Acer TravelMate 802.11ad notebook: An industry 'first' you might never need or use

When I was offered a review unit of the Acer TravelMate P648-MG-789T notebook, it was touted as the “industry’s first notebook with Tri-Band 802.11ad Wireless from Qualcomm”.

Sure thing!, I thought, as I always enjoy trying out things that are new, especially ones that are an industry first.

But then I went back and looked up 802.11ad - aka “Gigabit Wireless”, aka “60Gig”, and realized that this technology has been touted for about two years without much movement in the space from vendors. At CES earlier this year, Acer announced it was coming out with this notebook, and it’s finally here.

Whoo-hoo?

Here’s the thing - 802.11ad technology utilizes the 60 GHz wireless spectrum - it’s aimed at short range, high-volume data transfers, especially in smaller spaces. This also gives you some higher bandwidth than you’d get with an 802.11ac system, but you’re also limiting the distance between the client and the receiver in order to get that benefit.

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