But some notebooks won’t be shipping with Alexa onboard.
Acer’s quick to grab the credit for shipping out Alexa-enabled laptops, but the reality is more complicated.
The manufacturer sent out a press release Monday morning declaring «First!» on shipping laptops with Amazon’s voice assistant preinstalled. That’s fine, but the first notebook to ship with it installed will be the Acer Nitro 5 Spin, which won’t be shipping until next month. So if another company gets in there first, the Nitro 5 Spin may not be the first to ship with Alexa, as Acer claims.
Acer says its existing Acer Spin 5 and Spin 3 convertibles will be the first of its laptops to get an Alexa-enabling update, which will roll out on May 23 and May 25, respectively. But it wouldn’t unequivocally confirm whether Alexa will actually work on those computers, just that the app will be installed.
This is just the latest in a trend to incorporate Alexa into Windows 10 system. Lenovo’s latest Yogas shipped before the Alexa app was available, but they can support the app, so all you’ll have to do is install it.
Microsoft’s making it desirable to incorporate voice-assistant technology into notebooks by mandating far-field, wide-array microphones in specific classes of laptops. These microphones were originally added in the hope that more people would use Cortana, Microsoft’s own assistant. Oops.
