Acer Ships Gemstone Blue Notebooks

By Doug Olenick -- TWICE, 6/22/2009

San Jose, Calif. — Acer America today introduced three new Aspire-brand notebooks with a starting price of $479.

The models are part of Acer’s new sub-brand, called Gemstone Blue, which features a new sapphire color

The Aspire AS7735Z, $599.

scheme. Another new feature found across the line is a multi-gesture touchpad, allowing users to “pinch, flick and swirl” their fingers on the pad to quickly zoom in and out and to flip through Web pages or spreadsheets, the company said.

All models also have an HD Acer CineCrystal LED backlit display, and Intel’s Wi-Fi link 5100 delivering 802.11 a/b/g/ draft-N wireless networking.

All are now shipping.

The line starts with the Aspire AS5536 for $479. It has a 15.6W-inch LED backlit display and is powered by an AMD Athlon 2.1GHz 64X2 QL-64 dual-core processor with 1MB of L2 cache, 3GB of DDR2 667MHz memory, ATI Radeon HD 3,200 graphics, a 320GB hard drive and a SuperMulti double-layer DVD burner.

The Aspire AS7735Z, $599, has a 17.3W-inch display, uses an Intel 2.0GHZ T4200 processor, 4GB of DDR3 1,066MHz memory, has an Intel graphics media accelerator 4,500MHD and Acer’s PowerSmart Technology Key. The PowerSmart Key activates the notebook’s power-savings setting to help prolong battery life.

The top-end Aspire AS5739G, $749, has a 15.6W-inch display, an Intel 2.1GHZ Core2 Duo mobile processor, 4GB of DDR3 1,066MHz memory, a 250GB hard drive, a fingerprint-reader security system, NVIDIA, GeForce GT130M graphics with 1GB of discrete memory and Acer’s PowerSmart Technology Key.