Acer officials are denying that they plan to phase out the company’s netbook
lines as Acer begins to also focus on the tablet market. Additionally, the
officials said in a statement that, for the moment, tablets "based on
[Intel’s] Sandy Bridge
are not yet foreseen."
Citing Taiwan
sales manager Lu Bing-hsian, Computer World reported Jan. 17 that tablets would
eventually replace the lightweight mobile netbooks that Acer helped to make a
PC market phenomenon.
The site quoted Lu as saying, "They are aimed at phasing out netbooks.
That’s the direction of the market."
Computer World additionally reported that Acer has 7- and 10-inch tablet
models planned, both of which will run Google’s Android operating system and
Intel’s new line of Sandy Bridge
processors. The new processors, which were released earlier this year at the
2011 Consumer Electronics Show and offer integrated CPU and graphics
capabilities, would theoretically enable the tablets to outperform the slew of
recently introduced tablets running Nvidia’s Tegra 2 chips.
For more, read the eWeek article: Acer Denies Phasing Out Netbooks for Tablets.