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.
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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.” → Read More
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. → Read More
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).
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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. But 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. → Read More
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. → Read More
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. → Read More
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. → Read More
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. → Read More
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. → Read More
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. → Read More
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 $899 but also reach $1,999. That’s notable 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. → Read More
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. → Read More
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. → Read More
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. → Read More
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. → Read More
While Samsung’s sexy little Series 5 Chromebook is already shipping, a lot of people (“the people” meaning “people interested in Chrome OS,” which probably isn’t that many people right now) are probably waiting for the cheaper AC700 from Acer. You can pre-order one now, of course, but shipping date was pretty much a mystery… until now. → Read More
Just because it’s a new tablet doesn’t mean it has to have a big opening gala like the Xoom or Optimus Pad. No, sometimes they just arrive at your local Walmart with a price tag and everything. Such is the case with the Acer Iconia A100, the 7″ cousin of the A500 we’ve been seeing around. 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. → Read More
Amazon and Best Buy are now ready to satisfy all your Chromebook needs. Google previously announced the notebooks would be available on June 15 and a quick check at the two retailers shows that they have them available for immediate shipping. It seems however that Best Buy is not yet carrying the products in their brick and mortar locations but rather just online. Currently only the Arctic White model is available. Buyers are going to have to wait for Titan Silver. However both the WiFi and 3G models are shipping at $429 and $499, respectively. Both are powered by Intel Atom N570 1.66GHz CPUs and run Chrome OS off 2GB of RAM and a 16GB SSD. 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. → Read More
