14 DAY TRIAL // Digitimes industry sources suggest that Acer is working on a netbook model, which will be launched sometime during the second half of 2010. Although Google Chrome was set to become available on netbooks back in October, details were, at best, sketchy and the devices were set to only be available in China. The netbooks were supposedly based on the Chinese-designed Loongson processor and produced by a company called Lemote. If Acer does release its own Chrome-powered netbook, the new OS might further propel this device category upwards in the popularity list.
According to Acer Chairman JT Wang, the company has been working on plans for Chrome netbooks since the middle of 2009 and is quite confident that it will be the first vendor of such products. This confidence comes as somewhat of a surprise, considering the unimpressive sales amount boasted by Aspire One D250, Acer's netbook that was introduced in March and that was initially expected to become a favorite among such products.
Digitimes again fails to give any specifics, leaving us with nothing else except the knowledge that the Chrome OS will make it to netbooks by mid-2010. The Acer chairman still seems quite confident that the company would be the first to release such a netbook, so chances are that the first months of 2010's Q3 would yield the first Chrome-using mobile device, although what platform and processor it will operate on is still a mystery.
Nevertheless, the product might incorporate one of the upcoming Pine Trail processors, unless it turns out to be just a remake of an older Aspire One netbook with Chrome instead of Android. Also, next year's second half is quite some time away and, as JT Wang is aware, Acer is not the only one with plans for such a netbook. Consumers can expect a veritable race to see which netbook manufacturer will be the first to bring out a mobile platform that will combine Chrome with performance capabilities in line with the mainstream standards that will be reached by that time.