Acer -- Engadget

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ASUS to dizzy eyes with G51J3D and G72GX 3D laptops

by Darren Murph posted Nov 6th 2009 at 7:51AM

Well, lookie here. ASUS has just jumped in on the 3D bandwagon. Just a few weeks after the 5738DG was unveiled, two more 3D laptops are now said to be on tap. Yeah -- as if the planet really needs another duo of laptops that require glasses to fully enjoy. All misplaced bitterness aside, the 15.6-inch G51J3D and 17.3-inch G72GX both tout a fairly respectable NVIDIA GPU (the 1GB GeForce GTX 160M was specifically mentioned in the former), and while the tester was indeed stuck looking like the dude above (exactly like that dude, in fact), he felt that the 3D playback was nothing short of incredible. Both machines will also be equipped with a Core i7 processor, oodles of HDD space and the ability to show off 3D content to up to 15 people who circle around it. We're told that the G51J3D will ship out next month, while the G72GX won't land until Q2 2010 (at least in the UK).

Acer Liquid handled, evaluated, 'not too shabby'

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Nov 5th 2009 at 7:38PM

Looks like quite a few folks have got their hands on the Acer Liquid as of late, and lucky for us they've been rather loose-lipped with their thoughts on the subject. As suspected, the handset is running a 1GHz Snapdragon that's been under-clocked to 768MHz. And it looks like Acer didn't go crazy with the User Experience either, pretty much staying true to its Google Android 1.6 roots, albeit with a number of additions, including: social networking integration (Facebook and Flickr contacts and photo sharing), nemoPlayer for multimedia files, DataViz for Microsoft Exchange support, and the Spinlets music streaming service. In addition, Acer has redesigned some of the widgets, including the clock and the task manager, which now includes a preview of open apps. All-in-all, it seems to be a pretty solid Android handset with a few useful additions -- but as always, the verdict is out until we get our hands on one. In the meantime, hit up the read links below for a generous helping of screenshots, hands-on pics, and impressions.

[Via JK On The Run]

Read - PREVIEW: Acer Liquid Android 1.6 WVGA Touchscreen Smartphone
Read - Acer A1, Screenshot and Interface

Acer wants the Aspire 8940 to be your Core i7-packing portable of choice

by Ross Miller posted Nov 3rd 2009 at 6:50AM

You'd think you've seen all the Windows 7 holiday laptops to last you through this yuletide season, but in comes Acer with another offering, the Core i7-packing Aspire 8940. The 18.4-inch 1080p widescreen monitor brings with it a NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250M, Blu-ray drive, 600GB HDD, and 4GB RAM. Let's also throw in a webcam, 802.11 a/b/g Draft-N, webcam, multi-card reader, HDMI and eSATA ports and a 8-cell Li-Ion battery for good measure. Quite a hefty number, so expect a little bit of workout if you're wanting to haul this around. Suggested price is $1,349 and all we know of the release date is "holiday season" so it should be safe to add this to your wishlist.

Gallery: Acer Aspire 8940 press shots

Acer Liquid's Snapdragon processor to be clocked at just 768MHz?

by Darren Murph posted Nov 2nd 2009 at 11:13AM

Ugh. Just weeks after we figured that Acer's first Android-based handset would indeed ship with a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, a new slide over at an international Liquid presentation is suggesting otherwise. As you can clearly see above, it looks as if the Qualcomm-sourced CPU will be underclocked to just 768MHz, which makes little to no sense on the surface. Granted, most average consumers couldn't care less about the CPU in their next smartphone, but it seems reasonable to think that the Liquid will lag behind its 1GHz contemporaries when used side-by-side. Who knows though -- maybe this is just the thing necessary to squeeze a full week of battery life out of this thing. Or not.

[Via MobileTechWorld, thanks Gully and Jose]

Acer debuts 23-inch T230H multitouch monitor

by Donald Melanson posted Oct 29th 2009 at 4:32PM

Acer hasn't exactly been slacking when it comes to Windows 7-related hardware, but it looks like its still putting the final touches on its launch line-up, with it now rolling out a new multitouch monitor to complement its range of laptops and desktops. What's more, at a full 23-inches, the company's new T230H monitor best similar offerings from Dell and HP in terms of sheer size, and it packs some respectable specs across the board, including a full 1920 x 1080 resolution, a 2ms response time, a promised 80,000:1 contrast ratio (take that with the usual grain of salt), and an HDMI port in addition to DVI and VGA. Still no official word on US pricing, it seems, but this one will apparently run €349 in Europe (or just over $500).

[Via Engadget Korea]

Acer Aspire One AOD250 impressions: Android gone bad

by Paul Miller posted Oct 29th 2009 at 12:23PM

We admit, we were pretty stoked when we first saw the Acer Aspire One AOD250 running Android in dual-boot mode. What could possibly be bad about it? Fast start-up, Google apps... other good things that aren't coming to mind at the moment... what could go wrong? Turns out, just about everything. See, the Aspire One AOD250 has an unfortunate lack of Google blessing, so that means no Gmail, which is really Android's killer app, and no Marketplace either -- so no opportunity to track down a different killer app. You can use your Google account for hooking up with Gcal, Gtalk and Google Contacts, but your Gmail account gets set up as a webmail shortcut to the included Firefox app -- which does an alright, slightly hacked-on job of augmenting the standard Android browser, including support for Flash. Unfortunately, with connection woes over WiFi and Ethernet (as seen on the video), there wasn't much redeemable even there, and perhaps the best news about the device is that it can be fully booted to XP at any time by clicking on the corner of Android's home screen. We still think there's promise for Android on a netbook, but it's going to need some serious TLC (also, Gmail) before it's ready for prime time. Check out our video impressions after the break.

Continue reading Acer Aspire One AOD250 impressions: Android gone bad

Aspire 1420p tablet cameos on Acer's US site, at Chinese press event

by Ross Miller posted Oct 23rd 2009 at 2:59AM

He's twisting away from the camera because he's shy, obviously. Acer's Aspire 1420p tablet made an appearance today at a Chinese press event, and our regional Engadget correspondents were there to grab as many glimpses as their cameras would allow. What makes it even sweet, though, is knowing this little guy's coming to the states, as a rough product page was found on Acer's US site. From what we read, it's got a 11.6-inch LED-backlit multitouch screen with WXGA resolution, an Intel Celeron processor with integrated graphics, up to 8GB RAM and 320GB HDD, 802.11b/g/Draft-N, Bluetooth, a multi-card reader, webcam, and optional 3G. Some secrets remain, of course, like price and release date -- where's Encyclopedia Brown when you really need him?

[Thanks, Dennis L]

Read - US product page
Read - Engadget Chinese hands-on

Acer's Aspire Z5610 all-in-one spotted in the wild

by Donald Melanson posted Oct 23rd 2009 at 1:22AM

Acer's Aspire Z5610 all-in-one desktop certainly stood out from the pack when the company announced it last week, and it looks like it also managed to impress in person -- at least if Le Journal du Geek's brief hands-off look at it is any indication. As you can see above, that includes a glimpse at the desktop's nifty ambient lighting system (which we presume can be turned off), a look at the system's slim profile, and a peek at the port situation 'round back. The site also reports that the system will be available on October 30th in France, although Acer still isn't saying more specific than "this holiday season" for a release over here. Hit up the link below for a closer look.

Acer's 3D-equipped Aspire 5738DG laptop gets official, examined

by Donald Melanson posted Oct 21st 2009 at 7:39PM

Acer's done plenty of boasting about its very first 3D laptop, the Aspire 5738DG, but it's just now gotten completely official, and let a few lucky folks get their hands on it. As you might expect, PC Magazine found the 3D part of the laptop to be something of a gimmick, although not entirely unimpressive. More specifically, while attempts at gaming or viewing standard video converted to 3D were apparently quite a letdown, the included TriDef software did reportedly do a pretty impressive job with photos, and the special 3D layer on top of the screen thankfully doesn't cause any nasty side effects when you're not using the 3D glasses. Otherwise, the laptop is expectedly just your basic mid-range Aspire: inexpensive (just $779 even with the 3D glasses), and capable enough for most folks not looking for a screaming gaming rig (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM, and ATI Radeon HD 4570 graphics).

Read - SlashGear, "Acer gets official with Aspire 5738DG 3D notebook"
Read - PC Magazine, "Hands On with Acer's 3D Laptop"

Acer neoTouch S200 reviewed, not recommended

by Laura June posted Oct 20th 2009 at 11:09AM

After what seemed like a full lifetime of waiting, Acer's recently-launched neoTouch S200 is finally making its way into some reviewing hands. The fine young cannibals over at Phone Arena have just given it the head to toe treatment, and we have to say, we're glad they've done the dirty work for us. This WinMo 6.5 handset, according to their impressions, seems to be a not fully baked affair -- sluggishness and random crashing are both reported, as is a rather serious sounding call quality issue. The battery also seems to be inadequate for a workday, coming in at around five hours. Overall, the phone suffers from software optimization problems more than hardware issues. The one ray of light in all this is of course that 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU, which can multitask and handle several things at once without flinching -- but it's rather hard to get pumped about it in the face of all that sadness. Hit the read link for the full, exhaustive review.

Acer's Atom 330, Win7-packin' AspireRevo now shipping to America

by Darren Murph posted Oct 16th 2009 at 12:10PM

Acer's been on quite the rampage of late, pumping out more machines during this week before the Windows 7 launch than in the past few months combined. The latest rig to get the a-okay from the shipping department is the refreshed AspireRevo R3610-U9012, a machine which was originally outed back at IFA. This one ups the ante over the former with a 1.66GHz dual-core Atom 330 (as opposed to an Atom 230), Windows 7 Home Premium, NVIDIA Ion graphics, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, a 160GB hard drive, six USB 2.0 sockets, an HDMI port, eSATA connector, VGA, multicard reader and gigabit Ethernet. There's also WiFi, audio in / out and a bundled wireless keyboard and mouse, though all that oomph in such a small package will cost you $329.99 to bring home.

Acer Liquid slips through human fingers, but not before divulging new specs (updated)

by Ross Miller posted Oct 16th 2009 at 2:42AM

Generic form factor? Check. Default Android skin? Check. Sure, that's nothing exciting, but the real draw of Acer Liquid's gonna be its large, 800 x 480 resolution screen (the exact size of which we still don't know) and its 1GHz Snapdragon chipset. Unfortunately for the guys at Pocket-Lint, they didn't get to play with the Donut-powered handset long enough to really push those two selling points, but on the bright side they did discover a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and some ISO adjustment options, GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and what appears to be a 3.5mm headphone jack. Perhaps more importantly, they nabbed some pictures of the thing powered on and in action. Jealous? Yes, yes we are.

Update: We finally have the first images (above) showing Acer's customized Android UI and social networking integration (after the break) courtesy of HDBlog.it. It not quite the full-blown replacement a la HTC Sense, but they've clearly brought a new bag of tricks in an attempt to make the vanilla OS experience Acer-unique.

[Thanks, Josh]

Continue reading Acer Liquid slips through human fingers, but not before divulging new specs (updated)

Acer's dual-boot Aspire One AOD250 netbook gets doubly official

by Donald Melanson posted Oct 15th 2009 at 1:51PM

Alright, so we've already seen this one in the wild and up for pre-order, but it's not everyday that someone releases a dual-boot Android / Windows XP netbook, so we can understand Acer wanting to get extra official with its new Aspire One AOD250 model. Of course, this one's about as standard as it gets once you move beyond its dual OS nature, including an 10.1-inch WSVGA screen, Atom N280 processor, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, and a six-cell battery. You can get it in your choice of four different colors though, and the $349.99 list price is certainly right for anyone looking for an easy way to jump into Android.

Acer debuts stylish, multitouch-enabled Aspire Z5610 all-in-one PC

by Donald Melanson posted Oct 15th 2009 at 1:01AM

We had heard that Acer had some touch-enabled Windows 7 devices in the works, and it looks like the company is now finally starting to deliver on that promise, and then some, with its new Aspire Z5610 all-in-one PC. Boasting a 24-inch HD touchscreen with full multitouch support, this one rounds things out with some decent if unremarkable specs, including a Pentium Dual Core E5300 processor, ATI Mobility Radeon HD4570 graphics, 4GB of RAM, and a 320GB hard drive, among other standard fare. It's the design of the desktop that's sure to turn the most heads, however, and while Acer's claim of it being a "timeless piece" might be a bit of a stretch, there are certainly plenty of touches that are a cut above the rest -- we're especially curious to see how the illuminated strip between the LCD and soundbar works (it's designed to light up the keyboard in the dark). Best of all, this one packs an MSRP of just $899, and should be available sometime this holiday season.

Acer fulfills prophecy, overtakes Dell as number two PC maker worldwide (update)

by Ross Miller posted Oct 14th 2009 at 8:14PM

As if on cue, here's some new data research firm Gartner lending credence to Lanci's boasting. Looks like Acer has leapfrogged over Dell for the number two spot in global market share for the third quarter of 2009, from 12.5 to 15.4 percent of the Big Pie Chart™. Meanwhile Dell is just below at 12.8 percent, and HP is sitting happily atop with a 19.9 percent ownership.

Update: Let us adjust our glasses a bit. According to the charts, Acer is number two in worldwide PC sales, not in US as this previously reported. Stateside, the company is sitting at number three at 13.9 percent, behind HP (25.7 percent) and Dell (26.2 percent). Apologies for the confusion, the person responsible for eyesight has been subsequently sacked, the person responsible for the sacking has been sacked, etc.