Acer's Iconia W3 tablet at Rs 27,999

 Acer Iconia W3 holds the distinction of being the world's smallest Windows 8-powered tablet. It is the first true rival of the popular Apple iPad mini and the plethora of Android tablets like Google Nexus 7 and Samsung Galaxy Note 510. At the launch event, we played a bit with the device for a hands-on review.

It doesn't feel tremendously strong or expensive, but it does have a much more one hand-friendly form than any other Windows 8 tablet to date. It's also the first we've used to be based around a portrait design - as the mandatory Windows home button sits on one of the narrower sides, at the other end of the bezel to the front-facing camera.

To simplify matters in dumbing-down fashion, the Acer Iconia W3 is currently the closest thing Windows has to an iPad mini alternative.

• significantly heavier and thicker at around 11m and 540g. 
• Along its edges you'll find a microHDMI video output, a microUSB slot, a microSD card slot, headphone jack and two pretty clear speaker outputs that sit on the bottom edge.
• The smallest WIndows tablet we've seen to date had a 10.1-inch screen; the Acer Iconia W3 has an 8-inch screen.
• The W3 has a widescreen 1,280 x 800 pixel display, similar in aspect to Android tablets like the (slightly smaller) Nexus 7.
• Iconia W3 has a dual-core Atom Z2760 processor clocked at 1.5GHz rather than the Core i-series type found in much pricier Windows 8 tablets, and 2GB of RAM. 
• Acer has produced a bespoke dock that gives you a full-size keyboard, turning the Iconia W3 into to a little typing monster.
  

First Impressions

The Acer Iconia W3 is one of the most interesting Windows 8 tablets in a long while. However, its issues don't quite make it the stand-out lower-cost choice for Windows 8 that the Nokia Lumia 620 was for Windows Phone 8.