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Acer makes its new all-in-one portable by adding a battery

With the PC market dwindling and Microsoft itself now providing some of the best Windows 10 models (like the powerful Surface Book convertible), third-party OEMs have to do something to stand out. That's perhaps why Acer has decided to put an internal battery in its 17.3-inch Aspire Z3-700 all-in-one (AIO) to make it more roadworthy. It's not the first AIO to do this trick -- Dell's hybrid XPS 18 did it a couple years ago, and Lenovo's 27-inch Horizon 2 takes the idea to the extreme. The Z3-700 is one of the lightest and longest lasting we've seen at 2-kilograms (4.4 pounds), though. That suggests it's more a big tablet than an AIO, but Acer says the dual kickstand and 1080p, 10-point multi-touch screen also make it a worthy desktop PC.

It's not a bad idea for graphics designers or others who might prefer a desktop form factor but need a big, reasonably portable tablet from time to time. As such, it has a battery that can run it up to five hours and support for a dedicated stylus. It's also equipped with the latest Intel sixth-generation Core Skylake or Celeron CPU, an SSD or HDD and up to 8GB of RAM. It'll arrive by the end of the year in Europe starting at €599 ($680).

The other product revealed by Acer today was a new Aspire R14 convertible notebook. It's pretty similar to the last, Lenovo Yoga-like R14 model (not the one with the easel-like hinge), except that it now has a fancy new "diamond-cut" edge design and a smaller, 360-degree dual-torque hinge. That'll give you laptop, tent, display or tablet modes, depending on how you orient the 1.9-kilogram (4.1 pound) device. It also comes with sixth-gen Skylake CPUs, SSD or HDD disks and up to 8GB of RAM, though Acer didn't mention the 14-inch screen's resolution. That model will arrive in the US by the end of the month starting at $699.