Acer To Replace Netbook Offerings With New Tablet Models

Acer on Tuesday said it is preparing a seven-inch tablet and a 10-inch tablet for release in the first half of this year, both of which will be powered by Intel's Sandy Bridge integrated graphics processors.

In addition, according to Acer's Taiwan sales manager Lu Bing-hsian, Acer could bow out of the netbook product category altogether, as the number of tablet models and sales figures continue to increase along with concerns regarding cross-category cannibalization.

The forthcoming tablets, "are aimed at phasing out netbooks," Lu told IDG News Service Monday. "That’s the direction of the market."

Acer's seven- and 10-inch tablets will target everyday consumers rather than high-end users and gaming enthusiasts, according to Lu. Lu says they will utilize quad-core Sandy Bridge processors and run on the Android platform, although it is unclear which quad-core Intel processors can fit in a small form factor device like the tablet.

Acer previously announced plans to offer Android tablets featuring ARM-based processors, including Nvidia's Tegra 2. Acer's adoption of Sandy Bridge is part of a broader, increasingly intense rivalry between ARM and Intel , as ARM looks to enter the traditional PC market with processors running on Microsoft's Windows platform, and Intel challenges ARM in its niche market of mobile, embedded devices.

Acer entered the tablet market in November by unveiling 7-inch and 10.1-inch Acer Android-based tablets, as well as a 10.1-inch Windows 7 version, and indicating that a Google Chrome OS device could also be on its way. The main difference between the Windows and Android versions appeared to be that the former targets the enterprise space while the latter is tailored to consumers. Acer at the time declined to give a model name for any of the tablets.

At CES 2011, Acer launched several Sandy Bridge-powered Aspire notebooks, including the Aspire AS5750, AS7750, and AS8950 models -- all of which are aimed at offering multimedia entertainment and support clear.fi, Acer's home entertainment networking system, which allows Acer notebooks to share content with one another. It's unclear whether Acer's future tablets will include clear-fi support.