One of Acer’s Middle East country managers might have just let-slip the timeline for the next generation of Ultrabooks with a statement to press that a “slightly redesigned” Acer Ultrabook will be launched with a “new platform from Intel” early next year.

The timeline beats estimates that Ivy Bridge Ultrabooks may not appear until the 2nd-half of the year.

“Acer… plans to launch the second generation of Aspire S3 early next year that is expected to help double its sales, Acer Middle East country manager Grigory Nizovsky said.”

“I think in April next year we are having a new slightly redesigned version of S3 with slight adjustment in outlook,”

If this is the case, expect a range of phase-2 Ultrabook launches in April 2012 although availability still could drag on into Q3 if Ivy Bridge production doesn’t ramp up quickly enough.

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The Ultrabook timeline is padding out nicely now. The latest date is from Acer India who will have the Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook in Croma stores from October 15th.

This is the first time we’ve heard official news of availability so we can now expect global activities starting from the 10th (Asus in New York) through the following week or two to follow with availability very soon after. I’ve been invited to visit Toshiba Europe on the 11th so hopefuly they’ll have something solid to say about availability and there’s also an Intel awareness campaign going on globally too this week with Taiwan getting some attention today, I hear.

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A few minutes after the Acer Aspire S3 demo devices were brought to the stand I managed to get some hands on. Check out the number of people crowded round the devices! This is important for Acer as they bellieve its the next generation of PC device growth and it was clear from the press conference that they are betting a lot of this category.

The Acer S3 will launch this month in key countries. US was mentioned as one of those countries. Core i3, i5 and i7 variants will be available and prices range €799 to €1999

As we move forward with Ultrabooks, its obviously going to be harder for manufacturers to be different. It might mean that the price becomes the most important factor, at least at the low-end of the price scale.
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Just to give you an early feel for the Acer Aspire Series 3 Ultrabook, here’s a quick `n dirty video from the launch event today.

I’m also uploading a Hands-On video that will be up soon on Ultrabooknews.
The Hands-On video is now available.
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A ‘no compromise’ Ultrabook that will ship this month, Sept 2011.

13″ screen. 1.3Kg Weight.

Price between €799 and €1199
13mm – 17mm thickness
Launching first in some ‘focus’ countries. Should ship in US by end of Sept.
Available with Core i3, i5 and i7
Entry level will offer Windows 7 Home Premium

We’re in the press conference right now and will.gather the detailed specs very soon but here are some slides from the event.

[ Posted via the Galaxy Tab. Ultra-Mobile at IFA 2011. For more IFA coverage, follow me on Twitter. @Chippy ]

In two days we’re attending an Acer press conference at the IFA consumer electronics trade show in Berlin, Germany were we’re hoping to confirm the news that the new Acer Ultrabooks will come under the S-Series brand.

The news comes via Notebookitalia who have also spotted local pricing of €768 for an Acer Ultrabook S3 that comes with a nice Core i5 platform and an interesting SSD + hard disk combination. With the OS on a 20GB fast SSD, its going to help speed things up.

Acer have a reputation of leading the pack when it comes to lowering pricing. €768 makes an exciting price that could bring full-range computing to even more mobile users.

Check out the IFA story below. We’ll keep an eye out here in Berlin for developments ahead of the press event on the 2nd.

Source: netbookitalia

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[ Posted via the Galaxy Tab. Ultra-Mobile at IFA 2011. For more IFA coverage, follow me on Twitter. @Chippy ]