How many people watch enough movies on their laptop that they'd want to spend up on a "home cinema" laptop?
It's a question we pondered while reading Acer's announcement today of two new laptops its dubbing the "ultimate personal theatre".
The two Acer Aspire Ethos models, the 18.4in 8951G and 15.6in 5951G, are mid-range machines with audio and visual bells and whistles designed for movie playback.
Both laptops run Intel's 2nd generation Core processors, with graphics powered by Nvidia GeForce GT 500. The 18.4in machine outputs 1080p while the 15.6in machine runs at 720p. The displays are 16:9.
Interestingly Acer has designed the Ethos with 5 speakers running Dolby home Theatre v4, and a subwoofer.
Closeup of the Ethos detachable touchpad
Another interesting design touch is a detachable touchpad. We've seen detachable media remotes on an Acer Revo machine, but not a removable touchpad like this.
We're yet to make any conclusions about the value of this machine yet without getting confirmation on price (US prices are available, but there's nothing yet that we can find on the Acer local site). Acer's press release says pricing starts at $1,199 [UPDATE: Acer has issued a correction to its press release, stating that the correct price is $2,399 for the Aspire 5951G and from $2799 for the Aspire 8951G], but given some of the options available, including Blu-Ray, the final price could be quite a bit higher.
Given the low price of Intel 2nd generation Core laptops at the bottom of the market, it will be interesting to see how many people like the idea of a luxury-feature machine for watching movies around the house or while travelling.
