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Fueled by demand for the iPad, Apple shot past Hewlett-Packard to claim the leading share of mobile PC shipments during the second quarter, according to data out today from DisplaySearch.

For the quarter, Apple shipped 13.6 million mobile PCs. That figure marked a leap of 136 percent from the year-ago quarter and gave the company more than 21 percent of the market, according to preliminary results from DisplaySearch's "Quarterly Mobile PC Shipment and Forecast Report."

How did Apple reach the top spot? In addition to laptops and Netbooks, DisplaySearch includes tablets in its definition of a … Read more

Market researcher Gartner said the PC market in Western Europe declined 19 percent in the second quarter of 2011, but Apple was the only top five vendor to show growth.

PC shipments in Western Europe came to 12.7 million units in the second quarter of 2011, down 18.9 percent from the same period in 2010, according to research note from Gartner today. Meanwhile, Apple managed to eke out a modest 0.5 percent growth, Gartner said.

"The PC market in Western Europe suffered from weak demand in both the professional and consumer sectors, a market which also … Read more

Non-iPad tablet vendors may start cutting prices in September in an attempt to reduce their overstock inventory, according to a story today from DigiTimes.

Hurt by the popularity of the iPad, rival tablet makers have witnessed sales weaker than expected amid falling demand from retailers, resulting in a lot of unsold inventory. As a result, these companies will cut tablet prices once around the end of next month and again toward the holiday season, according to the DigiTimes report, citing "sources from notebook players."

The cuts could shrink the price of the average tablet to $350 and then … Read more

As one of the first 7-inch Honeycomb tablets, the Acer Iconia Tab A100 attempts to make a case for the viability of 7-inchers, but does the fact that larger tablet alternatives are less than a hundred bucks away diminish its appeal?

That depends. There are quite a few of you out there who prefer 7-inch tablets over larger ones. Smaller tablets have added portability and, on the whole, are more powerful than smartphones. Essentially, they're a little like large smartphones that don't quite fit into your pocket and don't allow you to make calls.

The Acer Iconia … Read more

A rumored Acer laptop appears to offer a striking likeness to the MacBook Air, though Acer wouldn't be the first to offer a design that closely adheres to Apple's design parameters.

The 13.3-inch Aspire 3951 will have many of the hallmarks of the Air, including an aluminum chassis, a weight of about 3 pounds, and a thickness of about 0.5 inches, according to Vietnam-based tech Web site Sohoa.

And like other Ultrabooks, it will use Intel's Sandy Bridge processors and come with a 160GB solid-state drive option, according to Sohoa, which says ports include HDMI and USB and battery life is said to be six hours.

Of course, the biggest difference is that Ultrabooks like the Aspire and Asus' UX21 and UX31 (also Air look-alikes) will run Windows 7, not OS X. Price may also set them apart. The Vietnamese Web site hints at prices starting as low as $800, which would be about $200 less than the cheapest Air. No release date information was given, and Acer declined to comment.

(Via Electronista)… Read more

We posted our review of Acer's Revo 100 budget home theater PC this afternoon, and if you're still on board with the concept of a PC in the living room, we recommend this PC for two reasons.

The first is that Acer has done a better job than any other HTPC vendor at addressing the couch-based input problem that plagues living room systems. The $499 Revo comes with a wireless touchpad that doubles as a QWERTY keyboard. The keyboard works better than the touchpad, which doesn't recognize your tap-based clicks as well as it should, but compared to the usual cruddy remote, or worse a full-sized wireless mouse and keyboard, the Revo 100's touchpad offers a tidy solution to a classic HTPC problem.… Read more

A laptop is practically required equipment for today's college or high school students (and even grade school kids are getting in on the act). And with the back-to-school season currently in full swing, many laptop shoppers are hunting for a new computer, which may need to fill diverse roles, from research tool to dorm room entertainment system.

To help find the perfect system for your academic needs, we've picked our recent favorites from brick-and-mortar stores, online retailers, and build-to-order PC makers, and listed them below, grouped by price.

For this particular list, we've stuck to only laptops … Read more

Few things surprise us more than when laptop shoppers tell us that though they are planning to keep their new computer permanently chained to a desk (to essentially act as a desktop PC), they intend to buy a 13-inch (or even a 14- or 15-inch) laptop. If you're removing portability from the equation completely, there's little reason to ignore one of the most fun categories of laptops: the massive 18-inch desktop replacement.

These huge systems cross our door rarely--it's certainly a niche category--but the latest to do so has a potentially very clever gimmick. The $1,599 Acer Aspire Ethos AS8951G (yes, it has at least three names, plus a model number) includes a touch pad that pops right out from the laptop chassis and can be used as a portable remote control.

Read the full review of the Acer Aspire Ethos 8951. … Read more

Acer plans to acquire cloud-service provider iGware, the company announced today.

According to Acer, the companies have agreed to a selling price of $320 million. In addition, iGware can earn $75 million if it hits certain performance-based milestones. With iGware's technology, Acer says that it will deliver a new service, called Acer Cloud, "to serve and benefit Acer customers, and enhance brand value."

iGware has largely been under the radar in the cloud space, but the company has achieved some success. According to Acer, iGware's cloud software and infrastructure tools are available on over 100 million … Read more