Acer: Netbook And Ultrabook Will Merge

Remember when I said that netbooks are still relevant? Apparently Acer thinks so, too. Sort of.

After a ceremony celebrating the Lunar New Year chairman JT Wang talked strategy for the new year and said they would compete not on price, but on user experience. The notebook maker rose to the upper echelon in global sales a few years ago thanks to the popularity of netbooks, which put it on the map for many consumers.

Now that netbooks are no longer rising steadily, Acer doesn’t intend to let the momentum drop off. They’re going to dominate the mid market of $299 – $499 priced devices. That’s tablet and netbook country.

Acer Aspire One Happy 2 Netbooks

However, ultrabooks are the big story these days, and no one (including Acer) is selling one for anywhere near that price point. Wong claims that netbooks and ultrabooks will merge by 2014.

Does that mean ultrabooks will get down to netbook pricing by that time, as others have predicted, or that ultrabooks will also come in 10-inch sizes, thus cutting down on some costs? That would make me happy — a super thin 10-inch machine with a Core i3 CPU and maybe even Nvidia’s Kepler graphics? Sign me up right this instant.

I suspect that Wong is thinking more along price lines, not size-wise.

It’s good to know that the company isn’t abandoning netbooks completely. But i think I’ll be sad when one day they merge into the ultranetbookmachine or whatever it will be called at that point.

Thanks NebookNews!

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