The Zone

Acer unveils classy product portfolio at sign.of.the.time event in Beijing

HWM was recently invited along with other media from APAC to attend a special presentation by Acer in Beijing as part of the final phase of the company’s multibrand initiative. Themed as sign.of.the.time, the multibrand initiative tied-in with the company’s recent acquisition of leading brands – Gateway, Packard Bell and eMachines.

Held on 8 April at the Westin Beijing Financial Street hotel, the special presentation was hosted by senior Acer executives and included a special presentation by JT Wang, Acer’s Chairman. For more details on the presentation, please refer to our report in this month’s SMB section.

Acer Multibrand approach to new products

Following the media presentation and quick Q&A session, members of the media were treated to a special product unveiling at the back of the hall. Themed Time≥Weight³, the product showcase highlighted the multibrand approach of Acer and was kicked-off with a colorful light display and stylish showcase unveiling of the new Acer Aspire Timeline Series notebooks as the center of attraction.

The charming Acer girls at the product display area.

Aspire Timeline Series

The undisputed star of the product display was the all-new Aspire Timeline Series. This new notebook series straddles lightness and battery life amazingly, with Acer claiming an unheard of before more than 8 hour battery life! This is achieved by better power management and the use of Intel’s new Core 2 Duo ultra low voltage processors. Intel’s DPST or Display Power Savings Technology also contributes to this amazing battery life by reducing the display backlight with minimum visual impact to save up to 33% energy compared to typical notebooks.

The Acer Aspire Timeline Series was the talk of the town and will be available in 13-, 14 and 15.4” screen sizes to boot!

At its thinnest point, the Aspire Timeline is just 24mm (less than 1 inch) thick. The notebook is also very light at 1.6kg for the 13.3” model up to 2.4kg for the biggest 15.6” unit. Heat is an issue when you have such slim dimensions but the Timeline Series notebooks have eliminated overheating by implementing Intel’s Laminar Wall Jet technology that has previously been used for cooling turbine blades.

Other notable features of the Aspire Timeline Series is that it complies with Energy Star 5.0 rating while it’s Acer Power Smart adapter uses 66% less power as required by Energy Star and even enters an adaptive charging mode automatically when the battery is fully charged to stop consuming energy and to reduce wear and tear on the battery.

Other notebooks on display

Apart from the attention-grabbing Timeline Series, three other Aspire models were on view. They were the Aspire 3935, Aspire 5935G and Aspire 8935G.

The Aspire 3935 is Intel Centrino 2 powered and comes with the latest Mobile Intel GM45 Express chipset with integrated 3D graphics. It has up to 4GB of DDR3 1066MHz memory and has options for optical drive and SSD storage.

Aspire 3935

The Aspire 3935 is an ultra-portable model that’s less than 1-inch thick and features a 13.3” display with LED backlight. It also comes equipped with power saving features like the Acer SmartPower button to reduce power consumption and increasing battery life at a touch of a button.

The Aspire 5935 and 8935 (pictured here) feature LED rear lit CineCrystal display panels with 16:9 aspect ratio in 15.6” and 18.4” formats. The Aspire 8935 boasts a Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution.

Aspire 8935 and 5935

These two multimedia notebooks feature captivating Dolby Home Theater high definition sound with 5.1 surround sound and Acer Tuba CineBass amplifier for low frequency bass effects. The 8935 can accommodate 2 HDDs for a maximum 1TB capacity while the Aspire 5935 can be equipped with up to 500GB HDD. Both units also have a built-in 6-in-1 card reader.

The Aspire Z5600 PC is Acer’s new all-in-one desktop with a full touch 24” display and a host of multimedia capabilities courtesy of Windows 7.

Aspire Z5600 All-in-one

The silver colored Z5600 all-in-one PC is powered by Windows 7 yet features a unique touch UI from Acer that makes computing an easy, interactive experience. It has a full touch screen, features the latest Intel processor and a spacious HDD up to 2TB in capacity. It also boasts the latest generation MXM graphic processor for optimum multimedia. It is a true, rich multimedia PC complete with TV tuner, integrated webcam and DVD/Blu-ray player/writer combo.

The Aspire One 11.6” is available in four glossy colors – white, dark blue, red and black.

Aspire One Netbooks

Acer unveiled the Aspire One 11.6” model at the product display featuring the new Intel Atom processor and Mobile Intel US15W Express chipset. It features a large 160GB internal HDD and a multi-in-one card reader. It’s thin at just 2.5cm and has wireless, Bluetooth connectivity and 3G. This model comes with a WXGA screen with back-lit LED and weighs slightly over 1 kilo. Battery life is 8 hours based on a 6-cell battery. It also comes with Acer’s Crystal Eye webcam for easy video conferencing and a “multi-gesture” touchpad for zooming-in and turning pages in a document with just one touch.

The Acer AspireRevo nettop garnered a lot of attention from the media for its cool and compact design and the fact that it was loaded with the NVIDIA ION platform – a world’s first!

Acer AspireRevo

What more can we say? We were among the first in the world to catch a glimpse of the AspireRevo nettop system. Powered by cutting-edge NVIDIA ION graphics, the Aspire Revo is a small, green (as in environment-friendly) full-featured PC with pretty neat specs to boot. It can do HD video, gaming, sharing digital photos, surfing the Web and other “full-size” desktop tasks. Hooked-up behind a monitor, the AspireRevo is virtually invisible!

Some smart handhelds

In one corner of the Acer display area we came across some nifty devices that really drew our attention. We saw handhelds…yes, Acer had some new handheld devices to show-off! Fresh-off the company’s acquisition of E-TEN in 2008, we were treated to some new offspring. On display was the M900, X960, F1, C1 and a prototype model we simply could not identify.

The M900 has a cool slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a large 3.8” screen. The fingerprint reader sensor doubles as a 5-way navigation pad!

You get Acer UI 2.0, a 2.8” display and GPS among others with the X960.

The sharp-looking F1 has a display that as big as the face of the phone, outlined by just a very slim bezel!

The C1 (on the right) features a huge touch screen and a pleasing pearl white color. On the left is the prototype we couldn’t identify.

Cool stuff at the Gateway corner

At the Gateway corner, we came across a whole smorgasbord of interesting products featuring stylish designs synonymous with the brand. The new products on display were new versions of netbooks from the LT30 and LT20 series, EC and ID series notebooks, nettops and DX and SX series desktops. Here’s a quick look at the products that caught our eye.

The DX series desktop offers a stylish black with silver trim design.

The compact SX series offers style and performance in a desktop space-saving form factor.

DX and SX desktops

DX and SX desktop models on show featured understated yet stylish designs. The compact SX series in black trim as well as the DX series desktop with silver trim and matching keyboard and mouse combo caught the attention of the media.

The EC Series notebook from Gateway touts a long battery life in a light and thin design.

EC Series notebooks

Among the many cool products in the Gateway corner, The EC series notebook stood out with its thin form factor (less than 2.54 cm thick) and light weight (0.4 kilos). Its stylish looks come courtesy of a black and dark silver cover, brushed aluminum palm rest, soft surfaces and curves and black matt keyboard and frame.

The Pininfarina-inspired ID Series notebook is a real looker!

ID Series notebooks

Gateway left us salivating at the new ID Series notebook. Inspired by renowned Italian car designer, Pininfarina, this model comes with a glossy cover, mat interior, silver colored touchpad, speaker and keyboard with just the right amount of curves and lines to make it a sexy model. It has a 15.6” HD LED-backlit TFT LCD display, Dolby Sound Room surround sound and 16:9 aspect ratio. A true cinematic beauty!

Affordable yet stylish eMachines products

To be honest, this is the first time that we had the opportunity to come face to face with eMachines products. Throughout the presentation we were told that eMachines products were from the value segment, so we imagined that these products would be very OEM-ish in terms of design and quality…boy, were we wrong!

eMachines notebooks in a neat row…we were impressed by the build quality and stylish designs of these “value” notebooks.

New D, E and G Series notebooks

To make things simple, eMachines has categorized its notebooks into 3 series – the D, E and G. The D Series has notebooks that offer features and functionality needed for day-to-day computing activities. There’s a choice of Intel Celeron mobile or Pentium mobile processors, up to 4GB DDR2 memory, 14.0” screen with LED backlit panel and a large 500GB HDD.

The E Series on the other hand offers the power of a desktop in a portable system with a choice of either Intel (Pentium mobile and Celeron mobile) or AMD Athlon processors and up to 4GB DDR2 memory. The 16:9 aspect ratio of the 15.6” display makes the E Series notebooks great for watching your favorite movies.

Last but certainly not least is the G Series with its high definition 17” Widescreen LED backlit panel. The large 500GB HDD lets you store lots of digital media files and G Series notebooks come with a host of processor options from Intel (Pentium mobile and Celeron mobile) and AMD (Athlon) to choose from. You also get 4GB of DDR2 memory and a keyboard with numeric keypad.

However, what really separates eMachines notebooks from the crowd is its world-class software, service and support. New eMachines notebooks are pre-installed with eMachines Comprehensive Security Bundle that includes a 60-day trial of Norton 360 All-in-One Security.

The EZ1600 All-in-one PC looks like a simple, flat-screen TV but it’s actually a powerful PC!

Desktop computing has a new look

The EZ1600 All-in-one desktop system was getting a lot of attention from the media. It is available in either shiny black or white (the one on display was white) and is an excellent desktop for home entertainment, video and music and is easily accessible. It features a 18.5” screen with 720p resolution, Atom N270 processor, 945GSE chipset and 2 slots for SODIMM memory. It also comes with a 160GB HDD, DVD-RW drive, Wi-Fi and multi-card reader.

With that we say goodbye to Beijing and the Acer Time ≥ Weight³ product showcase!