Acer’s Iconia W3 is probably the first 8-inch Windows 8 tablet

Last week, we reported that Microsoft was hinting at smaller and cheaper Windows 8 devices, and all signs point to leaked images of what Minimachines is calling the Acer Iconia W3.
It’s an 8-inch tablet, rumored to be rocking a 1.8GHz dual-core Atom Z2760 processor with 2GB of RAM, and two cameras (front and rear). The leaked photos depict the Iconia W3 propped up on one of Microsoft’s keyboard attachments, so if the rumors turn out to be true, we’ll be sure to see it in a bunch of different colors, all of them neon.
Acer has asked the original source to take the pics down, but they’re out, and all over the place. The thing looks more than a little like the Windows tablets to me, but then, this propped-up / folding keyboard trend seems like it’s here to stay, at least for the time being.
One’s got to wonder a little bit about new Windows 8 devices. With the Windows Blue update not so far away, it’s entirely possible this year’s wave of Windows 8 hardware will be needing an OS update before too long, and of course, you can expect to hear all about Microsoft’s incoming wave of Windows Blue devices, probably within the year.
Windows 8 has also been criticized in the past for being over-simplified, and with its tiled image-based layout, it could easily be said, might be leading us towards an over-simplified Internet.