Hasta La Gadget!

Ah, hello again! It seems like just yesterday that we were talking up Acer‘s latest Aspire Revo — a ‘3600‘ model equipped with a dual-core Atom 330 and NVIDIA’s Ion graphics system. Nearly a year to the day, we’re now faced with the company’s latest and greatest subcompact, the Aspire Revo 3700. As far as evolutionary advancements go, this one’s fairly predictable — within the one-liter box is a 1.8GHz Atom D525 dual-core processor, NVIDIA’s next-generation Ion platform, support for 1080p video playback, a 500GB hard drive, four USB 2.0 ports, 4GB of DDR3 memory, VGA / HDMI outputs, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, gigabit Ethernet and a mini PCIe slot. It’s expected to ship later this year with a $580 price tag, but it’s still a TV tuner shy of being exactly what our living room asked for.

Continue reading Acer introduces Atom D525-equipped Aspire Revo 3700, your den swoons

Acer introduces Atom D525-equipped Aspire Revo 3700, your den swoons originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 11:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We caught the LumiRead set up and ready for some serious page-turning action as Acer set up its booth at IFA today (yes, it’s true, the show still hasn’t technically started), which marks the first time we’ve actually been able to hold the upcoming e-reader — previously, the closest we’d gotten was the impersonal touch of a glass enclosure back at Computex. The verdict? After having touched one of those newfangled Kindles, we’ve got to say that pretty much every other e-reader out there feels like a ridiculously overweight beast, and the LumiRead gets swept up into that classification. The barcode scanner is still there (you can see it in our gallery below) and it’s still as awesome of a concept as ever, but Acer has replaced the smooth plastic back with a ridged, patterned one on this newer prototype — and considering that the launch is scheduled for October, we imagine this is nearly final or final spec. The thumbstick feels decent, but we don’t really think it’s the best way to navigate… which is a lesson Amazon already learned with the last version of the Kindle, by the bye. So here’s your recipe for success, Acer: soft-touch back, cut the thickness by a third, eliminate the wasted space above the keyboard, and keep the barcode reader. Boom.

Acer LumiRead makes pit stop at IFA prior to launch originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You can read that as bitter hype; then again, we’re looking at a company that’s known to live up to its words. In a recent interview with UDN, Acer Inc. Chairman JT Wang echoed ASUS’ recent forecast regarding the iPad’s erosion of the netbook market in the US and UK, although he also pointed out that netbooks are still selling like hotcakes in developing countries. As for the tablet market itself, Wang believes that Apple’s closed camp operation will ultimately bow to other joint forces once the market matures, thus lowering the iPad’s current near-100 percent share to somewhere between 20 and 30 percent. Hell, the man even suggested this could be an over-estimation, and referred to the Mac’s minuscule 5 percent global share over the last few years. And you know what? He might be right. That doesn’t mean that the iPad’s days are numbered though since Apple’s never been interested in taking part in the “race to the bottom.” Apple measures success by profits, not market share — even a small percentage of high-margin laptop and smartphone sales has proven to be a very good thing for Apple’s bottom line. Besides, if open is such a great thing, we’d like to question Wang on what caused the Windows-based tablets to flop in the first place? Regardless, this would certainly be another prediction to look out for in a few years’ time.

Acer’s JT Wang: iPad’s market share will drop to about 20 percent, maybe less originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Aug 2010 08:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember those Acer Android tablets the company has been teasing since May? Rumor has it they’re getting put on ice — for a little while, at least. They were initially planned to launch this year with a heaping helping of Froyo, but now the company apparently wants something sweeter: Android 3.0. The Gingerbread build is supposed to, among other things, support higher-resolution screens that one might want in a tablet, something that has apparently also caught the eye of Motorola, also said yet again to be working on a tablet. This would be developed in close partnership with Google and fits right in with the earlier rumors and roadmaps we’ve heard and seen. Gingerbread is said to come out of the oven sometime before the end of this year, which would likely mean a 2011 launch for these slabs. Is that too late for impatient tableteers?

Acer and Motorola getting spicy Gingerbread for Android 3.0 tablets? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fans of Acer’s affordable, high-quality LCD displays have some new additions to the company’s lineup to be happy about this week: Acer unveiled three new super-thin LCD displays in 20, 21.5, and 23-inch models. The displays are part of Acer’s new S1 series of panels, and all of them are LED backlit and Energy Star 5.0 compliant so you don’t need to worry that your new monitor is sucking down power. The 23-inch model even supports HDMI in addition to VGA and DVI for consoles, Blu-Ray players, and other video devices. The 20 display is the thinnest, coming in at 13mm from front to back, and the 21.5 and 23-inch models are only a hair thicker at 15mm.

If you’re looking for a monitor upgrade but don’t want to spend a lot of cash, Acer claims the new S1 displays will be available by the end of July. The 20-inch model will cost $169.99, the 21.5-inch model will be $219.99, and you’ll need $269.99 list for the 23-inch display.