Sketchy rumor: Acer's monster HD-DVD laptop?

Justin Jaffe Managing editor

Justin Jaffe is the Managing Editor for CNET Money. He has more than 20 years of experience publishing books, articles and research on finance and technology for Wired, IDC and others. He is the coauthor of Uninvested (Random House, 2015), which reveals how financial services companies take advantage of customers -- and how to protect yourself. He graduated from Skidmore College with a B.A. in English Literature, spent 10 years in San Francisco and now lives in Portland, Maine.

Expertise Credit cards, Loans, Banking, Mortgages, Taxes, Cryptocurrency, Insurance, Investing. Credentials

Coauthor of Uninvested (Random House, 2015)

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Justin Jaffe

June 6, 2006 8:53 a.m. PT

Dell XPS M2010

IDG reports on Acer's plan to release a "laptop" with a 20.1-inch display, in the vein of the , later this month in Asia. The unnamed Acer model will also come equipped with an HD-DVD drive, still a rare feature, and seen previously only on Toshiba's Qosmio G35-AV650.

The IDG article mentions that the new Acer laptop will be in the "high-end Aspire 8200 range" and projects an estimated price of $3,000--about $500 less than the XPS M2010's starting point. Acer doesn't sell an Aspire 8200 model that we know of; it's possible that the reporter confused it with the TravelMate 8200, which we reviewed back in January.

Other specs reported in the article: "twin 120GB hard-disk drives, Nvidia GeForce 7600 graphics, a TV tuner, and support for various audio technologies including Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect." The reported measurements of the Acer HD-DVD laptop would make it slightly smaller than the XPS M2010, though the two would fall in the same 18-to-20-pound weight class.

We're still waiting to hear back from our contact at Acer. We'll let you know...

Source: IDG: Computex: Acer to Launch HD DVD Laptop.

UPDATE: Confirmed. The new model will indeed be called the Aspire 8200, and will be available in July. (It will be a totally new model, not based on the existing TravelMate 8200 platform.) Pricing, though not finalized, should be "under $2,800." Get the straight dirt from Acer's own Website.

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