Acer Iconia Gets Pricing And Launch Date

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The Acer Iconia, in case you haven’t been keeping up with it, is a strange combination of tablet and laptop, and some fresh information has emerged around it that you’re definitely going to want to hear about, especially if you’d been looking for a new laptop.

We’ve talked about the Acer Iconia before, as well–it’s hard not to talk about this amazing blend of tablet and laptop, as it’s packing a surprising amount of power. It’s got a pair of 14 inch touchscreens (including one screen that’s devoted to controls; there is no keyboard here at all), variety of Core i5 processors available to it (480M, 560M and 580M all make appearances), four gigs of RAM, Intel HD graphics, a variety of hard drive sizes (your choice of 320, 500, 640 and 750 gig hard drives), Ethernet, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity with even 3G available as an option, webcam, HDMI, a USB 3.0 port, and Windows 7 Home Premium.

But what we didn’t know back when we first heard about this in November was pricing and availability, which we do now: it’ll be available starting in Spain in January 2011, and you’ll be able to get it for 1499 euros (which is, right now, right around $1987 US; what it will be in January is anyone’s guess).

This bit of news actually fires up about as many questions as it answers: why would a product launch start in Spain? No insult to the Spanish markets, but usually we start in China, the Pacific area, Japan, or the United States–or Europe in general at the very least!–but starting in Spain seems oddly specific. And as unique an item as the Iconia is, how much attention (more importantly, how many sales) will this item draw? Will it manage to pull people away from conventional laptops and conventional tablets in a bid to offer the best of both worlds? It’s a development to watch, no mistake, and I look forward to seeing how it shakes out.