Acer prices themselves right out of "low-cost" laptop game

Acer's little low-cost laptop plans just emerged from the rumor closet. Chairman J.T. Wang says they'll launch a cheap-o, 7- to 9-inch laptop in Q2 or Q3 of 2008. That puts the world's number 3 computer maker in direct competition with the Eee PC and CloudBook in the burgeoning low-end laptop market. However, Acer should really re-think their expected price point of "around $470." After all, Dell's full, 15.4-inch laptops start at just $499.

[Ypoknons @ Feb 13th 2008 4:03AM]

I'm not sure. Acer's $470 is still way smaller than a 15.4" laptop, making it attractive as second laptop, and a $70 over an EEE PC could be justified ... depends on what the actual product is like,

[YoYoYo @ Feb 13th 2008 5:50PM]

Aie. I'd pay a K-note for an Eee with 9" tablet screen. To call $500 overpriced for the 9" that they're going to ship seems a touch unreasonable and a perfectly acceptable size+battery+weightspeed trade-off. Who here would ever have a use for a $500 1.5hr, 20lb, Celeron-powered Dell?

[Jon @ Feb 13th 2008 4:04AM]

You know, 7-9" does not mean low-end. If Acer gets better processors in their mini laptops then I see no problem for them charging at that price.

A certain 13" notebook starts at £1200. Didn't see you complaining about that...

[Neoprimal @ Feb 13th 2008 9:50AM]

I have to agree, and though Acer laptops DO tend to be cheaper than their competitors in price, it doesn't mean that they're 'cheap' in build quality nor features. I was quite embarassed and a bit envious to find out recently that my pal's Acer lappy he purchased in 2002 has outlived my own IBM A31 (all usb and pcmcia ports are DEAD) I purchased around the same time - notwithstanding the possibility that he just treated his better (even though my IBM at least looks brand new), it means at least that they don't 'crumble' over time as most would think/suggest.

If it has the hardware and function to justify being called a true laptop, then I'd welcome something like this. I'd hardly consider the EeePC a real laptop, as there's so much missing and things you just can't do with it (at least for now) because of size and power limits...it's really more like a huge pda.

[Ricardo @ Feb 13th 2008 4:47AM]

15.4" isn't a laptop, it's a desktop in disguise. So you can't really compare it to a 7" to 8" real laptop.

[Joey Geraci @ Feb 13th 2008 10:05AM]

You are joking right? 15.4 in laptops are most certainly true laptops. I have never heard such a stupid comment in my life.

[ManekiNeko @ Mar 6th 2008 3:51AM]

It's no more stupid than saying, "Durr... why pay $400 for an EEE when you can get a REAL laptop for just $100 more?" You hear that all the time in blogs like these, yet the posters conveniently forget that those "real" laptops weigh as much as a small bowling ball and have an easily damaged optical hard drive.

[j_g_puff @ Feb 13th 2008 4:55AM]

Rubbish.
iPhone is cheaper, and it plays doom whilst blending.

[FRiC @ Feb 13th 2008 4:59AM]

The price is likely converted from Taiwan Dollars. When the EEE PC's price was set last year, the exchange rate is quite different from today's. Today's $470 is actually cheaper than last year's $400.

[j_g_puff @ Feb 13th 2008 5:02AM]

As an aside, "Chairman J. T. Wang" must be one of the greatest titles ever. If I was called Chairman J. T. Wang, I'd be the coolest kid on the block. I'd be at the top of my game. I'd be star of my own trilogy of western films. Then, using the money from the films, I'd buy a set of dolphins and ride around the streets of Venice, telling people to "Get on your knees!" and "Shut yer puck-hole, missy!".

Oh, to be Chairman J. T. Wang.

[Apple Mac Bon Jovi Aerosmith Ipod -Unicorn Tears- ilife forever @ Feb 13th 2008 5:26AM]

I would be one of your fans...

[Clark @ Feb 13th 2008 3:39PM]

That is the greatest comment of all time. Thank you.

[Jack @ Feb 13th 2008 5:13AM]

I wouldnt buy any shit from acer anyway, had enough bad experiences from their laptops and PDAs!

[dura @ Feb 13th 2008 5:26AM]

I'm not so sure about your comments; I do not need a 15.4 laptop, but are in the markt for something below 10 inch.

[Nitin Kumar @ Feb 13th 2008 5:29AM]

Hi,

Maybe not directly related to this item. But does anybody have a performance comparison between the Via C7 processor and the Silverthorne.... Just curious how the two stack up.

If Silverthorne not yet available for testing, how abt Via C7 versus the Intel Stealy and the AMD geode?

Cheers,

[techieguru16 @ Feb 13th 2008 6:59AM]

depending on what the specs are, i would consider buying one. i would rather buy an acer even if it was a $100 more just because i could trust acer over cloudbook and EeePC.

[matt @ Feb 13th 2008 11:05AM]

What don't you trust about asus, they are an incredibly large company, dont forget they mainly make laptops for other people, such as a certain fruit flavoured company. The quality on my eee is amazing for the price, much better than my £800 dell laptop that I had before.

[fsett1 @ Feb 13th 2008 8:14AM]

Acer is joining the ranks of low price, low margin bargain companies. If this is truly their strategy they will need to sell a tremendous amount of laptops to retain their profit margin. If their purpose is to be a sustainable business it might be better to go after the "top-tier" clients (like Apple does) to ensure their longevity.

[Joners @ Feb 13th 2008 8:41AM]

Acer isnt joining them! This is where they have been for a good long time outside of the US. (end of me fussing)

Acers have long been at the bottom of the pile as far as price is concerned, its still the cheapest 'new' laptop that you can buy on amazon.co.uk and they do have competitive specs on them. Build quality is improving the older models aspire 1300/1500 were shocking.The new gem stones models are better.

However I think that the post might be missing the point here... yes you might be able to buy a 15.4" notebook for an extra $50/100, but your not getting the light weight small form factor. Finally at a price point that most people can afford/justify.

[dvdivx @ Feb 13th 2008 9:40AM]

If they can come out with a decent resolution screen at 1024x600 and a real HDD with the EEEPC small format for $470 then they will beat Asus at the market. You have to add the cost of a SDHC card to the EEEPC which also is selling for more than $470 with the 8gb SDD. Alot of people would be willing to pay a little more just for a descent resolution screen.

[matt @ Feb 13th 2008 11:05AM]

I would not want a hard drive in my eee, it makes it durable and it is also silent. I have plenty of space left on the ssd, without an SDHC card. The storage will go up when SSD prices go down. Its just a matter of time.

[Johnny Socko @ Feb 13th 2008 12:17PM]

I was shopping for a basic laptop last month, and ended up buying a new 14" Acer Aspire for $550. It's more than 2 lbs lighter than the 15.4" behemoth I had before, and is almost as full-featured, but cost hundreds less than anything comparable I could find.

The only problem was that it came bundled with Vista, so I installed an extra gig of RAM to make it run smoother (and enable Aero Glass).

[Nick @ Apr 9th 2008 1:24PM]

Acer has always has the EEE Pc killer in their product list.If you cast your mind to the past and lookup there Travelmate 314T you'll see that taking that model and bringing it up to date would put them right in the game. I've still got mine running Win2000.The specs are ancient.Pentuim MMX 300mhz,4gb drive,64mb mem,1 usb port,PCMCIA slot,8,4inch LCD but for the basic on the road stuff like checking email,websurfing,some word processing and some low end excel stuff it still works a charm.I find it quite amasing that if your were able change the processor & the mem to todays standards, you would be looking at your basic EEE Pc specs in a lappy thats going on 20 years old! Real back to the future stuff.