Acer: Five New Tablets, And An App Store

Acer Iconia

Acer has had mixed success so far breaking into the big time of mobile handsets. But as one of the world’s biggest PC makers, its forays into tablets may see a stronger impact. Today the Taiwanese vendor unveiled five new tablets to test that idea, and it threw in One More App Store to boot.

At a press conference in New York today [given the blow-by-blow by Engadget], Acer showed the five new devices, three of which will run on Android, with the other two running Windows.

The Android devices will come in 5-, 7-, and 10-inch sizes. Another 10-inch device, and a striking dual-screen, 14-inch tablet called the Iconia (pictured), will both run on Microsoft’s Windows OS. The devices are expected to start rolling out between February and April 2011, with the Windows models expected first. The Android 5-inch device will also double as a phone.

Alive, the new app store. What will this new app store bring to the table (or the tablet, as the case may be)?

Acer says that alive, which will work across different platforms and different devices, will provide real-time discovery and recommendation, based on the selections a user makes.

And while Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) has yet to announce a cloud service for content purchased in its app store, Acer has: content purchased on alive gets stored remotely. The service is actually going live before these new tablets will launch, and will be usable first in the UK and Italy starting December 20 on Windows 7 devices. Subsequent launches in other European countries, Asia and the Americas will take place by Q2 2011.

Some of the first content partners announced for the service include 7digital, Acetrax, Kowalski, Zinio, La Republica, APogeo, Muzu.TV, AudioGo. Acer promises 2,000 Hollywood titles, 15,000 music videos, 8 million songs, thousands of e-books and other publications, and lots of games.

Media sharing. Another service announced today is called Clear.fi, which lets users share media content with other devices on a WiFi network. It will come embedded on Acer devices but will multiple platforms (and non-Acer devices).

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