Acer Trots Out 20-Inch Notebook

Acer is taking to the big screen.

The San Jose, Calif., PC maker on July 31 said it has begun offering its mega-desktop replacement, the Aspire 9800, which features a 20.1-inch widescreen display.

Acer, which has been gaining worldwide market share in recent quarters, is aiming for students or small home office workers who are looking for a combination of productivity and entertainment.

As such, it says the Aspire 9800—which it said in a statement starts at $2,799—has the chops for graphics design or to display high-definition movies, including a high-definition DVD-ROM drive, dual hard drives and a Nvidia graphics processor.

The Aspire 9800s 20.1-inch widescreen—which is 36 percent larger than a 17-inch widescreen, according to the company—offers a pixel resolution of 1,680 by 1,050, otherwise known as WSXGA+, the company said in a statement.

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The Aspire notebook comes with Nvidias GeForce Go graphics chips, a TV tuner and features such as a remote control. Its HD-DVD drive can read high-definition DVD discs as well as burn formats such as DVD+RW and DVD-RMW, the company said.

A basic configuration of the machine includes the 20.1-inch screen along with an Intel Core Duo T2600 processor running at 2.16GHz, 2GB of RAM, twin 120GB hard drives, the HD-DVD drive, a memory card reader, Wi-Fi 802.11 wireless and even a built-in 1.3-megapixel camera, Acers Web site shows.

Buyers will pay a weight penalty, however, for the machines big screen. The Aspire 9800 clocks in at 17.2 pounds, or close to 8 kilograms, and is nearly 19 inches wide, 14 inches deep and 2.5 inches thick, the Acer site says.

But, thus far, only a handful of notebooks on the market today in the United States offer screens that are larger than 17 inches.

/zimages/3/28571.gifClick hereto read more about manufacturers plans to offer lightweight laptops.

Dells XPS 2010, one such machine that also offers a 20.1-inch widescreen, can fold into a briefcase-like form with a handle.

It comes with a Core Duo processor from Intel, dual hard drives and graphics from ATI Technologies for a starting price of $3,500, according to Dells Web site.

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