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According to Acer, the laptops are designed for 'sophisticated users', to offer a perfect balance between performance, weight, extended battery life, enhanced security, and compatibility with the latest graphics and wireless solutions.

With an eye on home entertainment, the 15in displays (XGA or WXGA Widescreen) use Acer's CrystalBrite display technology, have support for Video-CD and DVD burning, and S-Video out and 1394 (FireWire) connections.

'As our mission is "Empowering People" with advanced technological solutions, that are easy and simple to use, adopting these new AMD mobile processors in the design of a new series of elegant and high-performing notebooks was a natural step for Acer,' said Senior Corporate

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VP, Walter Deppeler.

AMD launched its Turion 64-bit processor for laptops on Wednesday. It is the main new competitor for Intel's Pentium M processor, the cornerstone of the Centrino platform, which was Intel's ground-up redesign of mobile processing.

The new range of AMD chips will initially clock between 1.6 - 2.0GHz. Each will have a level-2 cache of between 512 Kbytes and 1Mbyte. The initial models are dubbed ML-37, ML-34, ML-32, ML-30, MT-34, MT-32, and MT-30 and AMD says that the first letter in the nomenclature refers to the processor class. Then as the second letter approaches the end of the alphabet, 'higher' letters indicate greater 'mobility'. The numbers indicate relative performance within the processor class. Higher numbers indicate higher relative performance.

As an illustration, the ML series has a maximum power consumption of 35 watts, while the MT family has a consumption 25 watts. This is in contrast with current Mobile Athlon 64 notebooks whose power usage goes all the way to 62 watts. Battery life is extended further by the use of AMD's PowerNow power management technology.

Exact UK pricing for Aspire 5000 and 5020 has not yet been announced, but prices are expected to be around £599 (including VAT) when they appear mid-April.