Acer may jump into the MID market as early as next month
For a while it appeared that smartphones were eventually going to obviate the need for MIDs, and they still may, but with tablets bringing somewhat of a renaissance to the category, now we'll start seeing more of the big hitters jump into the fray. Enter Acer, who has announced plans to launch an entire line of MIDs by the end of May, according to Yahoo! News.
The overall specs and screen sizes are unknown at this point, but it's hard to imagine Acer not having a mid-size device in the lineup, since Dell and Archos have clearly set their sights there with their various upcoming Android tablets. Besides that, Acer even acquired a patent for a MID as far back as 2007 that nothing ever became of. For now, all we know for sure is that the new devices will have version 4.0 of Acer's Shell UI and they will all feature integrated 3G wireless connectivity.
With mobile devices like netbooks accounting for over two-thirds of its business, Acer obviously wants to make a push in yet another segment of the mobile market, and tablets are where the action is this year. Android would seem to be the logical OS of choice for these new devices because of its easy scalability, especially now that webOS is scratched off the list since HP stuck that in its back pocket yesterday afternoon.
