Acer unveils DTS audio-equipped, Google Assistant-powered speaker

Yes, those are more qualifying statements than usual. But Acer seems to be taking the fight to the existing smart home speakers with the Acer Halo. It's one of the first smart speakers to offer DTS sound processing without breaking the bank. The Halo promises to provide "high-quality audio that is projected in 360 degrees to fill any room." 

And then it also comes with RGB lights on the base and a customizable dot matrix-like display that reminds us of the Amazon Echo Dot with clock. That requires an app to show anything from a clock, weather forecast, emoji, or another pixelated image of choice. If the RGB lights and the display are too much for you, Acer claims you can turn this off. 

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Acer partners with Porsche Design for Acer Book RS laptop

Source: Acer, Porsche Design

Acer's new "luxury" laptop comes from a partnership with Porsche Design. The Porsche Design Acer Book RS draws on the strengths of the design studio and Acer's laptop expertise. 

While it looks like a conventional laptop, it's encased in carbon fibre. It is powered by either an 11th-generation Intel Core i5 or i7 processor, 8GB or 16GB of RAM, and 512GB or 1TB of storage. The graphics options are either Intel's integrated Iris Xe graphics or discrete NVIDIA MX350 GPU. The Acer Book RS sports a 14-inch IPS touchscreen display with a 16:9 aspect ratio, Full HD resolution (1,920 x 1,080 pixels), 340 nits max brightness, and 100% sRGB colour. 

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Acer Spin 7 laptop supports sub-6, mmWave 5G

If you want a laptop that can handle both types of 5G connectivity, you'll want to check Acer's new convertible laptop. The Spin 7 supports both mmWave and sub-6, a first for Acer but not in the industry. And it's one of the first devices to use Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 chipset. 

This laptop comes with a 360-degree hinge, allowing you to use it in tablet mode with ease. Acer is adding an active Wacom pen with 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity and docks to the laptop's side to recharge.

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Acer launches built-for-creators ConceptD 9

At its Next@Acer Conference late last week, Acer launched a new line of products it’s targeting to creators called the ConceptD. One of the newest products here is the ConceptD 9 Creator Laptop. Its design is reminiscent of the Predator Triton 900, which was launched earlier this year at CES 2019. It has Acer’s Ezel Aero hinge that lets you pull the 17.3-inch screen closer to you over the keyboard. Acer partnered with IF Design to create products that focused on four principles: accurate colour reproduction, powerful performance, silent fans, and attractive design.

To fulfill this, the ConceptD 9 is Pantone validated, supports 100 percent of the Adobe RGB colour gamut, and has DetalE colour accuracy rating of less than one (the closer this number to zero is, the better). This allows graphic designers and photo editors to get colour accurate screen that can reproduce a wide variety of colours. It can run on up to the ninth-generation Intel Core i9 processor and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 card. As expected it’s going to cost a lot at US$4,999 (around CA$6,600) and it’s expected to come out in June. We don’t have word if this will be making its way here yet.

Source: Engadget