Acer will offer Android netbooks in Q3

Shane McGlaun
03 June 2009, 5:20 PM


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Acer says domo arigato Mr. Roboto.


Acer is among the top companies in the netbook market with its popular line of Aspire One machines. However, it mostly sells its netbooks with Windows XP mostly and it announced today that it would be offering netbooks running the Google Android operating system starting in Q3 2009.

Acer has given no indication of how much its Android-powered netbooks will cost and according to some analysts, the Windows XP is only believed to add $25 to the price of a netbook. If that is accurate, it means that any cost savings on a netbook running Android will be miniscule.

Some think that Android could one day challenge Windows as the dominant operating system in the netbook market, which is certainly not something that will happen quickly. Some analysts point out that there is no software built to run on Android right now other than Google's own offerings.

Acer says that it will continue to sell Windows-powered netbooks alongside the Android machines. With the high return rate of other Linux-based netbooks, Android has a long road to success in the netbook market. Acer also announced that it would be selling smartphones using Android this year.

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Tin (Regular user):

"With the high return rate of other Linux-based netbooks"

I don't think Linux had anything to do with it... Salespeople were selling them as "cheap laptops". They weren't designed for that, and the OS wouldn't have changed it one bit.

03 June 2009, 7:39 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Aubrey (New user):

"With the high return rate of other Linux-based netbooks"

And I thought only Asus made this comment anyway. Have Acer had higher return rates too? (Mind you, it would not surprise me given the horrible crippled distro they chose to launch with their first Aspire Ones).

And I wouldn't be backing Android as a clear winner on netbooks just yet. Both Moblin and Ubuntu-NBR seem to be at the point where they present a real option for users. And with Ubuntu now promising Moblin integration for its next release, we could be seeing 10 second boot times plus full functionality in less than six months.

And does anyone know what's happened to OpenMoko? They had a Linux smartphone in prototype well before the HTC and we've heard zip since. I understand that Carsten Haitzler left them.

03 June 2009, 10:39 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

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