• ACi Ultra Mini Tablet PC

    ACi Ultra Mini Tablet PC

    Rohan Naravane, Mar 14, 2008 1233 hrs IST

    An "ultra-mini" laptop with some decent features -- and some silly drawbacks

    Good-quality screen, 120 GB disk space, multiple input options, lightweight

    Underpowered to run the installed Windows Vista smoothly (which leads to sluggish performance), weak webcam

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Design and Construction
The ACi Ultra Mini Tablet has a small footprint. It's almost as heavy (or light, rather) as the Eee PC. It's small enough to be easily carried around in a back-pack. The build is pretty decent, though it's not as sturdy as the Eee PC, I'd say.


The holder strap makes the laptop look like a purse. Thankfully for guys, it can be removed!

The 7-inch screen is the same size as that of the Eee PC, but it has a higher resolution. It is therefore sharper; text and video look pretty good. It is sufficiently bright, too, and watching hi-res videos is enjoyable. Also, thanks to its 1024 horizontal pixels (which has become a default minimum requirement for all websites), it eliminates the issue of side-scrolling while surfing. But on the other hand, due to a high resolution on a small screen, fonts look a bit small; this can, however, be fixed by increasing the DPI setting of the fonts.

In contrast, the webcam that sits above the screen isn't pleasant at all. The output looked grainy even with good lighting, and quite simply, it reminded me of the olden-day 0.1 megapixel webcams (even though this one's apparently a 1.3MP).

The speakers placed on either side of the screen hinge are not very powerful; you'll need to plug in a pair of earphones.


In the laptop mode

Below the screen is the small keyboard. Since I'd done a lot of typing on the Eee PC recently, I did not find it difficult to type using these keys. I felt the keyboard was slightly better than that of the Eee. Below the keyboard is the tiny touch-pad; though it is tiny, it is quite usable. Although it does not have any marking on it, vertical scrolling is achieved by sliding the finger along the right edge.

Now that's just one of the three input modes of this sub-notebook. The screen can be tilted off an axis to convert it into a tablet form. In this mode, it can be operated either by the track-point and complementary buttons on the sides of the screen, or by tapping the stylus on the screen.


In the tablet mode

The track-point is slightly hard, but usable nonetheless. Input via the stylus is pretty accurate. There's no handwriting recognition software provided for text entry, so I had to rely on the on-screen QWERTY keyboard. But actually, I didn't end up using the touch input mode much.

A quick look at the I/O ports on the sides:


The left side has the power, LAN, one USB, and a VGA port -- along with the power switch


On the right, the CF card slot, SD/Memory Stick card slot, and another USB port

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Discussion Board
(10) Comments
saumen roy
,contai westbengal, on Jun 17, 2010 10:24 PM
I interested product details this product
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angel
,hyderabad, on Jul 27, 2009 02:17 PM
i'm interested in this product.. may i know a bit more details of this product?
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kirtiinfotech
,ahmedabadgujarat/india, on Oct 17, 2008 07:17 PM
driver for aci tablet pc config via c3(antaur processor)
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Noel
,Vapi, on Apr 07, 2008 11:22 AM
Would like a comparison between the MiLeap V and Samsung Q1 Ultra
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Dr Arun M
,Thiruvananthapuram, on Mar 17, 2008 08:54 PM
Please review th model mileap Y and V from HCL. will be waiting for the same
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Sahil
,Mumbai, on Mar 16, 2008 12:52 AM
Pls review HCL MiLeap X and Y Series, which i think is more better then ACI Ultra Mini, and i think X series is available under Rs.15K
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Rohan Naravane
,TechTree Techabs, on Mar 16, 2008 10:48 AM
Keep watching this space and your wishes will be answered :)
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vijayshimla
,Shimla 171001, on Mar 16, 2008 10:42 AM
ACi looks like a company on verge of folding, with hardly any market share- it would be quite dicey to buy a laptop from them.
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vijayshimla
,Shimla 171001, on Mar 14, 2008 08:28 PM
This ACI UMPC has a fatal flaw, small screen !!- too much real estate is lost on sides of display -it needs a 9 inch screen a ka the Eee PC 900. Also the HDD though 120 GB will be a real slow down factor. I, like lots of other ppl will wait for the $ 499 Eee 900 PC on a new Intel Atom processor-fast 12 GB SSD drive, running fast win xp.
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Taipan
,Kangra, on Mar 15, 2008 07:15 AM
You have hit nail on head mr vijayshimla. when tested factually-this UMPC will come out virtually worthless- slow processor plus slow hard disc. ACI needs a good product adviser like you- to identify what will sell and what will not- this one is a dud.
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