We got familiar with Acer’s new Aspire Ethos 8951G and 5951G laptops every week ago, and told you all about its hot hardware and its £999 price within the UK. Well, now these marvelous multimedia machines have journeyed around the Atlantic and taken their nifty detachable touchpads, which double as multimedia remotes, with them. The North American versions (named AS8951G and AS5951G) also pack the identical 18.4-inch and 15.6-inch HD displays and USB 3.0 ports as their British counterparts. There’s Core i5 and Core i7 Sandy Bridge silicon and GeForce GT 555M graphics to offer you lots gaming grunt, and with the intention that the sounds match the visuals, both models pump out 5.1 channel surround sound. Low end audio inside the AS5951G comes courtesy of a bass booster, while its big brother has a small subwoofer stuffed in its underside. So, what is the damage for your wallet for these two black beauties? The AS5951G and AS8951G run $1,400 and $1,600, respectively, here within the States, while prices start at $1,200 and $1,500 CAD for our friends inside the Great White North. Interested parties can find the entire nitty gritty within the PR after the break.
SAN JOSE, Calif., June 16, 2011 – Acer America, component of the world’s second largest manufacturer of notebook PCs (1), today announced two new top-of-the-line multimedia notebook PC lines for the U.S. and Canada. The hot Acer® Aspire Ethos AS8951G and AS5951G are designed to deliver an unparalleled high-definition personal theatre experience for quite a lot of activities, including graphic-intensive gaming, video streaming and enjoying high-definition DVDs, photography or videos.
The final word in portable personal entertainment, the hot Ethos notebooks feature edge-to-edge frameless displays available in two sizes. The Acer Aspire Ethos AS8951G incorporates an 18.4-inch full HD widescreen (1920 x 1080) display, while the AS5951G includes a 15.6-inch HD widescreen (1366 x 768) display. Models are equipped with either a Blu-ray™ drive or a DVD optical drive for taking part in movies at the widescreen scratch-resistant Corning® Gorilla® glass display. The experience may well be extended to a massive screen TV via an HDMI port for the last word cinematic experience.
The Ethos 8951G comes with Acer CineSurround with five Dolby®-tuned built-in speakers and Acer Tuba CineBass subwoofer supporting low-frequency effects and vibrant audio for the ultimate movie and music enjoyment. The Aspire Ethos 5951G packs True 5.1-channel surround sound output, two inbuilt stereo speakers and the Acer Tuba CineBass booster, supporting low frequency effects for a very engaging experience.
Further underscoring its usefulness as a private theatre center, the recent Ethos line includes a large detachable touchpad that may be removed and used as a handheld remote control. Consumers can control their music, movies, or a slide show from around the room. It includes LED buttons that launch music and videos, and may be used vertically or horizontally. As well, the backlit chiclet style keyboard makes it easy to navigate in low light conditions.
With the InstantOn Arcade key, the Aspire Ethos is usually fast-booted, allowing consumers to look at movies, play music and look at photos on the touch of a button, without watching for all of the PC to start out up.
“The Acer Aspire Ethos line is the notebook of choice for gaming and media enthusiasts,” said Steve Smith, Acer’s senior business manager, notebooks. “It combines leading technology with a terrific set of high-end features that make these notebooks more useful and enjoyable for everyday activities. With the remote touchpad, you are able to change a song or pause a film from around the room, and InstantOn promises immediate access on your favorite media.”
Reckoning on configuration, consumers will find either a 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7 Quad-Core or a 2nd Generation Intel Core i5 Dual-Core processor, as much as 16GB of memory, and NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M graphics with 2GB of dedicated DDR3 VRAM. All this power delivers phenomenal performance and intense video computing power for optimum enjoyment while gaming and watching HD movies.
Designed for grandiose entertainment, the Ethos notebooks are dressed to affect with a svelte “Black Tuxedo Design,” which portrays sophistication with an all-black look. The brushed aluminum magnesium alloy cover features a sophisticated hairline finish, while contrasting glossy and matte surfaces ooze style from every angle.
The integrated PowerSmart long life battery(2) ensures prolonged battery performance over an extended time period. With conventional batteries, power capacity starts to vanish after 300 charge cycles. The hot battery with the long cycle life formula can retain 80 percent capacity for over 1,000 charge cycles (about four years of charges), about 3 times greater than in comparison to conventional notebook batteries.
Featuring a USB 3.0 port, which matches as much as 10 times faster than the normal USB 2.0, a 25GB HD movie is also downloaded in precisely over a minute. The USB 3.0 port may even charge USB devices when asleep, in hibernation mode, or when turned off completely. With the notebook acting as a charging station, consumers can leave behind a plethora of consumer electronic power adapters, comparable to those used to charge phones, MP3 players and digital cameras.
With harddisk sizes starting from 500GB(3) to one.5TB(3), the notebooks provide ample room for storing an enormous multimedia library and action-packed games. The Ethos 8951G provides even greater storage capacity with support for dual hard drives. A firewire port moves videos quickly from a digital camcorder, and a combo USB/eSATA port enables fast data transfer.
Pre-loaded with Acer Clear.fi™, a cross-platform solution for media enjoyment and sharing with DLNA-compliant devices, customers can easily access, store and luxuriate in digital media from almost anywhere in an office, home or from the cloud.
A sophisticated 1.3 megapixel HD webcam provides high pixel density for wonderful video image quality at 24 frames per second. Consumers can video chat with family and friends enjoying a very good crystal clear image, or grab superb still pictures in HD.
Lastly, a bio-protection fingerprint reader prevents unauthorized use of the computer.
Configurations, Pricing and Availability
The Acer Aspire Ethos AS5951G has a U.S. MSRP of $1,399.99; in Canada, MSRPs start at $1,199 CAD looking on configuration. Within the U.S., the Acer Aspire Ethos AS8951G has an MSRP of $1,599.99, Canadian MSRPs start at $1,499 CAD counting on configuration. All models shall be available this week at leading retailers.
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