Acer Unveils Acer One 14 – The Affordable Fully Loaded Laptop for Education and Small Businesses at Just Rs 22,999

Highlights:

•The new Acer One 14 is designed to cater to the immediate need of educational institutions and business to go digital without high investment

•Acer One 14 laptop is equipped with Intel® Pentium® Gold Processor

•Acer One 14 comes with Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64 bit, 1 Gigabit LAN port with at least 2 USB 3.0 Type A

•The laptop comes with fully loaded specifications with 3 years warranty

Acer, the global PC brand, today updated its commercial line-up with fully loaded affordable new Acer One 14 laptop. It is powered by the Intel® Pentium® Gold Processor 4415U in a compact form-factor and impressive screen to body ration with a 14-inch display. The Acer One 14 is paired with 4GB DDR4 RAM expandable memory up to 32GB and host Intel® WiFi + Bluetooth connectivity. Especially designed for educational, Small-Medium Businesses and Enterprises to help them in the digital revolution the laptop comes with features include HD Cam with Microphone, 1 Gigabit LAN port, 2 USB 3.0 Type-A, 1 USB 2.0 Type A, and up to 4 hours of battery life.

Speaking on this occasion, Sudhir Goel, Chief of Commercial Business Group, Acer India said, “I am thrilled to announce the launch of new affordable Acer One 14 laptop designed specially keeping in mind the enterprise & education sector. Acer has always tried to stay ahead of the consumer’s demand be it the productivity at work or empowering students. This launch will enable working professionals, students and teachers to optimize their time with the laptop offering best performance and features for the price. This is an excellent laptop when it comes to affordability, security & loaded operating system is concerned.”

Driven by the goal of digital transformation, Acer India is reaching out to schools and educational institutions as well as businesses, for learning and work style transformation. The new device offers the performance and value that customers will be able to appreciate while investing in a laptop.

Pricing and Availability:

The Acer One 14 is priced from Rs. Rs 22,999 onwards and will be available at Acer E-store (https://store.acer.com/en-in/) and at over 1500 Acer channel partner stores across India. 

Dual-screen laptops to hit market by 2009-10

The world's first laptop with twin monitors is slated to hit the stores by the end of the year.

The dual-screen laptop, entitled Spacebook, was masterminded by Alaska-based technology firm gScreen.

The pioneering technology, that will let users to multi-task while on the move, will have two 15.4 in screens, reports the Telegraph.

The PC is estimated to cost enthusiasts around 3,000 dollars but not without concerns regarding the weight of the Spacebook and the pressure on the batteries to meet the energy demands of running two screens.

Gordon Stewart, the founder of gScreen, told US technology website Gizmodo, that the gadget could be expected to be up for grabs on Amazon by December this year, provided final modifications had been dealt with.

He said: "We designed this knowing that many may not need the extra screen at all times."

Spacebook is thought to be the first of its kind with twin screens of equal size.

Agencies

New tablet may replace keyboard with touch-screen

Apple is shrinking its Mac computer and bringing out a tablet that is small enough to be carried in a handbag but big enough for comfortable web surfing, newspaper reading and watching movies. The computer will revolutionize laptops as we know them because it is one flat touch-screen device without a keyboard.

Speculations have reached a feverish pitch that by 2010, the revolutionary touch-screen gadget will be in a store near you. Blogs are alive with rumours that the tablet’s launch will be announced in September by Steve Jobs, Apple founder and CEO, and launched in time for the Christmas market, reports the Telegraph.

The product is believed to have been in development for the past six years, with Jobs personally involved over the last two. If the speculation is true, it could be the next technological breakthrough for Apple, which has sold more than 200 million iPods since its launch in 2001. The tablet will be billed as the solution for people who work a lot on the move, but don’t want to be burdened with a laptop.

Pundits are predicting that our lives will never be the same. “People expect it to be the ultimate Apple surprise. This thing will knock people’s socks off,”Leander Kahney, a blogger and author of The Cult of Mac, told the Observer.

“Apple will totally rejig the computing experience. You won’t manipulate a keyboard and mouse any more but rather use an intuitive touch-screen. It will very tactile. It will be a whole new paradigm.”

Gene Munster, a technology research analyst, estimated that the tablet, with an onscreen keyboard like the iPhone, would cost around $600, putting it between the high-end iPod Touch at $399 and the Mac-Book, which starts at $999.

Agencies

Have computer sales dipped by 12%; As cos cut IT spends

Personal computer (PC) sales in India fell about 11.7% during the first quarter of the calendar year to about 2.1 million units as enterprises slowed down IT spending, according to research firm Gartner.

Both desktop PC and laptop sales declined about 11% during the period, as both large enterprises and small and medium businesses delayed their IT hardware purchases.

“Cost pressure seems to have kept away enterprises from spending on IT hardware during the first quarter of 2009, while there are signs of some turnaround in the consumer sentiment,” Gartner principal analyst Diptarup Chakraborti said.

Hewlett-Packard continued to lead India’s PC market, selling about 300,000 PCs in the quarter. The PC maker, however, saw an year-on-year decline in both desktop and laptop sales during the period. HCL Infosystems (200,000) and Dell (158,000) were ranked second and third, respectively. Acer was ranked fourth.

Gartner said it expects PC sales in India to decline 3.7% year-on-year to 8.98 million units this year. The firm had projected sales of 11 million units for the calendar year in the beginning of January, but the first quarter made it revise its projection downwards.

“Production of desktops and laptops has come to near a halt in manufacturing destinations such as Taiwan,” Mr Chakraborti said. PC makers say they saw some growth in new categories, such as netbooks and higher retail sales, in the first quarter but the good news is limited to the consumer space.

“Large enterprises and small and medium businesses are not buying. The e-government projects are also in a limbo with the Model Code of Conduct in place,” Acer India chief marketing officer S Rajendran said.

With the slowdown in enterprise spending, corporate buyers are expected to account for 69% of total PC sales in 2009, down from 71% last year.

The economic slowdown has resulted in a slump in PC sales across the globe. Worldwide PC shipments declined 6.5% in the first quarter of 2009 to 67.2 million units. As per Gartner, the decline could have been steeper but for low-priced laptops such as netbooks.

Agencies

Computer sales across Asia drop

Sales of computers in the Asia Pacific region outside Japan fell for the first time in a decade during the fourth quarter, as the global meltdown hit consumer spending, a study said on Monday.

Preliminary figures showed 17.2 million desktop computers and laptops were sold in the December quarter, down 14 per cent from the previous quarter and 5 per cent lower than a year ago, global market intelligence firm IDC said.

The figures marked the first year-on-year decline since the third quarter of 1998 when the region was grappling with the Asian financial crisis, it added.

"This quarter was quite a jaw-dropper" not just in China but also in India, said Bryan Ma, regional director for personal systems research with IDC.

"The clouds are darkening in 2009, although there might be some pockets of shelter in the region's public sector."

For 2008, struggling Chinese computer giant Lenovo was the region's number one vendor with market share of 18.3 percent, followed by US rival Hewlett Packard which had 14.1 per cent, and Dell at 9.1 per cent, IDC said.

Taiwanese computer firm Acer was fourth with market share of 7.5 per cent and China's Founder ranked fifth, with 4.0 per cent.

Agencies

Qualcomm to launch Rs 10,000 laptop

San Diego-based wireless communications major Qualcomm will introduce its small laptop, Kayak, primarily used for accessing Internet services, in India priced at Rs 10,000 in the second half of next year.

"We will introduce Kayak Internet access platform in second half of next year and this device leverages 3G chipsets as well. The main USP is it can compute in low power scenario like India. It will cost about Rs 10, 000," Qualcomm Senior Vice-President and India head Kanwalinder Singh told reporters.

In Kayak prototype Qualcomm has designed a device capable of bringing the Internet over cell phone data networks to areas that may lack wired Internet service from cable and telephone providers.

The US-based firm, pioneer of CDMA technology, has already launched Kayak PC alternative globally.

Kayak is a reference design for building low-cost wireless-computing devices designed to fill the niche that exists between desktop PCs, which require landlines or separate accessories for connectivity and Internet-capable wireless devices.

Kayak uses Qualcomm's dual-core mobile station modem chipsets to provide both computing and connectivity, he said.

"We see developing markets like India seeking connectivity as inevitable and believe that concepts such as Kayak that leverage 3G wireless will be a key to success in helping these areas join the global online community, Singh added.

Qualcomm is pushing its phone processors into PC territories such as desktop computers after adding computing features like e-mail and web browsing onto cell phones.

Source: Economic Times