Acer Announces Three Tablets, App & Music Store

Acer went full Apple Tuesday with the announcement of not only three new tablets, but also plans to launch both an app and music store for Acer devices. At a press conference in New York City, the company showed off a 10.1” device that will run Windows, and then two devices, one 10.1” and the other 7”, that will run Android. The company plans to release them starting in February of 2011.

The 10.1” Windows device (shown below) will run a processor from AMD, according to PC Magazine, and feature two cameras (one front, one rear), WiFi and 3G connectivity, and be 15mm thick (Apple’s current iPad is 13.4mm thick). The company said this device would ship in February, but didn’t a name or pricing for the device.

The 7” Android device will feature a high resolution 1280 x 800 display, an unspecified dual core processor, and a front facing Webcam. It will also have WiFi and 3G capabilities. The larger Android device will be 13.3mm thick, an HDMI port, WiFi and 3G, and support for 1080p HD video.

Acer didn’t announce a name or pricing for the two Android devices, and said they would ship sometime after the tablet version of Honeycomb ships. Honeycomb is a in the version 3.x family of Android’s timeline, and is one of the first versions of the OS that Google has said will be designed with tablets in mind.

Acer’s effort to emulate Apple’s iTunes is called Alive, a content delivery system with five sections, according to HotHardware.com: Listen will offer music and audio books, Watch will have movies and TV, Read will feature books, Play will have games, and Applications will have apps.

Alive is scheduled to launch for Acer Windows computers starting in 2011 (starting in Europe), and the service would, in theory, encompass other Acer devices such as those running Android later down the road.

Acer Tablet

Acer 10.1” Windows Tablet Prototype
Source: Acer