Acer observes 'new market trends,' releases an all-in-one

At the end of 2008, according to iSuppli, notebooks finally took the crown for top-selling PC form factor, edging out desktops by a mere 100,000 units. Laptops may have finally taken the lead, with worldwide sales of 38.6 million units, against 38.5 million for desktops.

Of course, Current Analysis has noted times in 2003, 2004 and 2005 that laptops have outsold desktops, generally constituting a 3-7% market share advantage; but market share endgame was never declared. It's generally assumed that at some point desktops will officially be the minority, but no one has yet declared it.

Acer today said it has been attentively following new market trends, and believes that it's time for "different" desktops. At its product premiere in New York, it announced a low-power nettop product called the Revo, and an all-in-one touchscreen PC called the Aspire Z5600. The company said, "All-in-one no longer needs to command the extraordinary price premium seen today."

No doubt, the company is referring to the steady stream of all-in-one PCs that has been coming out for the last couple of years, which have mostly been marketed as desktop replacements, offering power and upgradability in a space-saving form. These have lately expanded to include touch capabilities with such lines as the HP Touchsmart PC which costs between $1,299 and $2,099, and can be wall-mounted and used with no keyboard or mouse.

But Asus has already approached the desktop/quasi-portable market from the cheapness angle, with its Eee Top line that falls under the $1000 mark. Judging by Acer's hardware announcement today, though, it doesn't look like the Aspire Z5600 will be in competition with Asus' Eee Top. The touchscreen all-in-one is maximized for Windows 7 and will offer a much larger screen size than the Eee Top line (24" versus 15") and be geared more toward media consumption, making it more competitive with HP's 20"-25" Touchsmart.

Carrying up to 2 TB of built-in storage, an integrated TV tuner and DVD/Blu-Ray reader/writer, the device could be classified in the burgeoning "smart TV" market. Acer says that the device will be equipped with an MXM graphics processor like most Acer notebooks offer, but it did not specify which type. Acer also did not announce pricing or availability of the unit, since its release is contingent upon the release of Windows 7.