What is Acer thinking?

By Ed Dawson, PC Authority

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Acer is known for its budget notebooks, but has signalled a sea change in its approach with the launch of the A-Listed Acer Aspire 5920G “Gemstone” notebook. This model is a perhaps surprising multimedia powerhouse, incorporating a number of contemporary features and a distinctive and unique form factor design. It’s certainly not what you’d expect from a company concentrating on marginal low-end systems.

PC Authority spoke to Lindsay Tobin, Acer’s Product Business Manager on the Gemstone series in Australia.

PC Authority: How does the Acer Aspire 5920G differ from previous Aspire models?

Lindsay Tobin: “It’s trying to build up our image and show that Acer can have high end products... you’ve got an HD-DVD drive and 17-inch display with 1920x1200 resolution. We have 8ms response time on our notebook screens. If you look at others, they’ve got 16, or 25ms. They’re also brighter, at 200 nits. You’ve also got an HDMI port, so you can plug into a TV for the full effect, with 5.1 audio.”

PCA: What is the “Gemstone” concept or design?

LT: “It’s the appearance of a gem, and what we call the light flow, in the keyboard deck, which illuminates in blue. It’s special buttons, the (empowering) e-button, it’s also the holographic surface on the display (casing)…. it is an attractive device”.

PCA: What is the trend in notebook prices? What will a reasonable low or mid-range notebook price be in 2008?

LT: “We’re not leading the way to reduce the price point. The sweet spot in the market is still the $1299-$1999 price range. Right now we have a product that’s effectively $650, but next year you may see models close to $500.”

However, Mr Tobin disputed Acer’s “budget vendor” image.

“Acer’s never been in the business of buying obsolete components and unleashing them on the market. We have DVD writers and 80GB hard drives as a minimum (specification),”

PCA: For how long does the average person use a notebook computer?

LT: “If you buy a fridge, you expect to be able to use it for 20 years, but notebooks tend to get handed down. In the enthusiast space, it’s around 12-18 months.”

PCA: What are the impacts you’re seeing of the commoditisation of computers?

LT: “It’s harder to differentiate. Consumers want to be confident that (they’re buying) a brand name they can trust. You don’t need to pay $5,000 to get an HD-DVD drive (in a notebook computer). You can pay under $3,000.”

PCA: Is Acer investigating systems on a chip, or cut-down systems like the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) concept?

LT: “No. We don’t see any market here in Australia. Acer is an R&D company, so we’re keeping up to date, concentrating on what is available now, what’s available in the next two years.”

Mr Tobin briefly mentioned some new notebook technologies that Acer are investigating, including fuel cells, Blu-ray drives, LED backlights, 3G modems and Wimax adapters.

PCA: Are you expecting the battery life of Acer products to allow more hours in the future?

LT: “What we’re seeing with the Santa Rosa (platform), is that it is already much more power efficient than previous Core 2 Duo platforms. We will continue to work on increasing battery life.”

PCA: Are a lot of customers asking for an integrated TV tuner in notebooks?

LT: “The jury is still out as to whether people see it as a big benefit, to be honest. Personally, I think it’s great. Particularly the 17-inch model. It’s quite a decent size to watch TV on. (For home theatre usage) you don’t have to go out and spend $500 to $600 on an HD-DVD player. It’s brilliant, fantastic, widescreen, and HD. People aren’t rushing out to buy (Digital HDTV) set-top boxes.

PCA: Where is your notebook service and support center? Are calls handled in Australia?

LT: “We have service centres in each capital city, yes. We also have Authorised Service Partners in rural Australian areas. The call centre is in Sydney.”

PCA: As the Acer Aspire 5920G is one of the first models to feature Santa Rosa technology, was it a challenge to quickly bring it to market?

LT: “No. Intel have always supported Acer and our design partners.

PCA: Where are Acer notebooks built?

LT: “Well over 90% of notebooks are manufactured in China. We work with Quanta and a number of other contract manufacturing partners, as do all vendors. We make a point of only working with the top, tier-one manufacturing companies. Being a company based in Taiwan, we work very closely with them.”

PCA: What work have you done on Reduction of Hazardous Substances (ROHS) and other environmental features?

LT: “We are now Energy Star 4.0 compliant -- (doing) that was probably harder than integrating the Santa Rosa platform. We don’t have to worry about formaldehyde. We’re also lead-free.”

PCA: Where was lead used in computer components?

LT: “On the IC (Integrated Circuit), there was some use of lead. In motherboards, and chips. They’ve phased out the lead parts around 12 months ago. We are now lead-free.”

PCA: What are Acer’s future ambitions?

LT: “We want to be up there. We’ll be leading the way in many categories.”

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