(Source: Acer)

The Acer Aspire 5670 was launched in the US, or rather, internationally, more than a month ago, but it seems that only now do Bruneians have a chance of handling one of Acer’s dual-core offerings. It was recently launched at the Empire Hotel and Country Club.

For those who have forgotten, the Aspire 5670 is equipped with an Intel Core Duo processor, an ATI Radeon X1400 graphics card, a 15.4″ WXGA screen and 1GB DDR2 RAM. Of course, it also comes with the built-in 1.3 megapixel Acer OrbiCam and Acer’s Bluetooth VoIP phone.

(Source: Acer)

Presentations just got a little easier with Acer Australia’s recent launch of the Wireless Presentation Gateway - the Acer WP100. This rather cool piece of technology allows you to wirelessly connect your DVI-enabled projector through its integrated 802.11g wireless LAN to any wireless-equipped computer. The WP100 supports a display resolution of up to 1280 x 1024 with 16 bit color depth.

Equipped with a WAN port for internet connectivity, an audio output port for audio streaming and Acer’s e-Presentation software, the WP100 will come with a recommended retail price of AU$329. That’s reasonable enough since in my humble opinion, this Wireless Presentation Gateway is really little more than a novelty.

[News via Acer Australia]

(Source: PCMag)

I featured a full-fledged Acer TravelMate 4062WLCi review by PCMag in the post before this one, so I thought it would be appropriate to feature a semi-review in this post because the fundamentals would already have been covered.

Anyway, in this SMB IT review, the TravelMate 4062WLCi’s pluses were deemed to be the low price and low weight, but SMB IT seemed to have had problems with the relatively low battery life (if compared to a Lenovo/IBM ThinkPad) and networking. In the end, they concluded that the TM4062WLCi would be great value for money (that is, if you could handle the networking problems they experienced) and “…SoHo road warriors with limited budgets should definitely check this out before buying anything else.”

Personally, I’ve not had many problems with the connectivity of Acer’s notebooks, and therefore, networking has never been a problem for me. If I could venture a guess, I’d say that SMB IT’s networking problems stemmed from the fact that the test unit was a “…slightly early production unit.”

As much as we all love top-of-the-line, thin-and-light notebooks, the bread and butter of Acer’s notebooks are general purpose mid-level laptops. So, forgive me for introducing a review of the Acer TravelMate 4062WLCi by PCMag.

Now, it is not that the notebook is bad. After all, PCMag gives it an overall rating of 3 1/2 out of 5 stars. It’s just that I find that not many people like to read reviews on notebooks that come with the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 - an inferior substitute of dedicated Nvidia or ATI video cards. But then, the TravelMate 4062WLCi is a budget notebook for the price-conscious.

In any case, PCMag summarises the TravelMate 4062WLCi as:

…a value notebook designed for budget-minded users who cherish a widescreen for watching DVDs or working on documents with minimal scrolling. The expansive 15.4-inch display is a bit bigger than the screens on some other highly portable mainstream notebooks, and it is great for watching DVDs. Though the 4062WLCi is not a multimedia laptop like the Dell Inspiron 6000, the big screen and above-average processor help make this notebook a good deal for $900.

Note: Besides its 15.4″ widescreen LCD and one or two other things, the Acer TravelMate 4062WLCi is very similar to the TravelMate 4652LMi (which comes with a 15″ screen and a modular DVD-Dual drive).

According to Interfax, Acer shipped 126,000 PCs and 124,000 notebooks to Russia in the fourth quarter of 2005 - an increase of 330% and 380% year- on-year, respectively. This means that Acer now has a leading market share of 28.2% in Russia’s notebook market.

This piece of good news comes in the wake of similar news releases in January for India and Europe.

[News via TMCnet]

(Source: Edcon.se)

An About.com review on a relatively old Acer notebook - the Acer Ferrari 3400LMi - popped up on my RSS reader recently. It’s not a comprehensive or detailed review, and to me, it looks more like an evaluation of technical specifications rather than a real first-hand review given the lack of benchmarks.

In any case, the review is a glowing one, with About.com giving the Ferrari 3400LMi an overall rating of five out of five stars, and concluding with: “The Acer Ferrari truly lives up to its namesake as being an expensive system, but with that price comes an excellent thin and light notebook with tons of performance.”

Acer hinted at these 37-inchers around 3 weeks back, but only now do we have the official introduction of Acer’s new LCD TVs - bigger and perhaps better than Acer’s previous models (e.g. the 32″ Acer AT3201W). Both models are identical except for the media gateway built into the AT3705MGW.

We’re talking about 37″ equppied with dual TV tuners (analog and digital) and a media gateway on the AT3705MGW. At around US$2,727 (est. from AUD equivalent), the media gateway model is competitive with Dell’s 37″ W3706MC LCD TV, even if Dell’s promotional discounts seem to give it an edge. In fact, even that advantage should be nullified when retailer discounts on the Acer models come into the picture. And let’s not forget that the Dell does not come with a built-in media gateway.

[News via Acer Australia]

Read more news and reviews on the Acer AT3705 and AT3705MGW LCD TVs.

Acer’s most recent use of carbon fiber is in the TravelMate 8204WLMi. I’ve to admit it’s cool (and a nice change from the “traditional” silver finish we’re used to seeing on Acer notebooks), but I wouldn’t partner a carbon fiber briefcase with the notebook (or any notebook actually). I really like my old school PVC and leather notebook bags after all.

However, I’m clearly alone on this front as Cisco Cheng over at Gearlog would relish the chance to combo a TravelMate 8204WLMi with a carbon fiber briefcase. In fact, there are a few pictures over there that just might interest another carbon fiber lover.