Just as we expected, the first of what I’m sure will be plenty of ultrabooks has just showed itself at the CES International show in Las Vegas. Acer just announced what they’re calling the world’s thinnest ultrabook: the Acer Aspire S5.

Just 15mm thick at its thickest point, the 13.3-inch ultrabook sports a magnesium alloy cover, with all of the same requirements were seeing out of ultrabooks like InstantOn technology. There’s also a creative use of space on the S5 with a bevy of ports including HDMI, USB 3.0, and Thunderbolt ports along with an SSD.

Shipping is expected to begin in Q2.

It is the dawning of the age of cloudquarius. Acer, in addition to a set of ultrabooks, just announced something it’s calling AcerCloud. This service, like iCloud, brings all of your content onto all of your devices, allowing you to “create, acquire and consume on different devices.”

Quoth the PR:

There are three parts to the service – PicStream which handles pictures, AcerCloud Docs (a Dropbox-alike), and clear.fi Media for media sharing. It allows you, for example, to move a video file from your PC to your phone and then to your tablet. Presumably this has to happen on Acer gear.

The service is not yet available but you can grab more information here and the press release follows.

Acer is not done with tablets. New models will be released in 2012. The company is apparently going to continue making Android tabs despite a slow start and reports stating the contrary. Acer’s founder, Stan Shih, likened it to the troubles the company experienced with early PC notebooks.

It’s a nice thought, but the man is wrong. Producing more tablets could be disastrous for Acer, which is already quickly sliding into a pool of red ink.

Modern tablets are not the same as notebooks. They’re completely different beasts with totally different markets. Succeeding at selling tablets requires completely different tactics than selling notebooks. Acer’s tried-and-true strategy of racing others to the bottom will not generate the same level of success.

Acer became a household name through selling relatively inexpensive computers. This generated a lot of sales but also a horrible reputation. Until just recently, Acer products were often looked upon as being the low hanging fruit of the computer world. They’re easy to obtain although not that tasty. But the process worked for Acer as the company surpassed Dell in 2009 to be the second largest computer maker behind just HP. Cheap, grey boxes sell.

Nondescript tablets are not the way of the future. Consumers either want an inexpensive tailored device or the iPad. Thirdly, as proved by Asus, a tablet designed by geeks for geeks is also another way. Anything in between is a non-starter. Acer’s Iconia Tab devices checks all the theoretical right boxes: Tegra 2 platform, the latest Honeycomb install, a good screen, dual cameras, and plenty of expansion ports. But if you’re shopping for specs, there is no reason to buy an Acer tablet over, say, a Asus Transformer or even a Samsung GalTab.

In the PC race, Acer simply cut corners and took shortcuts. It worked. But there aren’t many ways to do that with tablets. Only by loading the tablet with sponsored bloatware could the manufacturer theoretically support lower MSRPs — not that there’s that much room to work with anyway. Shin stated that the company will simplify its product development and reduce the amount of tablet and smartphone products.

Look at the current state of Android tablets and it’s clear Acer is in for a hard fight ahead. Amazon and B&N have their content distribution. Asus is building a tablet for the very niche geek crowd while Samsung and Motorola have their massive marketing might. Acer, on the other hand, doesn’t have anything but it’s reputation as a cheap computer maker which is a huge hindrances as tablets are positioned as premium devices. Acer is in serious trouble if it believes it can compete at a high level.

Acer is in a bit of trouble. The company saw two consecutive quarters of net losses. Sales in the third quarter were up slightly from earlier in the year but still trailed year-over-year numbers by 30%. Things aren’t looking good for the house of Acer/Gateway/Packard Bell.

The company’s acting CEO, J.T. Wang, is a man with a plan. In an attempt to realign the company, he is going to cut two-thirds of the company’s vast product line up from current levels. It’s a drastic move considering the sheer amount of pink slips the company will hand out. In the United States market alone, Acer currently sells 101 individual notebook, netbook and chromebook SKUs. The company’s desktop, peripheral, and accessory lines are just as deep. Acer’s acting CEO wants to trim the fat and make things a bit more simple (and cost-effective).

The restructering is expected to take three years with the cheap Acer products apparently be the first to go. Acer’s previous CEO, Gianfranco Lanci, aimed for the low hanging fruit. It was a smart move and put the Acer brands on the map. During his time, Acer climb the PC shipment ladder, ultimately replacing Dell as the number two PC maker behind HP. But with sales lagging, it’s time for a change. Enter the ultrabooks.

Wang sees Acer offering one of the MacBook Air clones for as low as $699 in 2012, spurring enough growth to stall Apple’s steady growth. Wang is less optimistic about Android, though, and while acknowledging it will be a major platform in 2012, he stated to Digitimes that it will “only achieve flat performance in the future PC industry.”

Acer currently sells the Aspire S3 ultrabook and I found it to be a capable and less costly alternative to the MacBook Air. But unlike with Apple’s offering, ultrabooks will drop in price as makers once again race to the bottom. Apple is likely to keep prices steady as it has over the company’s entire existence. Once ultrabooks drop in price and consumer become more aware of the ultrathin notebooks, the new platform will no doubt prove to be a key product for most Wintel PC makers.

Acer is back with another Android tab. The Iconia Tab A200 is now shipping, loaded with Honeycomb but Ice Cream Sandwich is reportedly in the works. Hopefully Acer fanboys weren’t waiting for a Transformer Prime competitor. The A200 seems like just a repackage of the company’s original A500 Android tablet.

The slightly chunky 10.1-inch tablet runs a a Tegra 2 dual-core chip along with 1GB of RAM and either 8GB or 16GB of storage along with a microSD card slot. A 3260mAh battery is said to provide 8 hours of life during video playback. A 2MP camera sits in the front bezel as the tablet’s only image capture device.

The A200 comes pre-loaded with several software packs. Most notebly is the Acer Ring launcher as demoed in the video below.

There is no word on pricing or US availability just yet but Netbook News is reporting that the tablet is already shipping in some countries. The tablet current ships with Android 3.2 but the company indicated in the tablet’s press release that come January, units will ship with Ice Cream Sandwich pre-installed. Also, at that time, an ICS update will roll out to the previously purchased models.

Slowly but surely, the world is turning 3D. The Acer HR274H is a 27-inch 1080p 3D display with a trick up its sleeve. Using an internal, chip-based system, the monitor can convert most 2D content into (arguably poor) 3D. This will, in short, pop the moving objects to the front of the scene while making the background look further away.

It uses a single HDMI cable to carry video from a console, Blu-ray player, or set-top box. It uses polarized, passive glasses instead of the more traditional battery-powered active glasses.

It’s available now for $599.

Panel Size: 27″ (69 cm) Wide Screen 16:9, TN, LED backlight
Native Resolution: 1920×1080 pixels
Pixel Pitch: 0.3114 mm
Brightness(Max): 250 cd/m2
Contrast Ratio (Max.): 100,000,000:1 (dynamic)
Viewing Angles: 170° H / 160° V
Response Time: 2 ms (Gray to Gray)
Video Inputs: 2x HDMI 1.4a, VGA
Power Consumption: 27.50 W On, 1.4W Sleep, 0.6W Off/Standby
Integrated Audio: 2x 2W stereo speakers
Monitor stand: tilt +30°~-30°
Dimension (WxHxD): 25.5″ x 18.5″ x 7.6″ (648.1 x 468.5 x 192 mm)
Weight: 13.2 lbs (6 kg)

I’ve been a big proponent of the idea that Apple will be putting out a high-resolution iPad soon. But it looks like they’re getting beat to the punch by Acer and perhaps others, according to some scraps of information gleaned from an XML file from Acer’s website.

The A700 and A701, found by Notebook Italia, were listed on Acer’s support site, and the listing is in fact still there as of this writing. The main features are NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 chipset and an impressive 1920×1200 display resolution. That is in fact the resolution of the 24″ display I’m typing this on right now.

The benefits of such a resolution are easy to see, but there’s a reason we expected a major jump by Apple to 2048×1536: simple 2x scaling. When icons and graphical elements have to be blown up, it really helps with image quality if the blown up size is a whole number multiple of the original, so the pixels can just be doubled and no filtering is required.

Vector graphics obviate this requirement to some extent, but right now this resolution jump may be a little awkward. Many high-resolution Android phones have to add little borders to the icons to make them the right size, since scaling them would make them look blurry. Hopefully Acer and/or Google have addressed this problem already, but we won’t know for sure until we see the device. The size is also unspecified, but I doubt very much they’ll go very far over 10 inches. A quick search didn’t turn up any obvious sellers of displays of this size and resolution, so the manufacturer is also unknown.

Still, I’m loving this increased resolution. I’ve always felt it would enable a lot once we all move past visible pixels, and it’s good to see that hardware change really starting to take place. Hopefully more companies, Apple included, will follow Acer’s example over the next year. While spec-mongering is less important every year, resolution is one thing we can all appreciate.

[via SlashGear]

Now that Ice Cream Sandwich is real, manufacturers can start talking about the roll out. The good news is that ICS looks Tegra 2 friendly so it should run on most of the first generation Honeycomb tablets. Asus and Acer have both confirmed that their respective tabs will get the update but haven’t detailed the launch schedule. That’s the bad news, which really isn’t all that bad in and of itself.

Asus released several a statement across its social media platforms indicated that yes, the entire Eee Pad family including the Transformer and Slider will eventually see an official Android 4.0 release.

Via Asus Facebook

Here’s the official word on Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich:

“Google recently announced the latest update for Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, which brings some exciting new features and capabilities. At ASUS, we pride ourselves on delivering a great experience with our products, thanks to frequent updates that further enhance our products’ capabilities. We’re delighted to confirm support for Ice Cream Sandwich on the ASUS Eee Pad Family – our aim is to bring the latest Android update to the Eee Pad Series, but at this time we are unable to set a date for its release. Please stay tuned for more news on our Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade plans.”

Tablet-online.pl received a statement from Acer Poland indicating that Ice Cream Sandwich will hit the Acer Iconia Tab A100/A101 and the A500/A501 sometime in mid-January. That’s CES time, folks.

So far Samsung and Motorola haven’t released info concerning its Honeycomb tablet update schedule although Motorola recently tweeted that it would release ICS updates 6 weeks after Google hands them the code. However, most of the current Honeycomb tablets run the same hardware, which should make porting an unofficial release to the tablets a non-issue.

Acer announced that they’d be posting another loss, following last quarter’s $250m one, and warned they were unlikely to get back into the black by the end of the year. The good news? They only lost around $36m. Things are coming up roses!

In truth, it really is a big improvement, and the losses are smaller than expected. Acer announced earlier this year that not only were they going to take a hit while doing inventory reduction (units they’d have to sell for less than expected), but that essentially their entire business model needed revision.

Although Acer’s sales actually saw ~15% growth over last quarter, they’re still 30% below what they were a year ago. But Acer’s humility and acknowledgement of the problem (they cite the iPad and Fire as major competitors in the low-end notebook space, a fact they were once unwilling to acknowledge) are reassuring. It’s a hell of a big company and they’re not doing well — they admit that — but they’re getting better and hopefully will come out the other end of this stronger.

As for this year, hopes are pinned on the Aspire S3 ultrabook, a slim and powerful machine with a reasonable price that they’re hoping will attract buyers away from MacBook Airs and perhaps inspire budget buyers to take their laptop up a notch. We definitely enjoyed the laptop, but it too will face fierce competition from the Air and other ultrabooks.

The Aspire S3 is Acer’s first ultrabook. The notebook is almost unabashedly a MacBook Air clone with straight lines and a clean design but it’s also $400 less. There are some trade-offs when comparing this to the Air, sure, but for the most part the Aspire S3 is a fine ultraportible for the Windows crowd.

What Acer and all the rest of the ultrabook makers are building are by all accounts fine computers but will no doubt catch flack because of their similarities to the MacBook Air. The Aspire S3 isn’t a MacBook Air killer. Not alone at least. This notebook gives me hope that the PC isn’t dead and ultrabooks will be the genesis of this revival.

Lookin’ Good

It’s hard to dismiss the MacBook Air as the S3′s inspiration. It’s a virtual clone if you replace the MBA’s aluminum skin with plastic, ditch the backlit keyboard and replace the glowing Apple logo with a shiny Acer one. That’s fine with me. Acer got the major points right. The S3 is lightweight, surprisingly rigid and sports a quality multitouch trackpad.

The S3 is .51-inches thick. That’s .17mm thinner than the MacBook Air at its thickest point. But unlike the MBA or the recently announced Asus Zenbook, the S3 is nearly the same thickness throughout; it’s not tapered to a sharp point. But with a notebook this thin, these tiny details do not really matter. The S3 is just a touch thicker than two iPads 2. It also weighs a mere 2.98 lbs.

Acer pulled off a sort of coup with the S3. This ultrabook has perhaps the best trackpad I’ve ever used on a Windows notebook. The multitouch gestures simply work without a learning curve. The whole trackpad wiggles a bit in a way that’s not necessarily bad, but initially unsettling. The trackpad is so good that it tricks my brain and when I need to right click, my left hand constantly wonders up to the Ctrl and Alt button as if I was on a Mac – I forget this trackpad has a real right click button! I am thoroughly impressed with the trackpad.

Then there’s the screen. The S3 uses a rather low resolution 13-inch LED backlit display. The colors and clarity are just fine, but the 1366 x 768 resolution leaves me wanting more. That’s the same resolution used in the 11-inch MBA — the 13-inch uses a 1440 x 900 which lends greatly to its high-end feel. The S3′s low resolution screen is adequate just not exceptional. Plus, the viewing angle is poor and to make matters worse, the lid’s hinge is loose so it tends to fall forwards or backwards when jarred.

Think that’s bad? The S3 has a set of Dolby certified speakers, but you’ll get better sound out of a thrift store harmonica. They’re that bad, which frustrates me considering the Dolby logo printed right by the S3′s power button. Dolby seemingly sells licences more freely than George Lucas pimps Star Wars. If this is Dolby-approved sound, then Dolby clearly endorses horrible sound.

Battery Is King

Acer proudly touts that the S3 can last six hours on a charge. That claim puts the S3 on par with the MacBook Air’s 5-7 hour life. Unfortunately I never saw six hours of life during my testing. A day of normal activities consisting of mainly Internet browsing resulted in a 5 hour battery life. I only saw 3:30 hours when stress testing the notebook by playing 1080p movies over WiFi. (all of Mallrats and part of Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood)

The shorter than advertised battery life is to be expected, though. Where Apple takes great pride in advertising real-life battery stats, Windows PC makers seem to state lives that are only achievable when the notebook is at its lowest brightness and sitting near ideal. Still, the five-hour battery life is below average in the ultraportable scene even though it’s still a good amount of time.

Thin notebooks generally get toasty. The S3 does not. It stays at a comfortable temperature thanks to a fan that kicks on a few minutes after opening the lid. But even the MacBook Air has a fan. After all, there’s a good deal of powerful computing hardware crammed into an area measured by cubic millimeters. At this point ultraportables either have a fan or they double as an Easy Bake Skillet.

Intel Inside

The Aspire S3 rocks a mobile 1.6GHz Core i5-2467M CPU with 4GB of RAM. This little guy handled all my daily tasks that admittedly consists just of Google Reader and Reddit combined with a fair amount of YouTube videos sourced from both. Photoshop runs well enough for simple edits, but I wouldn’t want to compose a huge image — partly because of the low-res screen. Future versions in Acer’s ultrabook line will include Core i3 and i7 CPUs, which depending on your poison, will either provide better battery life at the cost of raw power, or likewise, a shorter battery life in return for faster CPU cycles.

Not surprisingly, the S3 isn’t a gaming machine but it runs less-demanding games like Portal and Starcraft just fine. Don’t expect to play BF3 on here.

Intel designed the ultrabook platform to be quick where it’s most obvious: system start-up and resuming. Acer took it one step farther and included several proprietary software packs to make it even quicker. The included SSD helps, too. It takes about 1 second to resume the system when opening the lid. A system boot took an average of 34 seconds from hitting the power button to seeing the WiFi reconnect. It’s clearly far from instant-on but it’s nearly an instant resume, which is more important to daily usage anyway.

Part of the quickness comes from a 20GB SSD that holds just the important system files. A traditional 320GB spinning disk hard drive handles file storage and additional software installations. This unconventional affair is hidden to the user and only one disk shows up in My Computer. Strangely, despite 3rd party confirmation of these hard drives from HD Tune Pro, only 283 GBs show as the total system storage — and that seemingly includes the Windows 7 install.

But This Is An Acer

Buy a Mac and you get OS X and several first party software titles. Buy an Acer (or HP, Dell or most others) and you get a computer loaded with unsolicited software. This notebook comes with at least a dozen bloatware titles including McAfee Internet Protection and Norton Online Backup. (side question: why does McAfee insist on running inside of Chrome as a plug-in? fear mongering) I’ve only had the computer a few days and I’m constantly bombed with software updates, required restarts and random program notification pop-ups. These sponsored offers allow computer manufacturers to sneak in extra revenue and keep prices low, but there has to be a better way that doesn’t require an owner to spend an hour uninstalling software on his new computer.

The S3 is a winner. It’s relatively low $899 price puts the ultrabook $400 less than a comparable MacBook Air. Plus it runs Windows, which, and I know this may be a shocker to some, is a big advantage for a large cohort of consumers. But the S3 isn’t the only ultrabook out there and if you need some extra power, it might do to wait. Nearly every computer manufacturer is launching a full line of ultrabooks. Acer has an early advantage of hitting retailers before Dell or HP who are expected to enter the game late this year or early next. But Lenovo, Toshiba, Asus, and Samsung are all launching ultrabooks in the coming weeks, so the competition is looming.

This notebook lives up to my rather high expectations. I’m a bit disappointed by the screen, but it’s far from a deal breaker in my opinion. The S3′s trackpad rocks, the notebook stays at a comfortable temperature and the long battery life makes it an all-day companion. I was quiet pleased and, in the end, it’s not just another MacBook Air lookalike.

Product Page

What’s that noise about living in a post-PC era? The personal computer market is actually growing per a new preliminary Gartner report. The research company found third quarter PC shipments as a whole are up 3.2% over the same period in 2010, totaling 91.8 million units. This number is slightly less than Gartner’s earlier projections and the Western European market is partly to blame. But save Acer and Dell, computer manufacturers increased shipments from a year ago and Lenovo, thanks to several acquisitions and partnerships, overtook Dell and now trails just HP in the worldwide PC marketshare pie.

Per this report, HP still holds the most worldwide and US marketshare. While Dell was catching up a year ago, the company saw a decrease in shipments while HP managed to ship even more. This comes even as HP previously announced that it was considering spinning-off its PC division.

Lenovo’s marketshare growth is partly attributed to recent deals. The Beijing-based computer manufacturer recently merged with Japan’s NEC and acquired Medion, a growing German consumer electronic company. Plus, Lenovo is aggressively stepping up marketing and releasing products that tend to ride above the industry standard.

Acer had a rough third quarter worldwide where shipments dropped a staggering 23.2% and 25.4% in the US market due to an inventory buildup issue.

Apple is still lagging behind the top five computer manufacturer on the worldwide stage, but it’s growing rapidly in the US where it holds the third largest marketshare. Apple’s third quarter shipments are up 21.5% over Q3 2010, which helped increase its marketshare to 12.9%. HP saw similar growth with a 15.1% shipping increase and now holds 28.9% of the US marketshare while Dell dropped to 21.9% thanks to a shipping decrease of 7.2%.

The US market saw the third straight quarter of year-over-year growth. Gartner notes that inventory buildup wasn’t an issue as industry expectations foresaw weak back-to-school sales. Apple grew the most in the US in part because of the success of MacBook Air.

These numbers are still preliminary. Gartner will soon release the final stats to its PC Quarterly Statistics Worldwide by Region program.

The day of the Ultrabook is nearly upon us and per Asustek chairman, Jonney Shih, the PC maker has five to six models on the bill for an October release. Prices are said to start out at $899 but also reach $1,999. That’s notably higher than Intel’s target price of $999 and under. Still, if Intel has its way, ultrabooks will be the next big thing in PC notebooks. The ultra-thin, ultra-sexy notebooks are designed around Intel’s next-gen Ivy Bridge CPU platform that offers high but efficient performance at affordable price points and Asus is set to flood the market with a bunch of models.

Asus isn’t alone in this fight. Acer also has models on tap and the Aspire 3951 leaked last weekend before its IFA debut. This first-gen model sports a current generation Intel Sandy Bridge CPU and a rather cheap looking case, but it’s only 13mm thick and said to have a $800 price tag. HD Blog even states that it wakes from sleep in two seconds.

Intel previously stated that ultrabooks will make up to 40% of the notebook market by the end of 2012. Asus’s CEO, Jerry Shen, stated that this goal is “a very aggressive target that would be difficult to meet before 2013” citing numerous obstacles including a heat issue with Intel’s CPUs. He also stated that Asus’ suppliers have the ability to pump out a maximum of 200K ultrabooks without any additional supply chain investment. As the Financial Times notes, that’s a fraction of Asus’ current 1 million per month capacity.

Intel’s aggressive target will not be reachable if only Asus and Acer are on board. With HP slowly backing out of the consumer marketplace, Dell, Toshiba, and Lenovo will need to fully accept the ultrabook platform and target all segments of the notebook market. There will need to be ultrabooks at low and median price points. Right now that doesn’t seem to be happening as just the two aforementioned computer companies have talked about their ultrabook offerings.

Still, ultrabooks are likely going to be all the rage at IFA this week and next. Ultrabooks might be nothing more than MacBook Air rip-offs, but if they’re done right &mash; with quality specs and efficient batteries — they could signal a sales boom for the Windows PC notebook market.

Acer, recently the world’s second-largest shipper of PCs, has had a rough year. But in March a deliberate decision was made by upper management to abandon their goal of dethroning HP and instead focus on making better, more distinguishable products. The result: sales and revenue in freefall. At least they knew it was coming — but losing millions of customers and a huge proportion of your worth isn’t something any company likes having to do.

The company is taking heavy losses — twice as heavy, in fact, as Reuters’ analysts estimated. 6.79 billion Taiwanese dollars (Around $250 million) went down the drain in Q2. That’s their biggest loss ever and the first time they did worse than they forecast. The results indicate that, as Acer’s chairman J.T. Wang admits, “trying to break even this year becomes impossible.” But I doubt they were planning on turning the whole company around in less than a year.

Despite the losses and job cuts, Acer remains stoic. They feel the tablet “fever” is lessening and people will return to notebooks (I’m not sure I agree). And while it’s unlikely that they have any interest in (or ability to) buy HP’s PC business, Acer’s president Jim Wang did comment that spinning it off was a natural thing for HP to do. He added, cryptically, that Acer would be working to satisfy its customers’ needs, “including HP’s existing customers.” What a thing to say! Again, though, with billions in losses every quarter, the last thing Acer needs is a $10 billion millstone around its neck from HP.

What he probably meant was that Acer may be stepping into HP’s shoes during the confusion. If they can stabilize fast enough, then while HP’s Personal Systems Group is in handoff mode, Acer can sweep in and carry off a few million customers. But before that happens, expect more bad news.

(Updated to reflect the fact that the 6.79 billion figure was in Taiwanese dollars. Very dumb of me not to catch that when a $7bn loss would likely bury the company)

Western Europe is a tough place to be for PC manufacturers right now. According to a report from technology research firm Gartner, sales are down nearly across the board, with just a single exception: Apple.

In fairness, even though Apple was the only manufacturer to experience positive growth, the figure aren’t anything to write home about. Apple only picked up half of a percentage point — a very modest gain to say the least — but nearly all of Apple’s competitors ended up in the negative. Acer took the brunt of the damage with a 44.6% drop in units sold, but Asus (-22.9%), Dell (-12.7%), and runner-up HP (-6.1%) didn’t fare much better.

Netbooks reportedly accounted for much of the losses, with tablets eating up much of the demand for mobile computing tools. Asus and Acer’s sharp declines in sales is at least partially being blamed on their over-reliance on netbook performance. Both companies have made inroads into the tablet segment, but this could mark the beginning of a more concerted effort to win back some market space from the iPad.

So, for the second quarter in a row, Apple has taken the crown. Still, while growth is growth, I’m not sure anyone at Cupertino is terrible pleased with their performance: in Q1, they managed a 10% jump in growth. HP is slowly improving, and with their money behind the TouchPad, we may see them rally next quarter.

Asus and Acer, frankly, should be a bit worried. Both have dropped substantially since Q1 last year, and unless they get their game on, they’ve got more red ink in their future. Like I mentioned, I think their tablet efforts are going to be key in coming months. Acer in particular has always been a fan of the low cost PC, and if they start to eschew netbooks (at least for now) in favor of tablets, they may be able to pick up some much needed ground. It looks bad, but some solid steps over the next few months could turn everything around for Asus, Dell, Acer, and HP. All the companies listed here are going to have to tweak their strategies and hustle, because western Europe is beginning to look like the Wild West.

If Acer’s previous tablet effort was a bit too weighty for you, then consider this: Acer has just announced that their 7-inch WiFi-only Iconia Tab A100 is launching today at retail stores across the country.

It’s the first 7-inch tablet to sport the latest version of Honeycomb (Android 3.2, if you’re keeping track), and it weighs in at a hair under 1 pound. The A100 comes bearing your typical complement of ports: MicroUSB and Micro HDMI (with support for mirroring) mean that this tiny tab works just as well plugged into your television as it does with your computer.

Like its big brother, the A100 also supports media streaming through Acer’s clear.fi service, allowing users to connect and wirelessly share media between DLNA-compatible devices. Meanwhile, the 5 megapixel camera around the back makes sure you’ll always have a cache of embarassing photos ready to share.

The A100 is no slouch when it comes to horsepower either: there’s an NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual core processor and 1 GB of RAM running the show. Hopefully that power helps with Flash’s often lackluster Android performance, as Flash 10.3 comes pre-installed.

Two models will be available at launch: $329 nets you 8 GB of onboard storage, while $349 bumps you up to 16 GB. The media hoarders among you may scoff, but both tablets can accept MicroSD cards up to 32 GB — have fun filling it all up.

After switching up its Touch Business Group chief back in April, Acer has decided to set up an office for its mobile products in China, to better take advantage of the country’s growing smartphone and tablet market.

Acer has long been a beast in the Chinese PC market, but has yet to fully establish its presence as a smartphone or tablet maker. As the third place PC maker, Acer holds 9.2 percent of the PC market in China, whereas its smartphone share was too small for research firm Analysys to calculate. Former HP exec, Dave Chan, will take over the new Touch Business Group in China.

After a rather underwhelming performance out of the Acer Iconia tablet, Acer will need more than a new market to pick up its tablet business. On the other hand, Acer is one of the few manufacturing partners set to deliver a Windows Phone 7 “Mango” smartphone later this year, which could boost the company significantly if Windows Phone 7.5 is all it’s cracked up to be.

[via PC World]

At $350 (with the stats you see there) it seems like a pretty good buy if you happen to be in the market. Apparently these things are actually sitting on shelves at some Walmarts, so it might be worth checking out… if, you know, you care about yet another Android tablet.

The less expensive Acer Chromebook was also supposed to hit the shipping trucks today, but it is still listed as a pre-order at Amazon.