Acer offers a wide-screen notebook

Acer America on Monday unveiled a wide-screen notebook built with multimedia in mind. The company's Aspire 2000 comes with a 15.4-inch display that offers a resolution of 1,280 by 800 pixels. It's a "wide aspect ratio" display, meaning it lets viewers watch movies without black bars appearing on the top and bottom of the screen.

The notebook, which will start at about $1,850, will also include an Intel Pentium M processor, wireless networking and a special software package designed to make it easier for the notebook's owner to play a movie or burn a CD. The most basic Aspire 2000 will include a 1.5GHz Pentium M chip, 512MB of RAM, a 40GB hard drive and a combination CD burner/DVD-ROM drive, Acer said.