch Alpha does little to change this trend.
The boxy all-metal tablet section’s silver-grey finish hardly exudes the same class you’d get from a Surface Pro. The attachable keyboard is also almost identical to a Surface Type Cover, which is a good thing.
This all may make the Switch Alpha 12 sound a little dull, but up close I noticed a few design changes that fix some of the Surface’s niggling flaws.
For starters the keyboard cover has a loop for the Switch Alpha 12’s optional stylus to fit into. This sounds small, but considering the hefty £40-plus that most active styluses cost, the loop’s presence is a serious bonus that makes it harder to misplace the pen.
The addition of a USB 3.1 port that can be used to power devices, transfer files or attach the device to an external monitor is another nice bonus. The accompanying full-sized USB 3.0 port makes the Switch Alpha 12 significantly better connected than many competing convertibles, which only have single USB-C ports, like the Huawei Matebook and Samsung Galaxy TabPro S.
Build quality is solid. After a week and a half lugging the Switch Alpha 12 in my satchel around London, the device remained scratch- and chip-free.
The Acer Switch Alpha 12’s configuration options are also generally in line with the Surface’s, outside of the use of an Intel Core i3, rather than a Core M CPU in its cheapest specification. Buyers can choose to load the device with a sixth-gen Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 U-series CPU and 4-8GB of DDR3 memory.
The lack of a 1TB storage option is a bigger issue for me. Acer’s only offering the Switch Alpha 12 with 128-512GB of SSD storage. This won’t be a problem for most people, but it will be an problem for people with large media libraries, or designers looking for a mobile touch-up station. I reviewed the basic Core i3 version with 128GB of storage and 4GB of RAM.
Acer Switch Alpha 12 – Keyboard and Touchpad
My only qualms with the Switch Alpha 12’s design stem from its slightly lacklustre keyboard dock.
First, the good: the backlit keyboard section is better than average. The keys aren’t as tactile nor as pleasant to type on as a proper laptop’s keyboard, but they’re miles better than the MateBook and Galaxy TabPro S’s attachable covers. Keys feel reactive and have reasonable travel, too. They’re also nicely spaced out, which makes it easier to comfortably type without making constant mistakes.
I’m less enamoured of the touchpad. The pad’s palm detection works well and it has a nice smooth finish. But the device features a horrid all-in-one design where the discrete right- and left-click buttons integrate into the main pad. This makes it all too easy to have the pointer go flying off your intended target when you try to click and drag.
Sensitivity for basic tasks is fine and the pad feels reactive, but its multi-touch abilities aren’t up to scratch. The touchpad struggles to recognise basic tasks like scrolling up and down using two fingers. All too often the pad wouldn’t recognise my commands, and would then inexplicably jump into action and enact every instruction I’d given it. The problem was intermittent but fairly annoying and would regularly cause chaos on spreadsheets or text files I was editing.
Acer Switch Alpha 12 – Screen
The Acer Switch Alpha 12’s 12-inch screen features some impressive specifications, on paper at least. The 2,160 x 1,440 resolution easily matches its key rivals, including the Surface Pro 4, and ensures text and icons are uniformly sharp.
To the naked eye colours are also solid and, thanks to the use of IPS screen tech, whites are nice and clean. I didn’t notice severe backlight bleed either. If all you want to do is watch Netflx, browse the web or doodle a few quick notes in OneNote, the screen is more than up to scratch.
However, more in-depth testing with a colorimeter revealed a few issues with the display that will put off some buyers. The 456.7nits max brightness is very bright, but the 0.56 black level gives it a distinctly average 795:1 contrast ratio. The 8,712k colour temperature is also well above the 6,500k ideal.
The screen’s 81.3% coverage of the sRGB colour gamut is OK for regular use, but its 57.8% coverage of the Adobe RGB is disappointing.
For regular folks who just want a tablet to watch Netflix, or a laptop to web browse, these figures won’t be a problem. The Adobe RGB coverage will, however, be a serious negative for professional artists and designers looking to take advantage of the Aspire’s stylus.
The inaccurate colours make the tablet a poor choice for editing photos or digital painting. A few years ago this would’ve been fine, but since the arrival of stellar tablets like the Galaxy TabPro S, there are better convertibles available for artists.
Acer Switch Alpha 12 – Audio and camera
Hybrid devices generally offer pretty poor audio quality. The thin dimensions and focus on portability mean they always come loaded with tiny, generally underpowered speakers. This remains true on the Switch Alpha 12. The tablet section’s speakers are good enough for Netflix watching in bed, but it’s underpowered for pretty much everything else.
Maximum volume levels aren’t as high as the Surface Pro 4’s and rapidly become tinny when you try to play music on them. Being fair to Acer, though, they’re no worse than on most other Windows tablets and this is an issue I’ve encountered on close to all of the hybrids I’ve tested.
The front microphone is similarly weak, which is a shame as the front camera can shoot at 1080p. During video chats the person on the other end of the line struggled to hear me with even moderate background noise. The camera also didn’t perform as well as I expected. Even though it can shoot at 1080p, it struggles in even moderately dim lighting conditions. Recording on an overcast London morning the camera made me look like a member of the Walking Dead.
Acer Switch Alpha 12 – Performance
I reviewed the cheapest Intel Core i3 configuration of the Switch Alpha 12 with 4GB of RAM. This makes direct comparisons with other convertibles I’ve tested slightly tricky, as the Surface Pro 4 I reviewed had a Core i5 configuration and the Huawei Matebook and Galaxy TabPro S units we’ve tested ran using lower-power M chips.
The i3 model performed moderately better than the ultra-low-power Intel Core M devices during my synthetic benchmark tests.
On the generalist Geekbench 3 benchmark, which gives a rough gauge of a device’s overall performance, the Switch Alpha 12 ran in with 2,662 single-core and 5,449 multi-core scores, which put it above competing Core M-powered devices. The MateBook ran in with 2,250 single-core and 4,254 multi-core scores on the same test.
The Switch Alpha 12’s lead continued on the PCMark Home test, where it scored 2,369, offering a slight performance boost on the Matebook, which scored 2,074.
The Switch Alpha 12 also performed admirably during my digital painting sessions. Despite the screen’s poor colour gamut coverage, the stylus is pretty good. The palm-detection tech isn’t the best around, but it’s good enough for basic sketching and I didn’t notice any latency when drawing onto the screen. The machine began to chug when I started trying to 3D model on the tablet section, but this was for a big project.
The CPU’s liquid-cooling system also ensured the device ran silently, through the back did noticeably heat up with prolonged use. Still, having no fan noise is a big boon.
My only serious performance issue with the Alpha 12 is its bloatware infestation. Acer’s loaded the Switch Alpha 12 with more unneeded and unwanted applications than you can shake a stick at. The moment you power up the device you’re bombarded with requests from numerous products. Lowlights include Acer Documents, Care Centre, abFiles, abPhoto and McAfee security. The one piece of welcome software, HoverAccess for the stylus, doesn’t work properly.
Most of these offer superfluous clone services to those already included on Windows 10 and are nothing but an annoyance. Some will welcome the inclusion of McAfee, but I prefer to pick my security service provider and not have one pushed upon me, especially when the package is very aggressive and eats up memory and battery life.
Acer Switch Alpha 12 – Battery Life
Battery life is one key area where the Switch Alpha 12 fails to deliver. Even after I’d turned off McAfee and switched off all unnecessary processes, the device didn’t perform well during our Powermark battery burn. This involves synthetically looping 10 minutes of web browsing and 5 minutes of video playback with the screen brightness set to 150nits.
With all the superfluous processes turned off, the device generally lasted 5-6 hours before dying. The score isn’t terrible, but that puts it well behind competing M-powered hybrids such as the Galaxy TabPro S, which usually last at least 7 hours.
Running McAfee and other background apps the Switch Alpha 12’s battery dropped dramatically and it only lasted 4 hours running the Powermark test.
Real-world use reflected the below-average battery performance. Streaming video on Netflix with brightness at 75% the device discharged 15-18% of its charge per hour. Using it as my primary work machine the Aspire Switch 12 needed to be reconnected to the mains at around 3.30pm, having been first switched on at 9.30am.
Should I buy the Acer Switch Alpha 12?
If you’re after a Surface Pro 4, but don’t have quite enough cash, then the Acer Switch Alpha 12 is a solid choice. The basic Intel Core i3 model I reviewed offers fantastic value for money. For a modest £600 Acer’s offering the main tablet section plus an attachable keyboard and active stylus – two add-ons for which most companies charge as much as £150 extra.
If you’re determined to get a Windows convertible, the Acer Switch Alpha 12 is one of the best semi-affordable options available. Its overall appeal is let down by two crucial points, however: its poorly calibrated screen and below-average battery life.
The screen is more than sharp enough for regular use, but its poor colour gamut coverage makes it ill-suited to even basic design, painting or photo editing. The use of an i3 processor rather than the more power-efficient M chip, and the addition of power-hungry bloatware, also mean it won’t last a full working day off one charge.
The Surface Pro 4 remains a better choice for buyers who can afford it. Those on a shoestring budget who need a device now would also be better off checking out Microsoft’s older Surface 3, which can be picked up for as little as £400, but doesn’t come bundled with a Type Cover and you’ll have to make do with an anaemic Intel Atom processor.
There are also a number of great-looking convertibles set to arrive in the near future, such as the Asus Transformer Pro 3. So buyers who aren’t in a rush may also be better off waiting and seeing how these compare before handing over their hard-earned cash.
Verdict
A great-value convertible, slightly let down by poor battery life and a badly calibrated screen.
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