14 DAY TRIAL // Smart devices seem to be one of the main focal points of Acer's 2010 strategies, or, at least, this is what its roadmap and reported product plans appear to suggest. Though it is mainly known for supplying PCs, especially netbooks, it has become known that the company will soon enforce its presence in other areas, including that of mobile electronics. In fact, this seems set to happen sooner than consumers might expect.
Digitimes has long been the source of reports and rumors concerning the IT industry and, this time, it is shown that Acer, along with an entire entourage of notebook makers, will collaborate on the development of the PC maker's next round of products. To be more specific, Wistron, Quanta and Compal will all collaborate with Acer on making smartphones, smart monitors, e-book readers and, last but not least, tablets.
Compal will likely continue manufacturing Acer's smartphones, whereas Wistron should handle production of the smart monitor. This smart monitor will have features similar to those of a thin client, only it will lack a hard drive and it will only be used for surfing the network. Furthermore, whatever e-readers are in development, they will also be made by Compal, and will be sold, at first, in Europe and Asia Pacific. As for the tablets themselves, they will make use of ARM central processing units and they shall be demonstrated at the end of the month. No further details are known at this time.
Being based on the ARM architecture, the slates will have a long battery life and will be loaded with either the Google Android operating system or Google Chrome OS. Unfortunately, according to Digitimes sources, said tablets won't actually become available until the third quarter. Still, consumers will, at the very least, be able to get an idea of what they should expect from such a device.