PCs, 6920, 8920, acer, acer aspire, aspire, gemstone, gemstone blue, laptops...

Acer's "Blue" Ace: Aspire Gemstone Blue Notebook

Today in New York, Acer's big surprise is the Aspire "Gemstone Blue" notebook, equipped with a Blu-ray drive, true high-def screen, and CineReal sound, a second generation of Dolby Surround. Sexy, and yes, blue, and it doesn't appear to suffer from port envy like some other notebooks, though it is slender. In size it's somewhere between HP's dv series and Dell's XPS M series. That's not just a size comparison, but a qualitative judgment call: this thing looks unambitiously nestled between the two other PC giants' designs. With such mystery and fanfare, we were hoping for a tad more of an exciting, iconoclastic design. It is, however, a decent product, so have a look. UPDATE: Weights and model numbers below.

It's got a cool touchdial on the left for some nice multimedia controls; it's called CineDash, and it's got volume, mute, hold, media transport and menu navi.

The largest of the two models, the 8920, has a 1920x1080 18.4" screen, and a 90% (ATSC?) color gamut. The smaller, the 6920, is 16" with same resolution and 60% of the color gamut. As you can guess from those screen resolutions, both can support full Blu-ray playback. (Another blue reference.) They're saying 3 hours playback on the 18.4", and 2.5 hours of movie playback on the 16" one. There will be an "SD" version with 720p playback of either DVD or Blu-ray.

They're shipping in a month. The starting price point is $1,700, with a typical config around $1,900.

UPDATE: The weights are a bit troubling for anyone interested in mobility: Over 9 lbs for the 18.4 incher, and nearly 8 lbs for the 16 incher.

Check out some additional specs:
[Acer]

3:07 PM on Wed Mar 12 2008
By Wilson Rothman
23,813 views
46 comments

Comments

jmzwheadon at 03:19 PM on 03/12/08
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Wow a laptop no way thats something special (notice the sarcasm)
SumGuy at 03:20 PM on 03/12/08
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This....thing...is....HOT!!!! When will it be available?
awesomerobot at 03:22 PM on 03/12/08
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YAWN
shorty63136 at 03:22 PM on 03/12/08
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Schweet - now I can light up my house the same color as my car.
Camperton at 03:23 PM on 03/12/08
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So does it have Blu-ray?
av8thor at 03:23 PM on 03/12/08
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Yay. Another. Laptop.
olternaut at 03:24 PM on 03/12/08
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Meh. Its not bad. The screen size is interesting. What is its weight again?
Geisrud at 03:24 PM on 03/12/08
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I kinda like it - 'cept it's an Acer. But who am I kidding, they all have the same bulk components purchased from *Pick you offshore manufacturer*
jtan at 03:27 PM on 03/12/08
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weight? depth? graphics card? battery life?

don't tell us that 16 and 18.5" screens plus crappy mulitmedia enhancements are revolutionary
dysthymia at 03:29 PM on 03/12/08
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looks nice. but after soo many bad acer computers had landed on my hands, im decided to stay away from that brand. But i think if I ever use a laptop to replace a desktop, (or having a large screen laptop) at this point would be at least 24"

from 17" the jump should be directly to 20" forget all that middle sizes.
flyboy at 03:30 PM on 03/12/08
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these things with Linux - like the eee might oust MS.

people want laptops and they want them cheap.

Do what everyone else has been trying
[www.electronista.com]
Earthslide at 03:31 PM on 03/12/08
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Wow, Acer keep secrets better than Apple ... No one saw this coming! Wait, no one really cares :)
desostros at 03:33 PM on 03/12/08
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Acer BLUE ace
Now with HD-DVD technology.
Monty at 03:33 PM on 03/12/08
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@jtan:
don't tell us that 16 and 18.5" screens plus crappy mulitmedia enhancements are revolutionary

No, but apparently the 'blue' is.
ps61318 at 03:45 PM on 03/12/08
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Jeez, you people are jaded.

I've owned an Acer Tablet for quite some time. Very pleased both with the product and the support.

I'm sorry, but the specs on this are impressive, the screen size is too, for a laptop.

Oh, wait, forgot, it's not a Mac. Hey, I like Apple as much as anyone (okay, as much as anyone normal), but this looks cool.

And @desostros: WTF? It clearly says BluRay. If you're gonna snipe, don't be an ignoramus.

Now, put a BluRay player and similar video specs inside a MBP, and we shall all sing Hosannas together.

har-filkin-rumph
KoRnholio8 at 03:48 PM on 03/12/08
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say what you will but i like these and i'm hoping the 18.4" isn't over 4kg...

there needs to be a decent laptop for editing HD you know...
aec007 at 03:50 PM on 03/12/08
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But $1700 ?????????????

I bought my father in law a AMD-TL56 HP DV9000 with 17" screen, built in media remote, MS Vista Premium (so it is 99% the same spec...) for $599 at Tiger Direct last Christmas!

Where's the other $1100 coming from? Nvidia Graphics and BD player?

Screw that!.
KoRnholio8 at 03:53 PM on 03/12/08
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just read on their site that it's 4.1kg... not bad
ps61318 at 03:57 PM on 03/12/08
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@aec007: Fair questions. don't know all of the specs yet. I will comment that the DV9000 is a bit on the, shall we say, robusto side of the spectrum. I wonder about your contention that it's 99% the same specs, again without seeing the specs for the Acer. (Suppose I could look them up...) Anyway, I agree it would take quite a bit to make up that extra grand.

Wouldn't dismiss it out of hand either, though. If it were 2-3 pounds lighter than the HP that would be worth a bunch....
ps61318 at 03:58 PM on 03/12/08
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Whoops, shoulda refreshed first...

4.1KG I don't think fits as 2-3 pounds lighter, or does it?
That Dude at 03:59 PM on 03/12/08
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cool, it has a 9650M GPU.
ps61318 at 04:01 PM on 03/12/08
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Rats, nope, my bad, that's a good kilo more.
Sheemo44 at 04:02 PM on 03/12/08
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HAH! look below on the previous acer article and you'll see that i indeed called that
Part-Time-Viking at 04:07 PM on 03/12/08
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I like what I see, however, it being an Acer is kinda discouraging. I wonder if they have stepped up their game a bit.
Rabbi Dave at 04:18 PM on 03/12/08
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So you better not watch any long movies on your next flight to go with any actual work. 2.5 hours playback?

I do dig the widescreen though. I think business travelers will eat this up. Every time I fly we're all watching movies on our laptops. However we all are usually too cramped to do anything else. Will this fit on the tray?
ProSeven at 04:21 PM on 03/12/08
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Before the gemstone Acer notebooks, Acer was a notebook with the biggest defect rate on the market. After the gemstone notebooks it was replaced by fancy manufcaturers like DELL and Sony Vaio. The gemstone was designed by BMW and it is a high quality notebook today.
I can only hope that acer will continue with the quality as I might buy it. I had an acer, but it was not a gemstone, and I had to send it to acer twice cause of repairs. And btw, are there any pics where they show the new notebooks when they're clodes?
aussie at 04:29 PM on 03/12/08
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It's got to be the most ugly craptop I've ever seen.
KoRnholio8 at 04:43 PM on 03/12/08
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all the answers people:
[www.acer.com]
altus at 04:48 PM on 03/12/08
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Clone-Bore.......
altus at 04:48 PM on 03/12/08
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Clone-Bore...... More Clone-Bore.......
Nathan Drake at 05:00 PM on 03/12/08
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I kinda hate Acer laptops but this thing actually looks great. And the price ain't that bad either.
Kaiser-Machead at 05:28 PM on 03/12/08
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I think this laptop is uglier than the bottom of my balls, but spec-wise, it's looking pretty good so far. I have to check out the BTO options on the site before I can make any sort of judgment.
kanenas at 05:29 PM on 03/12/08
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Full HD display, 16:9 ratio screen and blueray disc. Not bad.
That 16'' could replace my HP 17'' nx9420 nicely.

I hope they will offer a docking station too.
Redwraithvienna at 05:38 PM on 03/12/08
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i dont know about this thing ... it seem to be another laptop which tries to be a desktop, so yeah ... yawn.

i mean come on 18.4 inch screen ? whats next "The new laptop with 20" screen" ...
Blah8 at 05:41 PM on 03/12/08
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@aec007:
I'd guess that's probably right. Don't forget the 1920x1080 resolution - that's pretty large for a laptop, let alone a 16" one. It's not the greatest deal ever, but it's certainly a step in the right direction with the screen resolution, aspect ratio, and multimedia/graphics features.
Kaiser-Machead at 05:42 PM on 03/12/08
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@Redwraithvienna: Like the Dell and HP desktop replacements. Huge ass monsters.
aec007 at 06:49 PM on 03/12/08
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@Blah8:
True, true... but the HP DV9700 I bought had 1660 x 1050 ,very close to this one at 1/3 the price...

Like you said it's not the greatest deal....

I guess it would depend of the end user and purpose. Gaming... maybe... for WEB/mail/DVD, the HP is a much better deal.
Redwraithvienna at 07:04 PM on 03/12/08
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@Kaiser-Machead:

Havent been looking at the laptop market for a while ... but it seems that the idea of buying a home computer and a laptop and using them to the best of their absilities gets lost more and more ... No idea why anyone would buy a monster laptop and then use it as a home comuter ... without moving it once ...
MrBlahBlah at 07:22 PM on 03/12/08
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8 lbs! DAYMN!
Joseph at 07:34 PM on 03/12/08
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@MrBlahBlah: I gotta get back in the gym before I get one of these.
worsethannormal at 07:36 PM on 03/12/08
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Um...so...what you're telling me is that Acer released a couple of laptops today?
Nathan Drake at 08:12 PM on 03/12/08
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@worsethannormal:
Oh, college boy...
.
.
.
No offense ;)
TonyTriple at 08:55 PM on 03/12/08
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so is this on top or in front of the gaddamn flying car we were promised in the future?
stenspect at 09:41 PM on 03/12/08
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I wrote about this and the specs are listed in a PDF. Included are 4 USB 2.0 ports, biometric fingerprint security and some touch sensitive proprietary media controller. Definitely beastly in size and not forward thinking enough, but do you have to be when you're the #2 seller of laptops in the world?
ProSeven at 10:54 AM on 03/13/08
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The only bad about it is the glare display...
elburrito at 11:29 AM on 03/13/08
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Port envy? What's that?