Acer is unveiling a new line of touch-enabled computers today, along with a new media store for users to purchase and download music, video, games, and newspapers. Engadget is covering the news in a liveblog, but here’s what we know so far:
- Acer plans to launch 5, 7, and 10 inch tablet computers
- The company is also showing a new dual-screen notebook called the Iconia with a virtual on-screen keyboard on one screen. It looks a lot like the Toshiba Libretto W100… but bigger. It runs Windows 7.
- There’s a 10.1 inch convertible tablet-style netbook due out in February with an AMD chip, 2 cameras, HDMI output, and Windows 7.
It looks like Acer has developed some pretty serious touch-capable software for interacting with the Iconia laptop. The display brings up an Acer menu when you place five fingers on the screen. There are touch-friendly apps for videos, photos and a web browser that’s been optimized for touch controls.
As far as tablets, Acer plans to launch a 10.1 inch model in April that will run the version of Android Google keeps promising will be optimized for tablets. It will have a 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 CPU, support for Flash 10.1, a 5MP rear-facing camera, as well as a lower resolution front-facing camera, and HDMI output.
Also in April, Acer will introduce a 4.8 inch mini-tablet with a 1024 x 480 pixel display, 8MP rear camera, 1.3MP front-facing camera, HD video recording, 6-axis motion sensing, and an LED flash. This little guy will be able to make phone calls and walks the line between tablet and smartphone, much like the 5 inch Dell Streak.
Acer also has a 7 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel tablet with a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU in the works. Like the others, it’s not due out until April.
You can find more photos from Engadget after the break…. or at Engadget.
Update: The folks at Laptop Magazine got their hands on some press shots, including a few you can see after the break.
I think weight would be a huge issue. Anything dual screen would need to be made with far more though then what I see above. Making a good laptop is easy. Making a good tablet is a bit harder requiring a bit more engineering expertise. But making a duel screen tablet…sorry you really need to be pulling out all the stops to get the perfect size to weigh ratio while providing a decent battery size for the weight.