| Acer Iconia 6120 Dual-Screen Laptop |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Notebook | Compact PC | |
| Written by David Ramsey | |
| Tuesday, 26 April 2011 | |
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Iconia 6120 Detailed FeaturesThe power button's surrounded by a thin blue glow when the computer is on, and, although it's hard to see in this view, there's also a small blue light just to the right of the power switch icon on the front of the metal part of the hinge. The Acer Iconia automatically goes to sleep when you close the lid, but you'll have to press this button to wake it up...just opening the lid again won't do it.
The bottom of the Iconia 6120 is an aluminum plate with two rubber feet (two more feet are mounted on the bottom of the hinge assembly) and a number of ventilation holes. The front feet are latches that slide inward to release the bottom panel.
With the bottom panel removed, we can see the 640GB, 5400-RPM Western Digital hard drive at the upper left, and two 2G SO-DIMMs. To the right of the DIMMs is the CMOS battery. Upgrading the hard disk and memory is easy, but you'll see no visible trace of the 3000mAh main battery. Presumably it's underneath all the stuff we do see. It's certainly not user-replaceable.
The 180-degree hinge allows you to lay the computer out flat (but that's as far as you can go: you can't fold the screens back-to-back). The rubber ridge on the upper edge of the top display serves as a cushion to support the lid. Although this image makes the lower section of the laptop (at the right side) appear to be hovering above the surface it's resting on, it's actually supported by the four rubber feet on the bottom panel.
You can use the lower display of the Iconia 6120 in two ways: first, as an input device. The image below shows the virtual keyboard with its virtual trackpad, but there are other options I'll cover later in this review.
Second, you can extend the Windows desktop across both displays. Windows "sees" the dual screens as two 1366x768 monitors arranged vertically. In this mode you can enter text with an external USB keyboard or use Windows' keyboard widget. The image below shows Firefox 4 extended across both displays. Note that the Windows task bar is still visible at the bottom of the top display.
But what advantages does this arrangement really bring? Acer provides a lot of software to explore the possibilities. First, though, we have the obligatory performance tests.
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Comments
And how come the cheap and weak 3000maH battery is not user-replaceable? Why even bother giving a battery from the first place?
And, don't believe in the stability of hybrid USBs. Let alone in the known-for-not- being-so-durable Acer units.
Thank you for the review that reveals how spooky the laptop is.
Will wait for at least 3rd generation of this product before even start looking at it seriously.
Indonesian Acer users don't really need Bluetooth v3.0, and most that I know don't even need an internal Bluetooth at alol. External USB Bluetooth is already satisfying as well as easily replaceable in the case of any damage/malfunctioning, since durability is not Acer?s brag-ables anyway, is it? BTv3 is a cheap marketing trick initiated by Toshiba as a cover-up for their poor-sounding (Conexant audio!) and poor imaging (bad webcams) but yet expensive laptops. Yet no one buys Toshiba for that reason!
I agree, a user replaceable battery is a must.
This looks like it has a lot of promise as a dual screen system if you just add a keyboard, and allow the user to look at the system sideways.
Actually, you can change this, but when you do, you get an error dialog warning that the positions and rotations of the displays cannot be changed, and then after about 15 seconds, they switch back automatically.
I assume this is because most of ASUS' included software (like the various Touch apps) require this configuration.
Until now I didn'ti have any problems playing games with arrow keys nor awsd.
Battery CAN be removed, but you have to ipen the coverplate so that you can press 2 buttons. It even have the lock key for battery ((at first I thought I can't remove battery too), but I think there are a lot of alternatives to the build in battery performance (UPS for example - #en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninterruptible_powe r_supply) or external battery. In case you are watching a movie, you can of course turn off it's second monitor (they can be turned off one or another, or both). My record of battery usage is nearly 3 hours of watching movies (of course my model have even bluetooth 3.0, which models in USA don't have, at least as far as I know, but I am in europe and we have a slightly different model ...)
And best of, the price wasn't even that high ... only 850? (which is something like normal laptops cost in my country - Slovenia).
Click on Completely restore system to factory defaults. It will use these data. And than you can create a disk with factory defaults items installed.
If I install windows on it again, Ill probably need the programs for the touch pad and acer ring right?
Yes, if you reinstall Windows, you'll need to reinstall the Iconia utilities and drivers.
If you don't have a recovery partition and can't make the install disk set, then you need to go to Acer's web site to find and download the software. But I just looked and wasn't able to find anything about the "Iconia 6120", so you might be out of luck there. I suppose you could always call Acer tech support.
"C:\OEM\Preload\Autor un\AutorunX\". Inside that folder look for a file called "AutorunX.exe". Run it, click on "Contents" and install all files you see on the list that appears.
If you don't, please reply and I will try compressing it for you (it is 3 gigabytes large). Hope this helps.
if you get to pack this, can you please send me the share to it... I'm also having issues with getting this Keyboard and Ring to work.
PLEASE!
Anyway, here is the link:
ardentangel.com/iconia/OEM.rar
Anyway, here it finally is:
#ardentangel.com/iconia/OEM.rar
Extract it to your C:\ drive directly (using Extract here option)
After that, go to "C:\OEM\Preload\Autor un\AutorunX\" and launch the program called "AutorunX.exe"
Once it launched, you will be able to get a list with all drivers and applications (programs) to install (which are all already included, so you won't have to redownload them), including the Touch Engine, which actually is the Virtual Keyboard and Acer Ring. There is another thing to install to get all of the Acer Ring applications on the list, if you won't be installing everything that is there (however, I advise you that you do install everything ... don't worry, there are no demo games, that are preinstalled on ICONIA once you buy it).
Anyway, I learned of the existance of this AutorunX appliacation the hard way ... Acer support sucks and they insist that there is NO WAY of getting Virtual Keyboard nor Acer Ring installation executables. But I did managed to get it after all. :)
And that's why I am helping you on the first place, because I know how they sucks now (at least the UK one ... I am from Slovenia, so US acer did not wanted to help me, since they couldn't verify my model number or whatever ...). =P
If you have any more question, ask.
Many thanks...
#store.griffintechnology.com/a-frame
It holds the Iconia very well and there was no movement when using either touch screen.
#store.apple.com/ca/product/H1060ZM/A?fnode=MjA1MTEyODY
thanks david!
First....I booted up the pc for the first time and went through all the steps and to my surprise the ACER WALLPAPER (which i think is VERY cool) was not on the screen....I have looked through ALL the files and folders and cannot find this wallpaper. I am wondering if maybe I was sent the european version (i live in the us) because I also received the USB card reader which I was NOT expecting to get.
Also could someone please tell me what the DIFFEREMCES between the 2 models are and if someone could point me to where I could get that wallpaper, it would be GREATLY appreciated!
Thanks
Mine worked fine for the year or so I had it. I'm sorry you've had so many problems with yours.
I will go home tonight and start playing with it and let you know the outcome.
All, if your system seems unstable, please install the Touch Engine only and not the rest of the MS Touch applications.
edisk.ukr.net/?do=dir#cdir=shared
user name: iconia
password: 123456
Changing language pack tutorial:
youtube.com/watch?v=6lf8lAaop3c
Thank you in advance.