Acer talks up low power CULVs
LOW ENERGY CONSUMPTION IS THE WAY to go, according to Taiwanese computer maker, Acer, which will channel all its own low-energy into machines based on Intel CULV processors.
President of Acer Taiwan, Scott Lin, told press he reckoned that with everyone jumping on the eco bandwagon, you'd have to be environ-mental not to know energy-conserving lappies would be the year's hottest trend, likely to snatch 20 per cent of the world's portable market in 2010.
Meanwhile, Sean Chang, Acer's notebook product manager, added that Intel's CULV processors were ideal for the job, guzzling just "Five to ten watts of electricity, compared to traditional CPUs that waste between 25 and 35 watts."
Allaying industry fat-cat fears, Lin added that notebooks shouldn't worry too much about potential cannibalisation by piranha-sized netbooks, claiming that, for a start, most punters bought netbooks as secondary machines and secondly, if anything would suffer, it would probably be the desktop market rather than portables.
Acer claims to have already shipped over 4,000 units of its TimeLine CULV series in Taiwan alone which, considering it was released just last month, is not bad at all.
The company has also unveiled no less than seven new additions to its TimeLine, er, line, with display sizes spanning 13.3-inch, 14-inch and 15.6- inch. Acer says all the new lappies will include the firm's ComfyTouch cooling technology, 2GB of memory and have an average battery life of eight hours.
Prices, however, warned Lin, would probably not remain at their current low levels for long as margins were being squeezed and price pressure from component sellers was spiking.
"The combination of price hikes on memory chips, panels and the new Windows 7 operating system will make it very difficult for netbooks to remain inexpensive," Lin said, alluding to a 30 per cent rise in memory chip prices over the past month.
The prices of LCD panels, too, Lin cautioned, were hockeysticking as demand increased. µ
Share this:
ShareBusiness Intelligence Software
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Enterprise Accounting Software
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
Enterprise Systems Management
i have an aspire 5560 which was great for its time except that it overheats and has naive design flaws. you can look at this machine and see how it evolved, how the unfucked everything.
This is for when Atom isn't an option because it's far too slow. It's refreshing to see someone making a real laptop with an appropriate cpu instead of heatplate with a screen and keyboard. This will no doubt mean better battery life also.
The price point of netbooks has been set, and it will be a tough sell for manufacturers to ask $100 more for Win7-equipped netbooks. Microsoft will price themselves out of the netbook and perhaps laptop/desktop markets as well. Enter the penguin!