Acer Aspire 3951 schedule moved up

Acer's answer to the current MacBook Air, the Aspire 3951, has had its release moved up to September, a story in Taiwan's Commercial Times [reg. required]. Once thought due in December, the 'ultrabook' would move up to September. The ostensible goal was to compete with the ASUS UX21 and not necessarily Apple.

An unnamed executive added that the company had been frantically reworking the design. Its internals had supposedly been reworked twice. Only a 13-inch version would be available at first, eliminating the prospects of a system that would go head-to-head with the 11-inch UX21 and similarly sized MacBook Air.

The PC designer could be one of the first Windows manufacturers with a notebook in the category and is under some of the greatest pressure to leap in. Acer market share is continuing to drop rapidly as its over-reliance on netbooks and low-end netbooks has hurt its shipments, even with a range of new tablets intended to fend off the effect of the iPad on sales. Intel created the ultrabook concept as a way of getting Windows PC makers to follow Apple's lead into premium notebooks and get some of the traits of a tablet in a PC, such as instant-on response and a lightweight profile.

HP, Lenovo, and other major firms have been rumored getting into ultrabooks as well. A number of unnamed companies have complained that they aren't being allowed to use cheap parts to run below Apple on price.

By Electronista Staff

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Intel, computers, industry, ASUS, Acer, Aspire, MacBook Air, Apple, ultrabook