Acer's first tablet based on Google's Android 3.0 OS will ship later this month for US$449. The Acer Iconia Tab A500 will have a 10.1-inch screen and Wi-Fi capabilities and will ship for the U.S. market on April 24, an Acer spokeswoman said. The A500's price is lower than the $499 entry-level price for Apple's iPad 2. Acer has said that the A500 will ship worldwide starting in April. The company has also announced an LTE (Long-Term Evolution) version of the A500 and a W500 model that will run Windows 7. Shipment dates for the tablets were not disclosed. The company announced the shipment date for the Acer Iconia Tab a week after President and CEO Gianfranco Lanci resigned over disagreements with the board about the company's future direction. Analysts said reasons for Lanci's resignation included the company's unwavering commitment to the PC market and lack of aggression expanding in the burgeoning tablet market. The Iconia Tab A500 was first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in early January. The tablet is powered by a Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor running at 1GHz, a chip that is also used in Motorola's Xoom and LG's G-Slate tablets. The Tegra processor has a powerful graphics core that will allow users to play high-definition games and 1080p video, Acer said in a statement. Users will be able to watch 720p video on the tablet, with an HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface) port to connect to TVs to watch 1080p video. The tablet will handle up to eight hours of gaming or high-definition video time, or 10 hours of Wi-Fi Internet browsing, on one battery charge, Acer said. The A500 weighs around 1.69 pounds (0.76 kilograms) and measures 0.52 inches at its thinnest point. It includes a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera with flash and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. It comes with 16GB of internal storage and a Micro SD card slot for up to 32GB of extended storage. The Android 3.0 OS is Google's tablet operating system with a specialized user interface optimized for larger screens. The OS lets users navigate back and forth between multiple applications and has features that enable tablets to be used as gaming consoles.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
There's nothing all that special about a 14-inch Windows-based notebook PC these days - that is, unless we're talking about a laptop boasting two 14-inch displays, with the second screen taking the place of your standard keyboard and doing double-duty as a virtual QWERTY keypad.Now it could be the time to meet the Iconia, which Acer unveiled at a press event in New York. Armed with an Intel Core i5 processor and powered by Windows 7, the Iconia offers the aforementioned dual displays (14 inches, 1366-by-768), not to mention an HD webcam and integrated 3G.
Engadget has a hands-on photo gallery of the six-pound laptop, and no question: The Iconia makes for an eye-catching piece of hardware, all right. Well, Engadget notes that the Iconia might be the first Windows laptop with a keyboard that's susceptible to glare, adding that the "hard-to-use" virtual keypad hampers the otherwise "clever" touch interface.
PCWorld gives much details on the Iconia and the Acer "Ring," a wheel-shaped touch UI that lets you flick and swipe between various on-screen elements, including the QWERTY keyboard, a "gesture editor," image capture and Web-clip apps, a "TouchMusic" player, and other touch-friendly applications.
The Iconia will also let you super-size your Web-browsing experience by extending pages across both of its 14-inch displays, although you'll have to put up with the gap where the laptop's hinge sits.
Other features on the Iconia include VGA and HDMI outputs, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, and three USB ports (two with USB 2.0, the other using the new USB 3.0 standard).
How much will the Iconia cost? No hard details on that yet, nor any specific word on when it'll arrive in the States.
Meanwhile, Acer also took the wraps off a pair of Android-based tablets - a 7-incher and a 10-inch model, both with 1280-by-800 displays and Flash Player 10.1 support, as well as a 10-inch Windows-based tablet.
Also on tap from Acer: an aircraft-carrier-sized Android smartphone with a whopping 4.8-inch, 1024-by-480 display, not to mention an 8MP camera, DLNA media sharing, and "immersive" sound courtesy of Dolby Mobile.
Again, pricing and release dates for the upcoming tablets and smartphone remain sketchy, with Acer saying all three of its new Android devices should arrive around April 2011, while the Windows tablet is slated for February.
