Acer unveils new series of PC notebooks

Computer maker Acer Inc has unveiled a new series of notebook computers based upon the Turion 64 processor from Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

The new notebooks will appear in the Aspire 5020 link, with prices starting at around US$1,200.

The Turion processor is AMD's answer to Intel Corp's popular Centrino mobile processor, which runs cooler and has lower power requirements than previous mobile processors.

Acer's new notebooks are outfitted with 15.4-inch widescreen displays and weigh a mere 3kg. The machines also come with a range of connectivity features as standard, including a gigabit LAN card and wireless LAN.

Apart from the US market, Acer is particularly targeting China this year and is planning to use two nationwide agents to help sell products on the mainland, replacing the numerous provincial distributors it currently works with, a Chinese-language newspaper reported on Saturday, without saying where it got the information.

The planned change would be the third alteration in two years to Acer's distribution channel in China, the Taipei-based newspaper said.

Taipei-based Acer, Taiwan's third-largest computer maker by market value, expects sales in China to "nearly double" this year, president Gianfranco Lanci said on June 15.