Acer's Aspire One gets official

Just in case you're not already totally sick of all these tiny laptops, Acer's Aspire One is finally official. You saw our hands-on from the show floor at Computex, now the full specs:

• 8.9-inch 1024 x 600 LED-backlit display
• 1.6GHz Atom N270
• 512MB DDR2 SDRAM (expandable)
• 1.3 megapixel camera, SDHC and multi-format media readers
• 802.11b/g, Ethernet, three USB 2.0, VGA, and 3.5mm audio out
• One free mini PCI slot for WWAN
• 80GB hard drive (with XP) or 8GB solid state (with Linux)
• 2.5 or 5 hours on 3 or 6-cell batteries in XP model, 3 or 7 hours on Linux
• 1kg (2.2 pounds)

It should be available overseas this month in blue or white (with black, red, and pink models coming soon), and supposedly US release later this year. At the outset you'll be ponying up £199 (~$400 US) for the Linux model, and £299 (~$600 US) for XP.

[Thanks, Garry, via El Reg]

[snapa @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:32PM]

UK£ 299 = 587.1762 U.S. dollars

[djdollar @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:34PM]

So... currency conversion huh?

[matt @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:34PM]

£199 (~$400 US) for the Linux model, and £299 (~$400 US) for XP.

spot the error..

[Arjy @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:35PM]

Its US$400 for both models?

[applefan @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:36PM]

ughhhh what is with these annoying tiny laptops? Will they ever end?

[TheGeektoriousBIG @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:37PM]

No cause small is the new big.

[Rudiger @ Jun 3rd 2008 9:24PM]

~yawns~

Glad to see I'm not the only only one tired of these tiny laptops.

Small may be the new big (whatever that means), but it feels like every other post on Engadget is about these little devices.

[helloUser @ Jun 3rd 2008 10:42PM]

Your master steve jobs seem to have a massive erection over REALLY slim (and really useless) laptops.

That news didnt end until a lot of time passed for all that to blow over. I really hope you were complaining then too.

[Timmy P. @ Jun 3rd 2008 11:37PM]

I completely agree. I would like to put a bullet in the screen of every net book that wouldn't... uh.. i just hate these things.

[Superevil @ Jun 4th 2008 12:05AM]

Give the MBA some credit alright. It cuts cake way better than any of these thick "netbooks"

[peekinde @ Jun 4th 2008 12:33AM]

sure, my macbook can slice a cake
sure, my macbook can fit into a manila envelope
but can it fit inside a fanny pack, i dunt think so

[Windzilla @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:37PM]

if £199 = 400$
and £299 = 400$

than certainly communism will work

[jd @ Jun 3rd 2008 10:03PM]

there is a thing called Price Point. google it.

the basic idea is product will be sold more when you set it at at whole numbers like; 550, 600, 650.

[sinjinn @ Jun 3rd 2008 10:26PM]

@jd

they purposely leave it at 199 because you only pay 1 hundred and 99 rather 2!!! hundred and zero.

[Jeff @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:39PM]

Did there really need to be five comments to point out one error?

[matt @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:40PM]

Error?

[Windzilla @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:46PM]

Obviously you have a life

leave the rest of us alone, we need all the wins we can get

[David @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:44PM]

Error?

[BYOPC @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:45PM]

Error?

[iEye @ Jun 3rd 2008 9:37PM]

"I AM ERROR"

[auricom @ Jun 4th 2008 1:02AM]

stop errorism!

[Bleck @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:43PM]

Lets be honest here. No one should be buying any of these "netbooks" until the Dell Mini Inspiron has been priced. Honestly. If you do, you'll be sorry. I bet you that Dell will just price it at $300 and steal all of the glory and there goes the competition.

[gad get @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:47PM]

Yeah, that sounds like them.

[KEROLiUKAS @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:45PM]

MSi Wind is almost identical to this..but i think i still like the Wind for some reason more.

[Guy3001 @ Jun 3rd 2008 10:13PM]

could it be the fact that you can actually type more than 10wpm on the wind cos of the close-to-full-sized keyboard? these 7/9 inchers' keyboards are on the wrong side of teeeeeeeeeeeny. You'd be better off with a handheld frankly. once i tried the eee 900's keyboard i totally gave up the idea of getting one. love surfin' and all, but would still like to reserve the right to crank out the occasional piece of work on it ya see..

[Guy3001 @ Jun 3rd 2008 10:17PM]

the acer (to stay a bit closer to topic) sure is a bit of a looker though..

[Guy3001 @ Jun 3rd 2008 10:24PM]

hmmm..just read a mini-review of the acer, says keyboard's on a par with the wind. my sincerest apologies to acer for the prejudice..

sorry for the long link..includes vid's

http://www.mobilecomputermag.co.uk/20080603552/hands-on-with-the-acer-aspire-one.html

[RAD Moose @ Jun 12th 2008 8:53PM]

If you do something to make it not work, is it called "Breaking Wind?"

[David @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:46PM]

That depends on whether dell wants to lose money or not.

Anyway I like the blue, is the Dell coming in blue?
If not the choice is clear.

[Luke Thiesen @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:47PM]

Why not? So far the Dell is 3rd or 4th place on my list.

As far as this Acer goes... everything looks good, but not better than the Wind, until the "open mini PCI slot." Nice!

So looks like it's a choice between a 10" screen and the possibility of easy WWLAN upgrades. I'm still leaning wind, because I really want a 10"+ screen, but this acer would be my pick of choice for a Non-only notebook so far.

[Unknown @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:49PM]

You know, I might find one of these things useful if I could purchase a low-cost dock (with an optical drive) that I could connect it to. Adding an external DVD drive and a USB cable seems to be kind of a pain.

Of course, they would probably price the dock at $200. At that point, I might as well just buy a full-size notebook.

[gad get @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:49PM]

Call me shallow, but I might buy this thing over the other choices just because of the looks. Beautiful.

[gad get @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:51PM]

Especially the blue...

[con @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:50PM]

Somebody please wake me up when one of these comes with a convertible touch display that is sunlight readable. Otherwise, these are too much of the same tired crap.

[gad get @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:51PM]

How much do you want to spend?

[Genjinaro @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:53PM]

Keep looking at the Gigabyte...
Pure awesomeness....until they announce a launch sticker that is...

[sinjinn @ Jun 3rd 2008 10:29PM]

yeah , me too waiting for gigabyte one or even the small amd one.

[rodan32 @ Jun 3rd 2008 10:38PM]

Yeah, I've got the feeling you're looking at the wrong segment. Lots of "industrial" tablets out there for you, but that sunlight-readable touchscreen is going to compromise in a lot of ways (not least of which is price).

[alloneword @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:52PM]

Still no bluetooth?

[gad get @ Jun 3rd 2008 8:54PM]

What's the Linux build, anyway?

[Kyle @ Jun 3rd 2008 9:00PM]

Linpus linux lite. Straight from the website. I don't know a whole lot about linux, does anyone have experience with this one?

[Eddie W @ Jun 3rd 2008 9:40PM]

From what I've read (I have not tried Linpus personally) this isn't good news. These laptop developers should be going with major distributions. I'd like to see them go with Ubuntu (one reason to wait for Dell, since I'm betting they'll release an Ubuntu variant). The HP choice of SUSE wasn't so bad. I've heard good things about the PCLOS that's configured for the eeepc.

It shouldn't be too hard to standardize an Ubuntu distribution for these laptops (looks like they're working officially on that now). It would be nice to see enough standardization that people could get used to a certain flavor of Linux and move from there. The good news is that they're all free, so you should be able to dump one and put another on fairly easily (though it's way easier with a usb dvd/cd rom drive)

[Windzilla @ Jun 3rd 2008 9:07PM]

Whoa now
£199 = 400$
and £299 = 600$

does this mean communism only works on paper?

[Robert in Texas @ Jun 3rd 2008 10:37PM]

OK, you KNOW the dollar sign goes at the beginning of the price because you did it correctly with the pound sign. You can't plead ignorance. So what's with the dollar-sign-at-the-end affectation? It's like wearing a popped collar that you think is somehow cool, but actually makes you look like a dork.

[SiLo @ Jun 3rd 2008 9:00PM]

I've decided to just save up 500$ or so and wait to see what the "Which ultra-portable netbook would you get?" which covers this, the MSI Wind, the Eee PC and whatever others.

[Paradox @ Jun 3rd 2008 9:19PM]

I had an Acer before and i didnt liked it. i mean the gfx card broken without even abusing it and 3 key's just jumped off the keyboard lol. i hope this ones get alot of improvements

[Rudiger @ Jul 11th 2008 6:40PM]

~yawns~

Am I the only one who has entirely lost interest in tiny laptop news? It feels like every other post on Engadget is about another one of these boring things.

[digitallysick @ Jun 3rd 2008 9:57PM]

Great but i am mad , why can't they release them in the usa first, we always wait, and wait forever and ever to get anything

[sinjinn @ Jun 3rd 2008 10:33PM]

thats because you live far away from the computer factory and the boat is really slow.

[Sean @ Jun 3rd 2008 10:37PM]

Yeah but we get a lot of videogames way sooner.
Worth it.