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Acer's New HD Gemstone Laptops

by Thomas Houston on March 14, 2008 at 11:39 AM



This week, Acer unveiled the second generation of its multimedia-based line of laptops, Gemstone Blue.

Available in 16-inch (6920) and 18-inch (8920G) monitor configurations, the Gemstone line's media specs have been impressively updated to handle all of the newest entertainment. Ready for high-definition video and gaming, the new laptops come with 16x9 1080p high-definition screens (unlike most laptops), surround sound capability (for actual 5.1 sound on the 8920G) and Blu-ray drives.

Acer built a touch-based 'CineTouch' control pad into the left side of the keyboard (see image at right). It looks cool and fits into Acer's laptop media center approach. We were at the press conference and found the touch-sensitive pad (see picture, right) for media functions to be mildly intriguing and semi-edgy from a design perspective, but ultimately too oddball and confusing for most users. And frankly, we're getting a bit tired of touch-screens left and right. Give us some good old buttons. Engadget isn't too crazy about the oddly-designed touch-sensitive pad, either, so check out its hands-on impressions here.

We like the cinema-ready features and admit the extra screen real-estate is always welcome, but not entirely sold on the "desktop replacement" concept. We'd still rather just have a big flat-panel monitor attached to a big, powerful desktop and a wireless keyboard for home use, and a super-light laptop for work on-the-go. But hey, that's just us.

Prices for the Gemstone laptops will start around $900, and the new models should be shipping in the next month. We're hoping to get some hands-on over a longer period of time, and will report back when we do.

From Engadget


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Tags: laptop news, LaptopNews

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