14 DAY TRIAL // Not long ago, Acer came forth and proudly detailed its Timeline X series of notebooks, which are mainly noteworthy for their astounding ability, according to the company, to last for up to 8 or 12 hours on a single battery charge. Now, the PC maker seems to have shifted its focus back to performance, with emphasis, in this case, on multimedia capabilities, having reportedly introduced what is known as the Ethos laptop line.
The PC supplier has, so far, shown off two models: the Acer Aspire Ethos 5943G and the Aspire Ethos 8943G. Both feature a slim metallic chassis and have largely similar performance specifications, the main difference being the actual display. The 5943G has a 15.6-inch HD display with a maximum resolution of 1,366 x 768 pixels, whereas the 8943G has an 18.4-inch display with 1,920 x 1,080 pixel resolution.
As far as the internal components are concerned, the laptops are based on the HM55 chipset and can be powered by a variety of Intel Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 central processing units. They also boast up to 4GB DDR3 memory, a hard drive with a storage capacity of up to 640GB (the 8943G can have two such drives) and, last but not least, an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5000 series graphics adapter, which supports DirectX 11 and has 1GB VRAM. Consumers can choose between the Radeon HD 5650 and 5850.
The laptops come pre-installed with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit and will supposedly last for up to 3.5 hours on an eight-cell battery. Other specifications of the two notebooks include a DVD or Blu-ray drive, Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi, a multi-card reader, optional Bluetooth, a multi-gesture touchpad, a webcam and an optional TV tuner. Furthermore, the 5943G and 8943G feature 2.1- and 5.1-channel audio, respectively.
Unfortunately, there is no word on pricing and availability.