Acer Unveils Display, Gives Desktops A Makeover

Acer announced its latest offerings: A widescreen LCD monitor and newly redesigned Aspire M5800, M3800, and X3810 consumer desktops.

The new display, called the Acer H235H, will ship in July, and will be priced at $240 -- not a bad price for an HD-ready 23-inch LCD display with a resolution of 1920 by 1080, support for VGA/HDMI/DVI with High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP), and two stereo speakers. Gamers will want to take note of the 2ms response time, which was previously only available in the 24-inch H243H display; Acer's H233H, its previous 23-inch model in its High Definition line of monitors, can handle only a 5ms response time. The faster response time should help when watching fast-moving content, or when gaming.

Acer's Aspire consumer desktop line gets a shot in the arm as well, with the new models appearing in June. First up is the $800 M5800, which gets a spiffy new brushed-metal chassis and a matching keyboard, speakers, and mouse. Inside the new machine has a 2.66-GHz Intel Core 2 Quad with up to 80GB memory, a 750GB hard disk drive, and integrated Nvidia GT230 with 1.5GB dedicated video memory. The M5800 comes with Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit with SP1, and has eight USB ports, a multi-in-one digital card reader, IEEE 1394, and HDMI. It also has an 802.11b/g card, and it a multiformat DVD burner.

For budget-conscious consumers, Acer introduced the $450 M3800, which comes in a stylish black tower with a "media deck" spot on top of the unit where you can charge all your various peripherals to reduce desk clutter. The M3800 packs a 2.5-GHz Intel Pentium E5200, 4GB of RAM, a 640GB hard drive, and integrated Intel GMA X4500 graphics hardware. It has the same connectivity options and as the M5800 (sans integrated Wi-Fi).

The third model falls somewhere between the first two in price, and has a very different design. The $530 X3810 comes in a sleek, compact case that's done up in a high-gloss black. The X3810 has the same processor, optical drive, RAM, and connectivity options as the M3800, plus an additional USB port and an eSATA port. While it does have a smaller hard drive (320GB), it is the only one among these three desktops that comes with a 20-inch widescreen LCD display, making it an attractive buy for someone looking for a complete package.

These announcements are the latest in a flurry of news from Acer. Earlier this month, the company announced plans for a netbook with the Android OS, as well as intentions to crack the top five smartphone companies in the next few years. Acer also announced inexpensive laptops with Blu-ray drives.

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