Even if you have a passing interest in the consumer electronics space, chances are that you would have heard the terms ‘3D’ and ‘multi-touch’ being ballyhooed all over the place over the past couple of months! While the third dimension has found its champions in Avatar and the slew of 3D TVs launched in CES ’10, multi-touch has the weight of Apple – everything from its iPhones, Macs, Magic Mouse to the iPad support it – behind it! So when Acer added 3D and multi-touch to their latest range of laptops, we had to take them out for a spin! Gimmick or path-breaking USP? Read on!
 
With the 5738D, Acer’s foray into the market of one – at least as far as 3D laptops go – has been nothing short of a great big technological move forward. Previously, if you wanted 3D hardware on your desk, you’d need special powered 3D glasses, not to mention a screen with a 120Hz refresh rate and a specialized graphics card. At 43,500/- + taxes, this is a far cheaper solution to living the world of Pandora on your desk than ever before. Sure, so the laptop itself isn’t the slimmest or the sleekest model out there and the power under the hood is capable not awe-inspiring, but that’s not why you’re reading this, are you? The real attraction is the screen, which at 1366x768 pixels is a little on the lower side, but it’s 3D, so that makes it all worth your while, right?
 
Almost. There’s still no escaping the glasses, no matter how comfy Acer’s made them. The screen is covered with a thin layer of polarizing filters, which when combined with Acer’s stylish polarized specs works the 3D magic. A piece of software – TriDef 3D – sends the left and right images to the correct parts of the screen for the corresponding eye, and with the glasses blocking out alternate pixels to each eye, your brain tells you it’s 3D. Much like the Fujifilm 3D camera that was here not too long ago, you will have to tilt the screen and focus till you see the sweet spot for all that 3D goodness! Once that’s done, fire up the demo content provided on the TriDef media player, and the stuff quite literally leaps out of the screen at you! It tweaks your images too for a nice 3D effect, and better still, the TriDef 3D software can add a 3D effect to any game that uses DirectX 9 rendering. The effect is insane – games render really well in 3D, but it’s a pity that the graphics card is not upto snuff for many modern games. Your mileage may vary. Movie watching is a bit of a miss than a hit, with the 3D effect working intermittently and forcing you to keep switching your physical position ever so often. Plus 3D rendering adds to the processing load on your system, which means really high def content (should this system have featured a Blu-ray) would crawl. And before I forget, do yourself a favor and don’t watch 3D content over a sustained period of time – you’ll just be lining yourself up for a massive headache.
 
But as a proof of concept, the 5738D really works, and it does so without charging a massive premium. If you’re the early adopter who needs the latest tech on your table, this would a good point to dive in!