Acer is reportedly developing a new flagship notebook that will incorporate various high-end technologies, and might very well be the first portable PC to market with a DirectX 11-capable graphics chip. The Aspire 8942 will boast an 18.4" 1080p LED display, a 1.6GHz Core i7-720QM, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, an AMD Mobility Radeon HD5850 with 1GB of GDDR5 VRAM, dual 640GB HDDs, and a Blu-ray drive.

As one would expect of a beastly media PC, connectivity options are aplenty. The Aspire 8942 will house four USB 2.0 ports, 802.11a-n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ExpressCard, HDMI, a five-in-one card reader and more. An eight-cell battery will power the system, which weighs about 4.6kg (over 10lbs) – or about as much as two average 15" notebooks, as noted by Fudzilla.

There are no details on a price or availability, but it seems likely that the Aspire 8942 will start shipping in January or shortly after.