According to CENS Taiwan Economic News, Acer plans to launch a new ultrathin notebook series sometime this year.

Acer is the second largest notebook vendor and it already holds a sizable chunk of the CULV notebook market with its Timeline series. However, although the Timelines are very well priced and feature impressive battery life, they feature a boxy design and at 2.54cm they are a bit on the chunky side.

The new series will apparently be 19mm thick, which would make it thinner than most CULVs, expect a few models, such as Dell's Vostro V13 or some MSI X-Slim models. The new Acer series will be based on Intel's Calpella ULV processors and it should offer superior performance compared to current Timelines, which are powered by 45nm CULV parts.

Mind you, such sleek and well spec'd machines probably won't come cheap, but then again 32nm processors in a 19mm package just sound right. Most vendors will launch updated thin-and-light designs once Intel's new processors become available, but Acer seems to be the first vendor preparing an entirely new model designed for the new architecture from the ground up. Well, truth be told, the others are probably making them as well, but they're not talking about them just yet.

More here.