Days out from a big New York roll out of new gaming gear and notebooks Acer has announced that their new 2018 lineup will include Alexa Voice.
The first systems with built-in Alexa include the Aspire 5, Nitro 5 Spin, Spin 5 (both 13-inch and 15-inch versions), Spin 3, and the Switch 7 “Black Edition.”
New Acer laptops will have Alexa built in and existing Acer laptop owners will gain support through updates in the near future.
Amazon’s Alexa-supporting smart speakers, including the Echo and Echo Dot, have proved to be quite popular over the recently launch Google voice gear.
Acer will be the first to actually ship systems with full support while other are atill planning their Alexa strategies.
In the USA The Spin 5 and Spin 3 will ship out to buyers with Alexa on board on May 23 and 26 respectively, with plans for the Nitro 5 Spin to debut in June. Australian roll out dates have not been announced.
All of the Acer systems will have Alexa support through the onboard audio chip, and as with the smart speakers, users will merely have to use the Alexa wake word (“Alexa,” at default) to have it perform one of its various skills and functions.
Although that part of Alexa’s operation will be comparable to the experience had with smart speakers like Amazon’s own, most of Acer’s new Alexa-supporting laptops do not have the capabilities to hear users accurately at range. Although the Spin 5 does support the far-field voice recognition for at-range listening-in, all of Acer’s other laptops will need users to be quite close to be heard clearly.
