Acer unveiled the world’s thinnest laptop computer as an array of ‘ultrabook’ rivals prepared to debut this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The Taiwan-based computer titan will begin shipping Acer Aspire 5 models in the second quarter of this year, with prices to be disclosed in coming weeks. “It looks like the thinnest and lightest, and it sets the bar for the rest of the ultrabook vendors,” said analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies. The Aspire S5 has a 34-cm screen and is 15 mm at its thickest point. The ultrabook weighs slightly less than 1.35 kg. Since Aspire S5 is Windows based it is not likely to be a direct challenge to MacBook Air laptops, which have been winning converts to the sleek machines powered by Apple software.
“The real battle is not with Apple, it is with all the other vendors coming out with Windows ultrabooks,” Bajarin said. Acer also announced plans to launch a free service that will let users of its computers store video, photos, music, and documents in the Internet “cloud” and access files from any Windows 8 or Android software powered gadgets. Acer Cloud appeared to be a Windows version of the Apple’s freshly-launched iCloud service that lets people access their content from iPads, iPhones, iPods, and Macintosh computers, according to the analyst.