Acer is planning to gradually phase out its netbook lineup in favor of Sandy Bridge-powered (Intel x86) tablets.
“They are [definitely] aimed at phasing out netbooks,” Bing-Hsian told IDG News.
“[Clearly], that’s the direction of the [mobile] market.”
According to Bing-Hsian, Acer will begin selling two or three new tablet PCs during the first half of 2011, with displays expected to fall in the 7-10 inch range.
Perhaps not unsurprisingly, Bing-Hsian claimed that the four-core, Android-based tablets will run significantly faster than traditional Wintel based laptops.
However, Liliputing’s Brad Linder expressed skepticism over Acer’s speed-related expectations.
“Of course, Sandy Bridge processors are much more powerful than the ARM-based chips favored by most Android tablet makers.
“And since Android is designed to run on those low power chips, it makes sense that an Android tablet would appear faster than a Windows machine, at least in terms of the amount of time it takes to boot, suspend, launch programs, and perform many other tasks.
“[Still], I’m not entirely convinced this will make the machines ‘faster,’ per se. [So], honestly, I’m taking the whole report with a grain of salt for now.”
