Hasta La Gadget!

Last week, Acer unveiled a handful of back-to-school laptops, and today, the outfit’s showing off gear for kids who’ve got a teensy bit more room in the dorms. The company just trotted out a pair of desktops, along with the beastly 23-inch T231H multitouch monitor. Both towers have a staid black chassis with Acer’s clear.fi media streaming software on board. Of the two, the M series (pictured) is clearly for power users, with Core i3 and quad-core AMD Athlon II x4 processor options, 6GB of RAM, 1TB of hard drive space, optional discrete graphics, and a storage tray on top housing four USB 2.0 sockets and headphone and mic ports. The X series, meanwhile, has a trimmer, more compact design, and a modest spec list featuring Intel Pentium dual-core and AMD Athlon II X4 processors, 4GB of RAM, and integrated graphics. As for that 1080p display, it has an 80,000:1 contrast ratio and tilts between a 5-degree and 60-degree angle — not unlike that swiveling HP all-in-one that came out earlier this year. They’re all up for grabs now, with the M and X series starting at $500 and $398, respectively, and the monitor fetching $330. Full PR after the break.

Continue reading Acer intros revamped desktops, 23-inch multitouch display for kids with ginormous dorm rooms

Acer intros revamped desktops, 23-inch multitouch display for kids with ginormous dorm rooms originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Jun 2011 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung debuted its version of the Chromebook in May. Photo: Michael Calore/Wired.com

Google announced on Thursday that its web-only laptop, the Chromebook, is now available for pre-order in the United States via Best Buy or Amazon websites.

Google’s Chromebook hardware is currently offered by two manufacturers — Samsung and Acer — with two different product designs. Both manufacturers are offering Wi-Fi only and 3G versions of the device.

“Nothing but the web,” Google Chrome’s Twitter account wrote Thursday evening, linking followers to the sale page. Chromebook pre-orders ship on June 15.

As a web-only device, the Chromebook fits in perfectly with Google’s vision of a cloud-based future. Essentially, the Chromebook takes the netbook and strips it of the components found in most laptop computers. There’s no visible operating system outside of Google’s Chrome browser (hence the name), which means the interface is entirely web-based. There’s also no significant local storage (though it does have a removable SD card slot), which means everything you’re using on the device must be stored and accessed remotely from online servers.

Of course, Google’s cloud-based vision has you covered there. Want access to your photos? Upload them to Picasa, Google’s photo storage site. Hankering for music? Google Music (now in beta) stores all your music on the internet, streaming songs to the device. The same goes for documents (Google Docs), calendars (Google Calendar) and most other things you could think to use on your netbook.

Acer’s cutely titled “Cromia” comes with an 11.6-inch HD display, 6-hour battery life, and weighs just under 3 pounds. The Wi-Fi only version costs $380, and the Verizon-carried 3G version comes priced at $450.

Samsung’s model comes with a bump up in features, as well as a boost in price. The display is larger by about an inch, and it’s a little heavier at 3.1 pounds. But Samsung says its Chromebook gets an added 2.5 more hours of battery life than Acer’s slightly cheaper model. Samsung’s model will start at $430 for Wi-Fi, and $500 for a 3G version.

Google first debuted the Chromebook at the company’s developer-centric event in May, Google I/O.

The trackpad on Acer’s new high-end Aspire Ethos detaches to make it much easier to lose

Acer’s new Aspire Ethos laptops sinks into the faceless morass of PC notebooks, with one notable exception: a detachable trackpad. The humble mouse-replacement pops out of its place below the keyboard and becomes a media remote.

And that’s not all. The pads have LEDs embedded beneath the shiny surface so you can read track numbers or can see where to touch to skip tunes, and an accelerometer knows how you are holding it so it can be used in both landscape and portrait orientations.

Otherwise, the only distinction is that the expensive ($1,640+) Ethos line squeezes in the top end of everything, from Blu-ray through a 1920 x 1080 display (with Gorilla Glass) and USB 3 to a NVIDIA GeForce GT500 graphics card. To say these are boring isn’t to say they aren’t well specced. There’s even a monster with an 18.4-inch screen, which is larger than my first TV.

But the making — and possibly the undoing — of the new Ethos line is that remote. You can sit back from that giant screen with a martini and watch your movies in comfort. But if you lose this remote anywhere other than down the back of the sofa, you’re pretty much screwed.

Acer Aspire Ethos product page [Acer]

Aspire Ethos Press Release [Akihabara News]

See Also:

• Acer's New Wi-Fi Android Tablet Unveiled
• Hands-On With Acer's Android Honeycomb Tablet
• Acer to Phase Out Netbooks in Favor of Tablets

If Acer’s current Aspire TimelineX notebooks look a little too dull for your tastes, have a peek at that industrial-looking number in the picture above. The company just redesigned its line of skinny laptops, and refreshed them with Sandy Bridge processors while it was at it. The 13.1-inch 3830T, 14-inch 4830T, and 15.6-inch 5830T all have that two-tone aluminum design (also available in black), along with USB 3.0, a choice of Core i3 and Core i5 CPUs, and Acer’s clear.fi software for sharing media among DLNA devices. The 14- and 15.6-inch versions have onboard optical drives and number pads, and, on select models, you can choose a discrete NVIDIA GeForce GT520M or GT540M card. However, the screen resolution is going to be 1366 x 768 regardless of which you pick. The 3830T, 4830T, and 5830T are available now, starting at $799, $699, and $599, respectively, and you can find specs for a handful of models after the break.

Continue reading Acer announces redesigned Aspire TimelineX Series laptops, prices start at $599

Acer announces redesigned Aspire TimelineX Series laptops, prices start at $599 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Jun 2011 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Acer Iconia Tab A100 hits the FCC originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Jun 2011 16:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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