Star Trek Into Darkness has finally blasted off at cinemas and many mysteries leading up to the release of the JJ Abrams directed sequel have now been solved. Taiwanese computing company Acer has also done some uncloaking of its own and we now know that the Starship Enterprise-shaped Windows 8 laptop we saw teased recently will be known as the Acer Aspire R7 when it launches tomorrow (May 14th).
Just like the famous Starfleet vessel, the Acer Aspire R7 features a sleek and stylish design with a unique convertible touchscreen that actually wouldn’t look out of place if being used by Misters Chekov or Sulu at the helm of the re-imagined Enterprise.
Reflecting one of the major themes in the new Star Trek film, the R7 takes what we think we know and completely flips it. This is evident from first glance when we notice the track pad that is actually in front of the backlit keyboard, not below it, as is the norm on most laptop computers.
The Acer Aspire R7 is also incredibly versatile and can be used as both a traditional laptop with keyboard and as a kind-of mounted tablet thanks to a sliding ‘Ezel’ hinge that changes the laptop functionally and gives it that super-cool starship resembling silhouette.
Having a handy 15.6 inch display that comes forward like this removes the need to reach out to the touchscreen like on some of the other Windows 8 computers. This is more than just a clever gimmick and brings the screen in to a position that’s much more natural to use, akin to the way we would use a tablet.
Specs befitting of a Galaxy-class vessel include a respectable Intel Core i5 processor with a choice of a 256GB or 1TB hard drive. The 15.6 inch touchscreen boasts a sharp 1920 x 1080 resolution and Dolby provides the audio with four 8 watt speakers on board for optimising those Star Trek streaming sessions!
There’s also a plentiful plethora of ports for hooking up external devices including no less than three USB 2.0 slots with access available for HDMI, SD Card and audio out.
Inspired by one of our favourite sci-fi franchises, Acer has come up with a ‘fascinating’ laptop that would even impress Scotty with its technical ingenuity. There’s both style and substance aplenty to the Aspire R7 ‘Star Trek’ laptop which is available from Tuesday 14th of May with prices starting at around £900.