Articles about Acer

The Computer Electronics Show gathers a significant number of companies and prospective buyers alike in Las Vegas for four days starting Tuesday. However, many companies didn't wait for opening day. Which among the early birds stand out from the others?

From the plethora of pre-show announcements most are oriented towards general consumer appliances. For instance, LG's presentation emphasized 39 new driers and 72 new fridges, among super expensive OLED TVs. For a passionate technology enthusiast like myself CES is not Heaven, it's utter Hell. Still, within the literally hundreds of announcements there are some exciting products unveiled in all the pre-show madness.

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Just when everyone (including me) thought Google and Samsung offered the killer price on Chromebook, along comes Acer. Starting tomorrow, from Google Play and major retailers, Acer's newest Chromebook goes on sale for a cool $199. That's right, 50 bucks less than Samsung's no-brainer "I got to buy it" bargain-basement model. Why not just give it away? In the esteemed words of Crazy Eddie: These "prices are insane!"

But low cost brings hidden costs, and the Acer C7 Chromebook is full of compromise for $50 dollars savings. For starters, it's a heftier beast, both in size and weight, coming in about a half pound heavier (1.4 kilograms). The newest Samsung comes with super-fast ARM Cortex A15 processor, while the Acer is Intel Celeron. In a big departure from all previous Chromebooks, the C7 swaps SSD for a standard hard drive. That means more capacity (320GB), but more moving parts and presumably greater performance overhead. I got to ask: Who needs all that storage on a device primarily running Web apps? The clincher: 3.5 hours battery life, compared to the ARM model's 6.5 hours.

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Back in June, computer maker Acer launched its Aspire Timeline Ultra M5 line of Windows 7 Ultrabooks which came with a clause for $15 Windows 8 upgrade. Today, four months later and just a couple of weeks ahead of the official launch of Windows 8, Acer has debuted new Aspire M5 Ultrabooks equipped with a 10-point multitouch display to go with the new OS.

Like the M5 models unveiled last June, the new M5s come with either 14" or 15" displays, third generation Intel Core i3 or i5 processors, 500GB HDD/20GB SSD storage configuration plus optical drives, and a promised 8 hours of battery life. In case the same "M5" name didn't give it away, I'll make it clear, these are practically the same notebook spec-wise, just with the added touchscreen, Windows 8 installed out of the box, and no "Timeline" in the name.

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Windows 8 launches on October 26. Why wait that long? If the idea of purchasing a new laptop or even an all-in-one desktop PC with Windows 8 pre-installed has a nice ring to it then you're in luck -- the Home Shopping Network has just the thing for you.

Three Windows 8 laptops and two all-in-one desktop PCs are available for pre-order from the HSN website. They range from a relatively inexpensive $699.95 to a more daring $1,199.95.

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Three days after HP announced the business-oriented ElitePad 900, Acer's formally announced flagship Windows 8 Pro-based tablet -- the Iconia W700, sporting Intel's Ivy Bridge processors gets pricing details. It is right where Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer suggested for Microsoft Surface. Coincidence or not?

The new Acer Iconia W700 boasts an 11.6-inch 1080p IPS display with an 1920 by 1080 resolution powered by an integrated, Intel HD Graphics 4000 video card paired with a Core i3 or a more powerful Core i5 Ivy Bridge processor, with a yet undisclosed amount of RAM. For storage it uses a 64GB or 128GB SSD that reportedly boots up in as little as 6 seconds, with resume from standby happening in just 1.5 seconds. On the back there is a 5MP auto-focus camera capable of 1080p video recording and on the front what appears to be a less than 2MP camera; that is known to record 720p video. And there's more...

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Say goodbye to Ice Cream Sandwich and hello to Jelly Bean! Acer's flagship Android tablet, the quad-core nVidia Tegra 3 Iconia Tab A700 gets an Android 4.1 Jelly Bean adrenaline shot in Europe, with extended availability likely to follow in the near future.

According to XDA Developers members, the Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean update for the Acer Iconia Tab A700 tablet is available only in Germany at the moment. The update brings along a few notable changes, the biggest of which obviously is operating system upgrade in itself, but it is reported that Google Chrome as well as Acer Cloud are included in the update among the usual Google Currents, Play Books and Play Music. Allegedly, there is an effect on touch sensitivity as well which, according to the same user that reported the changes, is an improvement over the previous version.

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Google is the center of a controversy about Acer's cancelled Aliyun OS phone launch, and there is seemingly no end to punditry about the search giant applying pressure, possibly even making threats. At the end of the day the whole mess has very little to do with whether or not Google is tightening its leash or if the issues at hand are all about piracy, as Google Android chief Andy Rubin claims.

Acer openly violated rules set forth by the Open Handset Alliance, and Google made the device manufacturer aware of the consequences. Unfortunately, Google being the one to speak shines a spotlight on a much deeper issue with the Open Handset Alliance.

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That is the conclusion I reached after several weeks living la vida post-PC. With nothing but my trusty Acer Iconia Tab to work on while waiting for my house sale to close in Florida (see previous post about not needing a smartphone), I've managed to remain productive and connected without touching so much as a byte of "wintel" technology.

Well, maybe a few bytes. There have been the occasional detors off the Android wagon -- for example, when I needed to quickly print, sign and re-scan some legal documents and hijacked my daughter's Dell Inspiron for a few minutes (it was like pulling teeth -- she's quite possessive of her toys). However, for the most part I accomplished everything I needed to from the comfort of my Ice Cream Sandwich-based tablet. And the secret of my success had as much to do with the accessories that I surrounded the tablet with as with the device itself.

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Acer America on Thursday announced the price and availability of the Aspire S5-391-9880 ultrabook. This particular PC stands out from the mass of selfsame thin and light PCs because of the interesting design Acer used to hide the machine's extra USB, HDMI and Thunderbolt ports.

With a thickness ranging from 0.44 inches at its thinnest point to 0.59 inches at its thickest, The S5 isn't the thinnest ultrabook going, and at 2.65 lbs, it's not the lightest. Nor is it the most powerful, capacious, or flashy, with a 3rd Generation Intel Core i7-35i7U ("Ivy Bridge") processor, a 256GB solid state drive, and a 13.3 inch (1366 x 768) backlit LED screen, a common feature to many Ultrabooks.

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At Computex 2012, Acer quietly showed off an update to its 7 inch Android-powered Iconia A100 Tab which is expected to come out in the third quarter of the year.

The new tablet is known as the A110, features a quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor with 1 GB of RAM, and will run Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich.

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Acer Inc, the world's fourth-largest personal computer maker, is shifting gears slightly after nearly a full year of unprofitability.

In an interview with Dow Jones yesterday, Acer CEO J.T. Wang said the company is moving away from the low-cost strategy to one more focused on profit margins.

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Acer's American arm announced on Monday that the brand's first thin-and-light ultrabook, the Aspire S3, has landed in North America, and it will be available for $899.

In addition to being Acer's first ultrabook, The Aspire S3-951 is the first ultrabook that has both an HDD for storage and an SSD integrated into the main board for instant on capabilities.

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Taiwanese PC maker Acer took a rather sudden hit last April when Gianfranco Lanci resigned as CEO of the company, saying it should have been focused on competing with HTC and Apple in the mobile space instead of with HP in the PC space.

At the Computex trade show in Taipei, Acer this week has shown off its scattershot approach to covering the mobile device market, which will include, among other things, a 10" tablet running Intel's MeeGo operating system, and a Snapdragon-powered smartphone running Windows Phone 7 "Mango."

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Aiming to take on the iPad where few competitors have -- on price -- Acer on Friday said that it would begin shipping its Iconia Tab tablet for $449 later this month. The device sports a 10.1-inch screen, a NVIDIA 1GHz dual-core processor, 16GB of storage and runs on Android 3.0 "Honeycomb."

The Iconia Tab's feature set will put it on par with Apple's top-selling tablet, and will be one of the few that sells at a lower price yet matches the iPad on features. Tablet manufacturers have so far struggled to produce devices that could viably compete with Apple's tablet, likely due to economies of scale.

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Taiwanese electronics maker Acer faces another struggle: finding a new CEO. Gianfranco Lanci abruptly resigned on Thursday over disagreements on the future of the company. The announcement comes just a week after Acer was forced to lower sales and revenue projections.

Lanci had been with Acer since 1997 following its acquisition of Texas Instruments' notebook division, which he worked for. He was named president of the company in 2005 and CEO in 2008, and oversaw Acer's purchases of Packard Bell and Gateway.

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