Acer offers Ubuntu pre-load for kiwis

Well here you have it. After the rumors surfaced back in July, Acer is offering Ubuntu 7.10 as a pre-load on their 14.1-inch Aspire 4315-100508C model with 1,280 x 800 resolution, 1.86GHz Celeron M 540, 512MB memory, 80GB disk, and DVD optical drive. Better yet, the price is just NZ$699 -- that's $553 in US greenbacks. The offer appears to be good in New Zealand only for the moment. Toe dipping the consumer waters are we Acer?

[Via Geekzone]

[tom @ Jan 15th 2008 8:24AM]

That is very unimpressive, for 550 bucks, I can get a windows based laptop.

[Kevin @ Jan 15th 2008 8:35AM]

In NZ?

NZ$700 for a laptop in NZ? Cool, although video card (or whatever laptops have) isn't mentioned...

[tom @ Jan 15th 2008 8:49AM]

don't expect any hotrod! most likely an intel (or nvidia) integrated

[Chebwa @ Jan 15th 2008 9:12AM]

Eeeeh... yeah. I'm with you. And Engadget, what is up with that picture? Don't let the browser scale 'em. Do it yourself. Looks like it was resized in 256 color mode.

[Superevil @ Jan 15th 2008 9:17AM]

You an also get a windows laptop for $150, what's your point?

[jayceaw @ Jan 15th 2008 9:20AM]

At the same time you will also get tons of virus as well as malware in no time;)

[thethirdmoose @ Jan 15th 2008 9:52AM]

But now, for $550, I can get a linux based laptop!

[Phrogg @ Jan 15th 2008 11:00AM]

Sure, you can get a Windows laptop for $550. Doesn't mean it's going to work very well. Anymore, it's going to come with Vista. I have yet to see a $550 laptop that's got enough oomph to run Vista, even Home Basic, with any efficiency.

Linux is a much better choice, because most Linux distro's can give just as pretty a picture, and run more efficiently, than Vista with 1/3rd of the hardware strain.

That, and i believe you're intentionally being pointless for the sake of appearing cynical.

[penguendedektif @ Jan 15th 2008 9:13AM]

This deal is also available in Turkey for the last couple of months
for about the same price (650YTL/$550). I know it has linux, but I
don't know which flavor it is. And BTW, the mentioned "DVD optical Drive" is a RW. So basically the value for money is amazing...

[Ricardo @ Jan 15th 2008 10:03AM]

Did Acer buy a time machine to hire designers from last century?

[motang @ Jan 15th 2008 11:28AM]

This is a good news, now I wonder if they will be doing the same here in the states.

[abadtooth @ Jan 15th 2008 1:58PM]

Come to the states!!
This is awesome news!

Oh and Engadget, thanks for not messing up Ubuntu on this post ;)

[FRED @ Jan 15th 2008 3:00PM]

The manufacturer date on the notebooks is Dec 2004, which is why they look a little old.
Im 99% sure it was an intergrated Intel chipset, capable of sharing up to 358mb?
It has wifi built in.
And acer NZ are offering a $99 cahsback, making it NZ$600.

[Panq @ Jan 15th 2008 4:29PM]

That would make it the same prices as an Asus Eee...

[Rory Gamble @ Jan 15th 2008 9:37PM]

Plus NZ$100 cashback voucher, so more like US%466.00. http://www.dse.co.nz/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/478d6a9b002b74fa273fc0a87f330706/Product/View/XC5822
Also bear in mind that almost everything is more expensive in NZ than in the USA, so when it's released in the US I bet it'll be cheaper still.

[greg @ Feb 19th 2008 3:50PM]

bought one two weeks ago.
no hassles and it connected to the local wifi out of the box.
I was going to spend $1,800 on a new Dell notebook but have had no regrets on taking the $600 option.

ps. I've had a guts full of vista explorer freezing up on my desktop.

[Don Esslemont @ Mar 13th 2008 6:30AM]

I bought one too, and I'm very pleased with it. But it doesn't seem to accept input from the microphone socket on the front. Does it work ok for you?