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Acer blames Dell and HP for poor ultra-thin notebook sales
ACER'S CHAIRMAN JT Wang has blamed Dell and HP for its lack-luster notebook sales.
He told Digitimes that instead of slashing the prices of ordinary laptops they should be investing in ultra-thin notebooks with long battery lives.
Wang has been bending the ear of Intel to follow in the same direction, but he thinks that Dell's and HP's plans to push mainstream notebooks in 2010 are daft. He is worried that they will put less resources in ultra-thin notebooks.
The problem for Wang's theory is that market demand for ultra-thin notebooks is so weak that it gets sand kicked in its face by hermit crabs.
Wang thinks this has nothing to do with people wanting to save money. Instead he thinks it is entirely due to HP and Dell dropping their mainstream notebook prices to as low as $399 in order to compete.
Since HP and Dell are not pushing ultra-thin notebooks very hard in the US, they are not becoming significant products in the market. Wang said this could mislead Intel into believing that market demand for ultra-thin notebooks is weak.
Punters really need ultra-thin notebooks Wang thinks, and he hopes that Intel will back him on this and not misjudge the market situation.
So what makes him think that ultra-thins are the way forward? He said that at the 2009 consumer trade fair in Taiwan, half of Acer's notebook sales at the show were ultra-thin models. That was the machines, not the booth babes of course.
Acer plans to launch more competitive ultra-thin notebooks in March and April, 2010. If Wang is right Acer will clean up. However whether or not that happens will be largely dependant on the price difference between ultra-thin and mainstream notebooks. µ
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Dell have some of the BEST ultra-thin laptops on the market. The entire Adamo lineup of machines are AMAZING, especially the new Adamo XPS.
Dell are, as far as I'm concerned, the leader in the 13" category as well - the XPS M1330 used to be one of the best laptops money could buy - it has since been replaced by the Studio XPS 13, which is even better.
Maybe the reason Acer are complaining is because Dell makes such better machines than they do. I've replaced over a thousand laptop motherboards throughout my career, and I can safely say that Acer certainly do not design their laptops with the idea that anyone would ever want to fix them, should they break... poor build quality, poor component layout.
Got a 400 USD ultrathin 11.6" aspire with a Celeron processor, (dual-core, 1.2GHz, 1MB L2 cache), 2GB Ram, Windows 7 Home Premium. Sounds about right for something double the power of an atom. If you really want an supercomputer, get a Cray, or failing that a shoebox. Add both together and you might touch $1600...
Maybe Acer should blame themselves for the piss poor design of the aspire one, Ive only owned one netbook, and after that I will never buy one again. Selling any kind of machine where you have to perform open heart surgery on what seem like pointlessly delicate parts just to add ram and change a disk out is just awful design.
Dear Ken and Scott,
Acer is talking about CULV-Laptops like the Acer Timeline Series which are ultra thin and start at around 400 € and not $ 1500.
While my last notebook purchase would be considered an ultra-thin, I'm not sure that's what the main stream market is looking for. Where do most people use their laptops? In their homes. They really have no need for anything fancy, like an ultra-thin. Are businesses going to spend twice as much, if not more, so their employees can have a fancy laptop? Not unless they are "important". And looking at the math, an ultra-thin runs around $1500 and if the life of the computer is 5 years, that's $300/year. Or, you can buy a regular laptop for $500, meaning you can get a new laptop ever other year and have the cost come out to $250/year. I think you see where the better deal is.
Acer should make car-friendly netbook with internet, satnav and dvd player. I would buy something like that. It would keep the kids happy, be useful for work, let her check best prices for shopping etc.
Something that can fit in the space occupied by the cd-radio, can be pulled out and sat on a lap, like a laptop! But netbook size is enough and keeps price down, and it will fit in the cd-radio slot.
Tomtom should look at something like this. I know Clarion or Pioneer or some of the car stereo makers are looking at these, but one of the huge laptop makers should be getting into it.
Back on topic - ultra thins are ok so long as the price difference is only 100-200 at most.
What I would prefer is a gaming laptop that costs only 250 more than a regular laptop, because that's all it should cost. 100 more on cpu+cooling, 150 more on gpu and cooling, all the other stuff is fine as it is.
Most people want the most computer for there money and most want a dvd drive.When you move past the netbooks you want more powerful pc. The ultra thins are ultra low powerful. A 1.4 mhz isnt going to get anything done to fast.
If ultrathin had more realist prices they would sell a little better. Why spend $1500 or more for a glorified netbook?
The truth is ultrathins are pretty toys.