14 DAY TRIAL // The Acer Aspire 1420P, featured in the images accompanying this article, is a custom PC built by Microsoft in collaboration with Acer and offered for free to full-conference attendees who are onsite at the Professional Developer Conference 2009, in Los Angeles. It was Windows and Windows Live Division President Steven Sinofsky that announced PDC2009 participants that they would be getting the free machine during his keynote in day two of the conference. The Acer Aspire 1420P Convertible Tablet PC is offered as a sign of the Redmond company’s gratitude for the support from PDC attendees in building Windows 7.
“This laptop promotion is the result of a collaborative effort with Acer, whom we worked closely with to have these laptops ready for PDC. This PC is not yet available in the US (Acer has not yet announced pricing and availability for this PC) so that makes this “PDC Edition” of the laptop exclusive to PDC attendees,” revealed Brandon LeBlanc, Windows Communications manager on the Windows Client Communications Team.
The Aspire 1420P PDC Edition features the 64-bit (x64) flavor of Windows 7 Ultimate preinstalled and is powered by an Intel Celeron CPU SU2300 running at 1.2GHz. The computer comes equipped with 2GB RAM, an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD, a 250GB HDD, and sports an 11.6” Widescreen capable of a resolution of 1366x768.
“The laptop features a unique design with a metallic textured design just above the keyboard and a metal hinge for converting the laptop into Tablet mode. Its design is essentially a small laptop with Tablet PC features. (…) This laptop features a CTRL+ALT+DEL button and a Flip 3D button. Also, the Aspire 1420P uses the Windows 7 Sensor and Location Platform to adjust the screen depending on which way you hold the PC (in Tablet mode). For example: if you’re holding it a landscape position, the screen will display in landscape for you. Vice versa if you hold it in a portrait position,” LeBlanc added.
