(Source: MP3 Newswire)

As the latest addition to Acer’s media player stable, the MP-340 comes in with a 1.8″ TFT display (smaller than its bigger sibling’s 3.5″ screen), with the capability to tackle MP3/WMA audio formats, plus the JPEG image format and H.264 video. According to early news releases, it doesn’t support the staple AVI format nor DRM-type codecs.

Storage-wise, it comes with a 20GB hard drive, plus an SD-card slot. Dimensions-wise, we’ll be looking at 3.7″ x 2.5″ x 0.8″. And if Acer’s claims are to be believed, the MP-340 lasts 10 hours on a single charge (with the display off).

P.S.: It’ll come with Sudoku in-built too, and is apparently being sold in Germany already (for US$280 to $318).

[News via MP3 Newswire]

(Source: TrustedReviews)

LAPTOP Magazine is probably the first publication that has highlighted the relatively small form factor of the 17″ Acer Aspire 9500 entertainment notebook in their recent review.

But other than its assertion that the Aspire 9500 has a “…slim-and-sexy appearance over a fat all-in-one approach…”, they basically reiterate what most reviewers have already said about the ATI Mobility Radeon X700-powered laptop: Excellent performance, flawless DVD video playback, and strong battery life.

They conclude that, “Overall, the Acer Aspire 9500 is an excellent notebook for entertainment enthusiasts who’d rather have a manageable size and weight over a behemoth that tries to do too much. It’s, ahem, something to aspire to.”

No… not that pun again.

The Acer Blog recently experienced severe downtime (more than 24 hours) due to hardware problems on the host’s side. However, I hope I can say that the problem has been resolved and that this should not reoccur anytime soon.

Hopefully, the downtime did not inconvenience regular readers too much. I would like to say sorry for the downtime and thank you for your continued support!

With the rush of Centrino Duo notebook releases out of the system, I’ll finally have time to bring more interesting posts in (don’t have your hopes up…), rather than work on the continuous stream of reviews coming in.

I’ll also need to setup proper archiving based on specific Acer models and update the various product info pages with more detail.

Did I forget anything else? I hope not. This sounds daunting enough already.

Welcome to The Acer Blog! You should be able to expect posts concerning all about Acer products, from desktops and notebooks to even handhelds and cameras. News, reviews, tips and tricks for Acer products will be the norm in this unofficial (and probably unauthorized) blog.