Acer have just launched updated Aspire Switch 10 dockable tablets with  one starting at just $279. The high-end version has a full HD screen, digitizer pen support and gets a Gorilla Glass lid.

Acer Aspire Switch 10 E

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Maybe there’s just something I don’t quite get concerning Megan Fox and dolphins… but assuming I’m not so far out of the loop to understand what Acer is going for with their new Acer S7 commercial, I’ll just go ahead and say it: I’m lost.

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One of the most exciting recent Ultrabooks, the Acer Aspire S7, was somewhat lost amid the huge number of Windows 8 Ultrabooks launched in the last few weeks. Now that the dust has settled, the 13″ version of the Acer S7 is available starting at $1350 and some early reviews have hit the web. If you’re looking for a premium touchscreen Ultrabook, you should certainly be checking out the S7!

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Acer is preparing to launch the Aspite M3 Touch with Windows 8. the design is based on a previous iteration of an Acer Ultrabook — the Acer M3. The M3 Touch is a 15.6″ touchscreen Ultrabook which competes with other big Ultrabooks like the Asus S56 and Vizio Thin and Light CT15 (indirectly however, as the latter two lack a touchscreen). Notebook Italia tracked down the M3 Touch for a brief hands-on and also uncovered European pricing.

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Our pal Avram Piltch of LaptopMag got his hands on Acer’s new Aspire S5 Ultrabook and has an in-depth review available for your perusal. Does the S5 stand up to the competition? LaptopMag rated it 3 stars out of 5, but certainly not because of its record breaking SSD array.

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Acer America has just announced two new Ultrabooks as part of a new ‘Timeline Ultra’ series. On offer is a 14″ and 15.6″ display, the latter of which has a full numpad on the keyboard. The bezels appear to be nice and thin but the resolution leaves much to be desired. Discrete graphics from Nvidia are included as well as optical drives. Both come in at rather affordable prices, but we’re unsure that the inclusion of the optical drive is such a great idea.

Acer Aspire Timeline M5 details in our database

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There’s one thing that was clear from last nights live testing of the Aspire One 522 I’m the worst person in the world to demonstrate 3D games. Interestingly though, that’s because I never have devices that can play games. In the last 5 years we’ve seen just a handful of mobile devices that can play games and the fact that I was thrown into Half-Life 2 and Unreal Tournament demos shows that the Acer Aspire One 522 is quite unique and an indicator of where netbooks are going next. We tried hard to find showstoppers and major issues, design problems, heat and noise or anything that would confirm that this is a cheap device but no, after 3 hours, it was clear that the Aspire One 522 is a real bargain and a true upgrade option for those with first or even second generation netbooks.

Highlights and Lowlights

• 1080p playback via local or YouTube works flawlessly on-screen (1280×720) or via HDMI
• In normal use, this is a 6 hour working device with a 3-hour gaming capability, 5 hours or more video playback and up to 10 hours with radios-off in low-power use as a text-entry device.
• No heat or noise to speak of although the fan is constantly spinning and can sometimes be heard or felt through the chassis.
• The Hard Disk seems to be a bottleneck in some situations
• Mono speaker just about does its job
• The glossy screen appears to be a little washed out compared to high-end displays
• Wifi reception is better than average
• No USB 3.0 or charging USB port
• Plastics very thin
• Access to memory and HDD is easy. Upgrade to 4GB is possible (Only 2GB available in Windows 7 Starter)
• Gaming needs more testing but viewers on the live session seemed very excited!
• Battery life / weight ratio is very good

A word of warning though, in terms of CPU processing power, there’s not a lot of difference here between the Intel Pinetrail platform in single or dual-core variants. in a pure-CPU video rendering test we saw the Aspire One coming in at 15% faster than a Intel N450 CPU which puts it between the N450 and N550 in terms of processing power. Compared to first-gen netbooks, that’s a great improvement but its far from mainstream.

It’s the ‘balance’ of CPU, HD Video and 3D that works so well with the Acer Aspire One 522 (and, we suspect, other Fusion C-50 APU -based devices) and if Intel don’t one-up the C-50 with Cedar Trail in a significant way, they will lose a good percentage of netbook sales. At €299, there’s very little room for beating AMD on price.

So here are the three videos we made during the 2.5hrs online last night. As usual they are captures of the low-quality stream but I’m sure you’ll get a lot out of them. Thanks again to everyone that joined and helped-out in the live session. Spread the word this is how reviews should be done!

Part 1 – Overview and first impressions.

Part 2 – Heat, battery life, video performance, browsing tests

Part 3 – Video testing, webcam, high and lowlights, Crystalmark test

Update. Live session finished –  Live Review report and recordings are now available here.

I’ve had the Acer Aspire One 522 for 24 hours now so it’s time to go live and open up the video cams and chat session to allow you to take a look, ask questions and work out if this is the netbook for you. It’s also the first time we’ve had the AMD Fusion C-50 APU for detailed testing so we’ll learn something about that too.

The Acer Aspire One 522 specifications are available here along with links to the gallery, videos and articles.

The LIVE OPEN REVIEW of the Acer Aspire One 522 is planned for Tuesday 8th March at 2100 Berlin Time [Other timezones here].  Join us at UMPCPortal.com/live for video, chat and your chance to ask questions and watch everything happen live. Nothing is covered-up!

Agenda: (With Q&A from chatroom between each session)

• Overview
• First impressions
• Testing Synthetic tests. CPU, Disk, GPU.
• Testing Video playback. Local, YouTube, External video
• Testing Video encoding side-by-side with N270 CPU.
• Testing Games
• Testing Other

Agenda subject to change. Session duration planned max 2hrs

Some sessions (not all) will be recorded.