Amazon accidentally leaks world's first small-screen Windows 8 tablet

The first-ever small-screen Windows tablet made a brief appearance on Amazon.com today, before quickly being yanked from the online retailer's e-shelves.

While Acer was busy showing off a smattering of large-screen Windows devices in New York Friday, the 8.1-inch Acer Iconia W3-810-1600 was briefly available for perusal in the digital realm. Why does that matter? Because all Windows 8 tablets released thus far have packed 10-inch or larger displays, as Microsoft's operating system was engineered before diminutive tablets like the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire became all the rage.

Microsoft has tweaked a bevy of features and specs since the release of Windows 8 to create a friendlier environment for smaller slates. The OS's hardware certification program recently dropped the minimum allowable screen resolution for Windows 8 tablets from 1366-by-768 down to 1024-by-768, while leaked builds of the impending Windows Blue update sported a Snap feature that works just fine on tiny tablets. (Previously, Snap only worked on displays with that 1366-by-768 resolution.)

As far as Acer's Iconia W3 goes, rumors of the 8-inch slate first surfaced in late April. It's still yet to make an official debut, but the Amazon page revealed that the tablet packs a dual-core Atom processor, along with numerous other technical details you can see in the image to the right.

:story: PCWorld