First look: Acer Aspire 7600U and 5600U all-in-one touchscreens

Acer has announced its Windows 8 portfolio in Taipei, with the 27-inch Aspire 7600U being the vanguard of its all-in-one offerings.

While all-in-one touchscreens have never lived up to the promise, the launch of Windows 8 later this year will mean a rash of new devices hitting the market. Will compelling touchscreen Windows apps for the desktop finally happen?

Check out more stories from Computex 2012.

The bigger 7600U comes in at 27 inches and has a full HD resolution. Here, you can spot a slot-loading optical drive.

The touchscreen allows up to 64 simultaneous inputs, which could have fascinating implications for multi-user programs. It can also be tilted flat like a table, and rotated for easy access.

Screen quality was excellent at first glance, and the Metro aesthetic translates really well to the large screen. We're looking forward to seeing if usability is up there as well. The product manager joked that vertically oriented, it's the world's biggest e-reader. From the sharp text we saw, he may not be far off the mark.

The 5600U is only 23 inches across, and doesn't tilt flat like the 27-inch — it's limited to 85°. Both have Dolby Theater Surround Sound. Build quality looked a little cheap, but we suspect that we saw very early pre-production samples.

It will also rotate up to 90 degrees when vertical, although the demo unit we saw wobbled quite a bit and didn't lock firmly into place. We're hoping that this will be addressed by the time it goes to market. The clear panel seems to only serve as a grip when adjusting the monitor.

Getting close to the desktop proved difficult, but we spotted at least a pair of USB 3.0 ports, headphone and microphone jacks and a multi-card reader. There were at least two more USB 2.0 ports around the back, along with a breakout power supply. Internal specs are yet to come.