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Acer is expected to shake up the nascent Ultrabook market when a model lands in the U.S. in the coming weeks at prices well below $1,000, according to a report.

New Age Electronics is now listing the Aspire S series at prices starting at $899.99, according to a report in CRN.

Ultrabooks, like Apple's MacBook Air, are thin, minimalist laptops but offer high performance due to the use of Intel's latest Sandy Bridge processor. … Read more

The Acer Iconia Tab A501 is the Acer Iconia Tab A500 with 4G and a no-commitment price of $480 (16GB) and $550 (32GB); about $100 or so more than the A500.

For the price of a two-year contract, AT&T offers the tablet for $350, the lowest initial cost of any 4G Honeycomb tablet yet. If two-year contracts for tablets scare you (and they should), AT&T also offers session plans at $15 for 250MB and $25 for 2GB, if you absolutely need that "anywhere" access.

But, with its hefty build and Acer's strange decision to ship it with Android 3.0.1, instead of a later version of the OS, is the A501 already too far behind to even enter the race?… Read more

Thunderbolt, Intel's high-speed communications protocol, is coming to Windows PCs in 2012.

Acer and Asus should bring out Windows devices--including Ultrabooks--that support the high-speed interconnect technology next year, Mooly Eden, Intel's general manager of PC client devices, told attendees at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco today.

Thunderbolt is a technology developed by Intel under the code name Light Peak that allows for the dual bi-directional transfer of data over copper cable at 10Gbps per channel. Thunderbolt was announced in February and first appeared in Apple's MacBook Pros.

Eden demonstrated a Windows PC connecting to a set of Intel SSDs via Thunderbolt. This allowed it to concurrently stream four uncompressed videos at around 700MBps.

This article originally appeared on ZDNet UK.… Read more

AT&T will begin begin selling the Acer Iconia Tab A501 on September 18, the carrier announced today.

The tablet comes with Honeycomb 3.0 and will run on AT&T's HSPA+ network. That's about the only difference between it and the Iconia Tab A500 released a few months back, as the tablet's form factor will be identical.

AT&T will begin selling the tablet this Sunday at its retail stores, as well as online.

The no-contract price for the tablet is $480, with the two-year contract price being set at $330, but it also includes a $35-per-month 3GB data plan. Thankfully, AT&T will offer monthly billing plans as well.

The postpaid plan is $14.99 for 250MB or $25 for 2GB. Customers on the 2GB plan who exceed their monthly data limit will be charged $10 per 1GB of overage. Customers on the 250MB plan who exceed their limit will be charged $14.99 per 250MB of overage.

Prepaid customers' plans will look quite similar, but different in one key area. They'll still pay the same prices for 250MB and 2GB; however, without overage charges. Customers on the 2GB plan who exceed the limit have the option of choosing an additional 2GB for $25.… Read more

Microsoft struck two new patent-protection deals with hardware makers seeking to avoid being sued for using Google's Android and Chrome operating systems.

Acer signed a licensing deal with Microsoft that includes "broad coverage under Microsoft's patent portfolio for Acer's tablets and smartphones running the Android platform," Microsoft said in a press release. Acer's Iconia Tab, among other devices, runs Android.

"We are pleased that Acer is taking advantage of our industry-wide licensing program established to help companies address Android's IP issues," said Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel … Read more

The only way the new Ultrabook laptop category can top the MacBook Air is to get cheap fast. But that won't necessarily be easy, according to an IDC analyst.

Ultrabooks--for the uninitiated--are very light, very thin Windows laptops that compete with the MacBook Air. The core hardware includes Intel second-generation "Sandy Bridge" processors and solid-state drives. One of the best examples is the 13-inch Toshiba Portege Z830.

The Z830 has a magnesium alloy case, weighs about 2.5 pounds, and is 0.63 inches thick. Toshiba claims it will sell for less than $1,000.

By comparison, … Read more

The head of Hewlett-Packard's Personal Systems Group believes that his division will lead the PC market even after it might be spun off from its parent company.

Speaking to Reuters in an interview published today, PSG chief Todd Bradley told the news outlet that he expects his division to continue to reign supreme in the PC business in the coming months and years, adding that the firm will also be "one of, if not the largest customers of all of our major suppliers, be it Samsung to LG to Microsoft to Intel."

HP earlier this month made the surprising announcement … Read more

Acer reported its first-ever quarterly loss yesterday, which it blamed on various expenses and excess inventory, though chairman J.T. Wang stressed that he sees a slowdown to the current wave of tablet fever.

For the quarter ended June, the Taiwanese PC maker suffered a net loss of 6.79 billion in Taiwanese dollars ($234.3 million). That loss compared with a net profit of NT$2.65 billion in last year's second quarter and was considerably larger than the NT$3.3 billion loss expected by several analysts polled by Reuters.

Sales fell by 32 percent from a … Read more

All the excitement these days may be centered around supersmall laptops, from ultraportable to ultrathin to ultrabook, but there's still a place for PCs on the opposite end of the spectrum. There are few things more fun for a laptop reviewer than unpacking and setting up a massive 17- or 18-inch desktop replacement laptop. To be fair, many of these systems hardly qualify to be called laptops at all; some are so massive, and have such poor battery life, that you'll essentially set them up once and never move them again.

We've had a bit of a … Read more