Because I have a serious crush on their version of Gateway’s P-7811FX gaming notebook.
As you probably know, Gateway and Packard Bell were consumed by Acer a few years back. Packard Bell had been languishing under the rudderless NEC Corporation – a company that can not decide what exactly it does from one day to the next. I really expected Packard Bell to go the way of Commodore – a curious footnote in the PC history books like Wang and Olivetti.
But Acer has big plans for Packard Bell – its going to be the hip brand in Europe. Wow. Can this be done? Is it a sign of insanity to even attempt this? You could easily answer yes to either of these questions – but I like how Acer has started.
Delivering gaming products through the Packard Bell iPower line is a good idea. These computers are essentially identical to the well received FX series from Gateway. The FX series really put Gateway back on the map.
This is marketing 101 – get the ‘influencers’ interested in your brand and saying good things about it. That is exactly what has occurred in North America. Gateway’s FX notebooks routinely sell out at Best Buy because they offer terrific performance at a fraction of the competition’s price. Even if you thumb your nose at the brand, you can’t say anything bad about the specifications delivered for the price. The success of the Gateway P-6831fx, P-6860fx and P-7811fx prove this.
Acer’s buying power easily trumps whatever goodwill and gamer cred Alienware and Voodoo have earned for their owners (Dell and HP). Now they will put this to work in Europe.
And boy are the Europeans ever lucky. Look at the specs delivered for 1400 Euros:
- Intel Core 2 Quad Q9100 processor (as opposed to the 7811fx Core 2 Duo P8400)
- NVIDIA 9800m GTS 1GB (double the 7811fx vram)
- 17″ 1,920 x 1,200 resolution display (the extra ram will help run games at this resolution)
- Optional Blu-Ray drive (meh – IMO B-R is a waste of money)
I’ll be leaning on my family in Europe to send me one when this notebook launches in October.
