Acer Readies 37-inch Flat TV, New Notebook PCs

TAIPEI -- Taiwanese computer company Acer is readying several new notebook PCs and a 37-inch flat-screen television with a built-in media gateway it showed off at an investors' conference here today.

The media gateway allows video, music, pictures, and other data on a PC to be played directly on the LCD TV, and a remote control that comes with it works on the TV and PC, an Acer representative said.

The rep was unable to provide all of the specifications of the new TV because it is not slated to be launched until early next year, but he said that it will be ready for high-definition (HD) broadcasts and that it supports Dolby digital, Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB), and a number of video and audio formats including Microsoft Windows Media Video (WMV).

Pricing on the 37-inch TV has not yet been finalized, but it will cost over $2000, the Acer representative said.

Notebook Upgrades

In the near term, Acer plans to launch a number of upgrades to some existing notebook PC models and to release a brand new Acer Aspire 9500, which was displayed Friday.

The Aspire 9500 has a 17-inch screen and built-in TV tuner. It has a 2.27-GHz Intel Pentium M microprocessor, with 1GB of RAM. The Acer representative said it would cost around $2000 and would be available in some markets next month.

Acer also showed off a few upgrades to models launched earlier this year, such as a TravelMate 8100 with a metal cover, 360-degree infrared capabilities, 2GB of RAM, and a more powerful microprocessor--an Intel Pentium M running at 1.73 GHz.

The upgraded TravelMate will be available very soon in Taiwan at a cost of around $2000, Acer says.