The Acer Aspire P3 Ultrabook and Acer Aspire R7 laptop welcome this year as part of the 2013 models. These portable computers aim to fill a need by offering something a little different to cater to various needs, which is especially the case for those that like a portable computer with a display that adapts to how you need it.

Today, we wanted to feature a quick hands-on with both of these Acer Aspire portables and some insight into the prices and features.

Aspire P3 hands-on and specs – above this article you will find a quick Acer Aspire P3 hands-on review that runs for just under 2 minutes, and features a close-up that details the main specs for the P3.

If you want a portable computer that can easily change into a tablet and offers the ability to be used as an Ultrabook, then the Acer Aspire P3 might be the answer you are looking for. The computer weighs in at just 1.39kg and measures just under 20mm thick.

You’ll also find Windows 8, a stylus that works well on the 11.6-inch HD IPS display, an Intel Core i3 or i5, a 5-megapixel camera in the rear and a Acer Crystal Eye HD front webcam, HDMI and Dolby Home Theater technology. Storage options are a choice between 120GB and 60GB SSD.

The Acer Aspire P3 will be at a price point of around £500 (€599).

Acer Aspire R7 hands-on and specs – if you want to splash out a little more, then you might want to consider the €1000 Aspire R7, which can be seen in a quick hands-on review in a video below this article.

The Acer Aspire R7 features a cool Ezel Hinge to allow users to adapt the display how they want it, which includes pulling the display much closer in Ezel Mode, or go for Notebook Mode if you want to use the Aspire R7 as a normal laptop. Two other modes include a Display Mode for showing content to other people, watching a movie or photos. The last option is called Pad Mode that allows the user to turn Acer’s Aspire R7 into a type of tablet PC.

When it comes to the Acer Aspire R7 specs you’ll find the 15.6-inch diverse Full HD touchscreen display, 256GB of SSD or a 1TB hard drive, up to 12GB of RAM for a higher price and Intel’s Core i5 processor. See the video below for a closer look.

Google is all set to release their Chromebook Pixel next week and while this looks to be one of the better laptops from the Chrombook range, there are several obstacles standing in its way, not only from other laptops running the Chrome OS, but also from Apple as well because it does look a lot like the MacBook Pro.

When you look at the Chromebook Pixel it’s easy to see that it wipes the floor with its other Chrome OS siblings, so it stands out a mile that the intended target is Apple. However, things are never as straightforward as that because there are other factors involved. Firstly there’s the price and secondly it doesn’t have the biggest screen of the bunch either.

That’s not all, the battery is not the best performing either, so while it’s clear that the Pixel is the more powerful, there are several sacrifices that need to be made. Engadget has taken a look at the mains specs and price just to see how the Chromebook Pixel, HP Pavilion 14, Acer C7 and Samsung late 2012 compare.

Firstly we need to review the different CPUs, as these four machines have 1.8GHz Core i5, 1.1GHz Celeron 847, 1.1GHz Celeron 847 and the 1.7GHz Exynos 5 Dual respectively. All have 2GB or RAM, except the Pixel, which offers 4GB instead. Screen sizes are 12.9 inches, 14 inches, 11.6 inches and 11.6 inches in that order. Battery life is as follows, 5 hours, 4.3 hours, 3.5 hours, and 6.3 hours.

The price of each of these Chromebooks, $1,299 (WiFi), $1,449 (LTE) for the Pixel, and $330, $199 and $249 respectively. The final decision is yours because while we can say that the Pixel wins hands down, it’s hard to get over that huge hurdle, which is the price.

To help make your buying decision a little easier with thought we would include three video reviews for you below of the Chromebook Pixel, 14, Acer C7 and the Samsung late 2012 model.

Acer is not known for its standing with smartphones and their newly revealed Liquid E1 phone with Android 4.1 Jelly bean shows another healthy addition to the world of handsets. With a 4.5-inch display and dual-core 1GHz processor, some may feel the specs could be better, although the exterior design does look pretty impressive.

The Acer Liquid E1 phone also boasts a display resolution of 960×540 and will run Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean at its launch. In addition, other specs involve 1GB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot, Bluetooth 3.0 +EDR and a 1760 mAh battery, along with GPS and Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n. The camera set up includes a VGA front-facing and 5 megapixel rear-facing, also the handset measures up at 132×68.5×9.9mm and weighs in at 130 grams.

As far as battery power is concerned, up to 8 hours of talk time and up to 400 hours on standby will be provided according to Acer. While we expect them to reveal more about the price and release date sometime soon there is a distinct possibility that the Liquid E1 will make an appearance at Mobile World Congress next month.

Highlighting the amount of mid-range Android models Acer have been releasing EuroDroid document the specs and regard it as average, although if this comes with a reasonable price tag it could be a decent addition to the cell phone market.

Do you feel the Acer Liquid E1 phone will be an attractive purchase for an affordable price?

If you’re a student that is constantly on the move and looking for a new Ivy Bridge laptop running Windows 8 Pro, then you might want to consider the Acer TravelMate B113. Before we explain the specs it is worth pointing out that some retailers might sell this laptop running Windows 7 Pro, but then offer you a free upgrade direct from Microsoft to Windows 8 Pro.

Acer make no bones about the fact that they have designed and built this laptop primarily for the student market and have included many positive features that make this laptop a great choice for high school and college use. One of the first features worth noting is the compact size of the unit, designed to easily fit in students backpacks and weighing in at just under 3 pounds makes the laptop easily transportable. Battery life for the TravelMate B113 is around 7 hours making it ideal for the average school day.

The 11.6-inch LCD display is LED backlit and has HD resolution with a 16.9 aspect ratio. The display also has Acer’s ComfyView feature that’s an anti-glare matte surface, which reduces reflections and has improved viewing in bright conditions. With WiFi, Bluetooth and Gigabit Ethernet connectivity, the TravelMate is an obvious choice for use in the classroom making it easy to access and share documents between students and teachers. This is a feature Acer are heavily promoting to students, which they hope will make school life much easier and productive with real time sharing.

Acer’s TravelMate B113 has a built-in HD webcam and microphone that makes this portable laptop perfect for video conferencing, which is ideal for distance learning as well as classroom use. To understand more about the TravelMate B113 performance, security, and eco-compliance you should see the full press release via this article.

If you’re a student, do you see the Acer TravelMate B113 as your next portable computer? The price is certainly at the right level for most students at just under $400 in the US, and just short of $370 in Canada.

Over in the UK sales of PCs have slipped by twenty percent during the last quarter of 2011, and according to Techworld only Apple managed to increase sales. For the whole of 2011 sales in the country fell by 15.9 percent, which accounts for two million units. Consumers seemed to favor smartphones and tablets that are also often cheaper to buy.

The drop in sales accounts for both business and consumer users alike and Apple now sells almost one in ten of all PCs. Brands such as Acer lost 46 percent compared to the previous year, while HP lost almost 16 percent, and Dell losing 9 percent. The drop in sales is also being put down to the recession with public sector business seeing a big drop.

Netbook sales are in freefall after losing 50 percent during the last quarter of 2011, which previously held unit sales up ever since 2009. The decline has come as companies cut development and move away from the sector.

But with Intel’s Ultrabook soon to arrive and Windows 8 on the horizon things could well improve over the next year. It has to be noted that PC sales have seen plenty of ups and downs in the past, which have been driven by new technology and the release of new versions of Windows.

There will be many consumers who want to purchase a new laptop or PC but are holding fire until the release of Windows 8. PC sales are falling across Europe and can easily be put down to the tough economic climate that many people are experiencing at the moment.

Have you put off buying a new PC until Windows 8 is released?

The device has been officially revealed by the company as it joins the rest of the Iconia Tab range, and it is an upgraded version of the original A500. It’s not just a minor upgrade though as it will benefit from the Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor, which according to a report on the Android Community has four cores running at 1.3GHz each.

Other notable changes are the operating system that will be Android ICS straight from the box, but other than that it’s the same 10-inch display with 1280 x 800 resolution. Acer has said that the device will be available in Europe during April and priced at 499 Euros.

There is also a 4G version of the device called the Iconia Tab A511, but Acer didn’t go into details about the availability of it or the price. Both models will be available in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB flavors with a possible 100 Euro price difference between each of them.

Currently there are no details about a launch for the US region, but it is expected to arrive at some point. There is also the Iconia Tab A700 on its way with an impressive 1920 x 1200 screen. Would you consider a tablet from Acer?

The S5 is said to arrive in Q2 of this year, we don’t have a full spec listing or price information yet, but we do enough information to give you a pretty detailed product overview, also while we are here we will tell you what the guys over at SlashGear had to say about the S5 which they got their hands on a few days ago.

You can see Acer’s official press release here, this reveals that all S5 Ultrabooks will boast Intel Core processors (2nd-gen Core i3, i5 and i7 options we presume), this in turn means that there will be DDR3 RAM options. As for storage it looks like Acer are snubbing hard disk drive technology in favor of solid-state options, that said we wouldn’t be too surprised if some cheaper HDD options arise upon release. We don’t know a great deal about the display, but we can reveal that it has a 13.3-inch diagonal, we have also been promised professionally-tuned Dolby Home Theater v4 audio.

Other specs which we can confirm include 1x HDMI-out, 2 x USB 3.0 ports and 1 x 20 Gbps Thunderbolt, all of which are hidden by Acer’s unique MagicFlip I/O panel, this panel is activated by pressing a button located near the top-right corner of the keyboard it then expands and contracts to reveal/hide these ports. This neat feature not only looks cool but also allows the Ultrabook to be just 15mm thin at it’s thickest point – this undercuts the MacBook Air’s thickest point by 2mm, however at 3 pounds the S5 is a little heavier than the 13-inch MacBook Air. At the bottom of this post we have embedded a video which shows the MagicFlip I/O panel.

When SlashGear tested out the S5 they seemed very impressed by it’s solid build quality and desirable aesthetics, they weren’t amazed by the I/O panel or the keyboard, but ultimately they spotted nothing which put them off too much, however we have to remember that no pricing information has been disclosed just yet.

For more information about the S5 and the features it offers out-of-the-box check the link to Acer’s press release in this post’s third paragraph, do you like the MagicFlip I/O panel feature?

Earlier this year, the company also announced the Iconia Tab A200 but failed to raise any eyebrows when it came to what it was packing. However the impressive A700 device looks to be an improvement and may surprise a lot of skeptics who believe the iPad is untouchable.

For starters it comes equipped with a quad-core processor, a step up from the dual-core processor that the A200 is packing. It also has a head turning 10” Full 1080p HD resolution display and will be running Google’s latest tablet OS Android Ice Cream Sandwich, also an improvement from the A200 which will run an earlier version. As CNET explains this beast not only has the iPad in its sights but also is aiming to take on another genuine iPad contender, the ASUS Transformer Prime.

While little else was revealed in the brief teasing of the Acer Iconia Tab A700, reports are suggesting it will also be packing a NVIDIA Tegra 3 chip, similar to the one found in the Transformer Prime. Release details were also scarce although a second quarter launch period was indicated but unfortunately no word on availability or price is available. We will just have to wait and see what else is revealed during CES.

What do you think of the Acer Iconia Tab A700? Do you think there will be an iPad contender unveiled at this year’s CES?

We don’t have all the details regarding the D270, but we have pretty much everything that’s important, here’s what we know: Firstly and most importantly it rocks one of Intel’s new 32nm Cedar Trail processors – apparently it will feature the Atom N2600, a dual-core chip which boasts two 1600MHz cores, Hyperthreading and a 400MHz embedded graphics core. What’s great about this new architecture is that you get better performance and lower power-consumption than second-gen and first-gen Intel Atom processors.

Other specs we know of include 1GB of RAM, a 320GB hard disk drive, a 10.1-inch display and the choice between a three-cell or six-cell battery. Based on its predecessor (the D260) we expect there to be WiFi b/g/n, a multi-cardreader and a built-in webcam all running on Windows 7 (Starter Edition we presume). Hopefully it will ship with Bluetooth connectivity, HDMI-out, a higher resolution display than last year’s 1024 x 600 output and perhaps the same dual-boot Android / Windows 7 configuration which other Aspire One models have featured.

As promised we also know how much of a dent these models will make in your pocket, the three-cell battery version is said to retail at €250, whilst the six-cell model will cost €269, this equates to roughly $324 and $348 USD respectively. As you would expect we strongly recommend the six-cell option as the price difference is minimal.

Once CES 2012 kicks off we should find out more about this intriguing new netbook, we wonder whether it will feature a refined physical design when compared to the D260, also it will be nice to compare benchmark results to see just how much of a punch the D270 and its Cedar Trail processor packs.

What puts you off the D270 specs? We would like to see an affordable upgrade to 2GB of RAM.

There are claims that the company is set to launch an Ultrabook that will have a 15-inch screen size, which will make it the bigger than other Ultrabook models that are available. According to Digital Trends it may have a price tag of only $699 making much cheaper than the MacBook Air.

Recently Acer has stated it would be concentrating on lower end products, as well as top end super-thin Ultrabooks next year. Now sources are claiming that the company will launch the more affordable 15-inch Ultrabook. Currently there are no specifications of the rumored device, and nothing official has come from Acer themselves.

If such a device does become available it will appeal to many consumers who want a portable PC with a large screen size, and easier on the wallet. The only Ultrabook with a screen size that compares to the rumored Acer model is the Samsung Series 5 14-inch model. Trouble is this has yet to be launched outside of South Korea, and it is thought to cost $1300 when it finally reaches the US.

J.T. Wang, Acer’s CEO has already stated the company will be launching more Ultrabooks during 2012 to take on the MacBook Air. At next month’s CES show in Las Vegas companies are expected to announce around fifty new Ultrabook devices.

Does a $699 15-inch Ultrabook appeal to you?