Acer reportedly will launch its Aspire 3951 ultrabook in October. The thin and light ultrabook will compete with Apple's popular MacBook Air.
Acer's
upcoming ultrabook laptop could hit the shelves as early as October, according
to the latest reports.
Acer is one of several OEMs that have said they plan to adopt Intel's ultrabook concept
for very thin and light notebooks, which could challenge Apple's MacBook Air
systems. At the Computex 2011 show in June, Acer President Jim Wong said
ultrabooks "can help revive the notebook market," which-while seeing
solid growth in enterprises-continues suffering from slower consumer sales,
thanks to such factors as the rise of tablets and the release in 2009 of
Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system.
According to
recent reports, Acer's Aspire 3951 will be a 13.3-inch system powered by
Intel's Core i "Sandy Bridge" processors. It will also offer a choice of 160GB
SSD (solid-state drive) or hard-disk storage. In keeping with Intel's ultrabook
concept, the system comes in at less than 0.8 inches thick-0.51 inches,
according to reports-and weighs less than 3.1 pounds.
Ultrabooks
also are expected to be less than $1,000, and rumors have the Aspire 3951
coming in as low as $770. That would be more than $200 less than the
least-expensive MacBook Air, which is $999.
Photos said to
be of the new aluminum-cased Acer ultrabook have popped up on the Internet, at
the Vietnamese Website Sohoa.
Intel is
putting a lot of effort and money behind the ultrabook concept. It was first
unveiled at the Computex 2011 show in May, and Intel officials said they envision
an ultra-thin and ultra-light system that offers the performance of traditional
laptops with features-including instant on, continuous connectivity and,
eventually, touch capabilities-found in tablets. According to reports, the Acer
device can quickly come out of sleep mode in about 1.7 seconds.
Intel
executives said they expect that by the end of 2012, 40 percent of laptops sold
will be ultrabooks.
The chip maker
has released three Core processors aimed at the ultrabook space, and will
invest a significant amount of R&D dollars into the effort. In addition, to
further entice OEMs to build ultrabooks, Intel is offering financial incentives
as well as reference designs to help them keep the price of the systems under $1,000.
Asus
officials, who took the stage with Intel at Computex to tout the concept, have
said they expect to release the UX21 ultrabook in the fall. Along with Asus and
Acer, other OEMs reportedly interested in launching ultrabooks include Hewlett-Packard, LG Electronics and Lenovo.
Some OEMs
reportedly are reluctant to embrace the idea, waiting instead to see how Asus's
UX21 flies before deciding whether to sign on. Intel's attempts at CULV
(Consumer Ultra-Low-Voltage) thin notebooks in 2009 are giving some systems
makers pause. The CULV idea didn't get much traction in the marketplace, and
now such systems face even more competition from tablets like Apple's iPad and
a host of Android-powered devices.
There also is
concern over whether ultrabooks can be built and sold for less than $1,000, an
issue that Intel's reference design aimed to address.
Initially, ultrabooks
will use Intel's Core i5 or i7 chips based on the Sandy Bridge architecture,
with new 22-nanometer "Ivy Bridge" processors arriving next year. The upcoming
chips, which will feature Intel's new Tri-Gate transistor architecture, are
designed to improve performance and energy efficiency.
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