Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Acer upgrades its PCs with Haswell, new models include the Aspire V7 Ultrabook








This is hardly the biggest Acer news of the week (that would be this, this and this), but it's worth a PSA nonetheless. Now that Intel's formally unveiled Haswell, Acer announced it'll be refreshing much of its PC lineup with those fourth-generation chips -- 23 notebooks and six desktops, to be exact. Obviously, that includes too many models and configurations for us to discuss today, but Acer did say the updates will span the S7, M, V3, V5, V7 and E Series laptop lines, with prices ranging from $600 to $1,600. On the desktop side, the changes are limited to AT3-605 series and the Predator AG3-605 series, with prices running the gamut from $700 to $1,500.

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If there's one model that caught our eye, though, it would be an Ultrabook from Acer's recently announced Aspire V7 series. The V7-482PG-9884-U (how's that for a name?) has 14-inch IPS display, a Core i7-4500U processor, a 4GB NVIDIA GeForce GT750M GPU, 12GB of RAM and a 1TB HDD. That'll be available this month for $1,300, putting it squarely at the high end of what Acer has to offer

Monday, June 3, 2013

Dell VP says forthcoming XPS 11 will be a Yoga-style hybrid


Dell VP says forthcoming XPS 11 will be a Yogastyle hybrid
It's Computex week, which means the technology world is ready to talk up the PCs it'll be pushing out between now and January. Dell's Kirk Schell has let it slip that the company will be beefing up its mobile offerings with an 11.6-inch laptop that should arrive in time for the holidays. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Dell XPS 11 will come with a high-definition display that can be folded backwards to use as a tablet -- which would have been exciting, but for the fact Lenovo got there first.

Velocity Micro brings Haswell to select machines in its Enthusiast line


Velocity Micro brings Haswell to select machines in its Enthusiast line
Need a taste of Intel's latest silicon, but can't be bothered to build your own machine? Velocity Micro is here to help. Like the folks at Origin PC, Velocity Micro has jumped on the Haswell bandwagon, announcing this weekend that select machines in its Enthusiast line are now available with Intel's 4th generation Core processors. Desktop rigs with the new chips start at $1,524, but consumers looking for a more portable solution will have to look elsewhere. Check out the press release after the break for the official announcement.

ASUS FonePad Note hands-on at Computex 2013


ASUS FonePad Note handson at Computex 2013 video
ASUS is joining the big smartphone / tablet / don't call it a phablet fight, and its first salvo is the 6-inch FonePad Note. We don't have to tell you that it's big, and that it stretched the limits of our hands when we briefly played with it. The 1080p display is suitably crisp enough, although this early demo unit was unable to be steered any further than the lock screen. However, that screen should at least look familiar to anyone who's played with the first FonePad. There's also a built-in stylus to use with it, one that's almost half as long as the phone itself, and this can be holstered in the back -- making it awfully like the Galaxy Note in more than just name. It's also worth noting the dual front-facing speakers, although there was no chance to test audio quality. Catch our brief eyes-on video after the break.