Acer set to challenge Hewlett-Packard for top notebook PC sales spot

In the netbook PC category, Acer's "One" netbook has been selling like crazy as consumers increasingly buy sub-$500 netbook PCs and shy away from more expensive laptop PCs. Calvin Huang with Daiwa Securities said that Acer is at least a few quarters ahead of its two larger competitors in releasing new products, giving it a great advantage. In Acer's fourth quarter, the company saw shipments climb 25% -- more than any other of the top-five PC vendors. HP shares in the last three months has fallen just a few points, and it won't likely move further based on Acer's bold predictions. But then again, Acer has come out of nowhere in retailer in the last two years to take a slew of market share from HP and Dell. Don't count its words out.

With Acer's new Timeline notebook -- a slim unit with a reported eight hours of battery life -- the company is pricing the new product at $799. This is just a little more than HP's Mini-Note 1233, but with a significant increase in battery life. Finally, PC companies may have to compete on meaningful consumer features like battery life instead of boring, commodity hardware specifications like RAM, processor speed and graphics capabilities. Mainstream customers need portability and battery life. Period.