Acer's AT&T 3G-infused Aspire One now at $79 -- price war imminent?
By Darren Murph 
posted Apr 19th 2009 10:28PM
posted Apr 19th 2009 10:28PM
[Thanks, Sharukh]
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i'm sure i could find a way around the pants issue.
I am patenting one now. It is a secret hole in the crotch of your pants that you can slide the netbook down. Need I say more?
AHAHAHA!!!!!!!
I guess the iPhone really cannot replace what a laptop can do...
I knew this was coming... iPhone my ass!!!!!!!!!
I want to browse the net I'll use a netbook instead of some over glorified iPod.
Only losers spend the day poking a 3.5" screen with lack of adobe flash player...
FACK YOU APPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@Schweppes
Wow, that's um... completely unrelated to this post. Seems to me like somebody's got a bit of a chip on their shoulder.
@ Adam H.
I salute your determination. =)
@Chris
Our ol' pal Schweppes just dropped a steaming huge pile of flamebait. Don't take it.
I'm interested in seeing how far connected netbooks go. I've heard of WebOS and Android coming to this form factor sometime in the future, too. But will people be willing to carry (and pay for) a second device, when you could get by with a smartphone for much less?
*waits for Schweppes to become highly ranked*
AT&T is da devil.
I'll just send someone for me
I wish ATT went with the HP MINI, its a better device... :(
but isnt this rip off??
Yes, definitely a rip off. Right now in sweden there is campaign for Toshiba NB100 with a 2 year Telenor contract for $0 up front plus about $42 a month. In total about a third of the price...
Same in the UK. With Vodafone, you can get a Dell Mini 9 with 1GB roaming on a two year contract for £25 a month and no extra for the laptop. Plus you get the first three month of paying for the laptop free!
Still for most people the $60 is a barrier. Even if they were free the cost of access is high. If they could find better ways to bundle it with other lines to cut down the costs it would fair better. $60 is a lot for 5GB's. I would say they are right on and these will be free very soon.
I would love to see Paul Miller's version of this post where he laments having to put on pants and leave the apartment.
oh man!
(gets out of comfy leather computer chair)
well it'll be worth it.
(walks over to closet)
but i still don't want to put on pants, but i know i have to do it.
(puts on only pair of pants)
for the good of engadget
(walks out into sun, vaporizes)
sure the netbook is 80 bucks, but the data plan is stupid, 200 megs a month?
I think 200 MBs roaming, 5GBs in network. I don't know if the 200 MBs counts against your 5GBs. I'm sure somebody will come along sooner or later and have more info about it than I do.
RadioShack has only dropped the price on these because the AT&T stores are about to pick them up and sell them for $59.99. So RS is trying to dump them as quickly as possible so that we're not stuck with them once they hit the AT&T stores. The more you know! *shooting star*
It says the netbook has WiMAX. Can it be?!
yea. it's the ZG5. it also has two SD card slots, one of which is a multicard reader and each have a 16GB limit for the SDHC.
I would only consider this if they at least had reasonable bandwidth caps. As it stands, I'm not paying $12/gb when I get unlimited *faster* for $30 at home and only pay $10 for my phone's data plan (with the same cap as this plan).
Oh, and it'd be nice if AT&T 3G was as prevalent/effective as Sprint's or Verizon (anecdotal experiences, at least) so that I could use that bandwidth.
AT&T has an unlimited cap plan for $20 a month. And I can just take my 3G Blackjack and tether it to my netbook with a USB cable or bluetooth. Blow this deal out of the water.
I guess the initial offer from Dell/AT&T for $68 is not the profit margin that works, so it needs to be raise by $10 or $20?
http://www.mobileslate.com/blog/2009/02/24/netbooks-for-under-100/
sorry,l but until the internet price is alot lower (i'm already paying 30 for my iphone data plan) there is no way I will be getting one of these.
....since your iPhone already does everything this netbook can do, you are NOT the target market for this thing.
This thing is a total rip off, I don't think Apple is going to do a Netbook, but there's alot of rumblings about some kind of 9" screen'd touch-screen big iPod...
They might do something with ATT along these lines...who knows..
I'll be interested when one of these carrier subsidized, 3G enabled, netbooks has Ubuntu on it. Or maybe Mer. Possibly with Android. But definitely not before that.
mmmm yes, come to me tmobiles android enabled tablet
That's fairly weak sauce - if you were a real Linux user you wouldn't *need* it pre-installed, you'd install it yourself.
I get paid to be a sysadmin for 60+ hours per week. Why on earth would I want to go home and do the same thing at home? No, I'll stick to vendor supported OS'es, thank you. My time, especially my recreational/rest time, is worth too much to spend it on unsupported software. And the laptops in question have vendor supported Linux distro's, they just don't put them on their 3G models. If I knew for a fact that, say, ubuntu would work without any hassles, maybe. But so far, I haven't heard of anyone taking the 3G version of the HP, Dell, or Acer netbooks and installing Ubuntu or Linpus on them, and having it all "just work".
Well, if you do it for a living, you would know it takes about 30 minutes to install and setup and is extremely easy. I don't believe your stance if you really do that for a living.
$1520 for a netbook with internet access? No thanks.
For real!
An iPhone only cost $2339
Oh wait...
Could people please stop using price-over-time to say something is expensive? By that logic... my parent have paid $30,000* for cable TV.
That means: Cable TV = expensive
* 25 years
Well, I doubt your parents had to sign a 25-year contract, either.
It's true that interest rates should be taken into account instead of just summing up the payments, and over 25 years, it makes a big difference -- but over a 2 year contract, it really doesn't matter much.
The point people are making with these aggregate costs is that the 2-year contract at $60/month dominates, so it doesn't make much difference whether the netbook costs $50, $100, or $400 upfront. Sure, if you [i]want[/i] one of those plans bad enough to sign up for 2 years at $60/month, you should get the best deal on subsidized hardware you can, but keep in mind you're buying a data plan with a netbook, not a netbook with a data plan.
>> "Well, I doubt your parents had to sign a 25-year contract, either."
True... but my point is that everything that you pay per-month adds up over time. And you'll have that bill for the rest of your life. So you can't really say something costs "OMG $1520"
A "free" cell phone will cost a minimum of $960 on AT&T over the 2 years if you use that logic. But, who STOPS paying for a cell phone after 2 years? I'll have a cell phone bill for at least the next 30 years. So, I really can't put a finite dollar figure on it... because it is ongoing.
@Scrip
** An iPhone only cost $2339 **
And that's why I don't own an iPhone.
** Could people please stop using price-over-time to say something is expensive? By that logic... my parent have paid $30,000 for cable TV. That means: Cable TV = expensive [over 25 years]. **
Yes, cable tv is outragiously expensive especialliy considering that I have to fast forward through commercials. That's an expense that I'd love to dump but I don't really have that option. I certainly don't get my monies worth out of it.
When I can pay for one internet access plan that works almost everywhere and for all of my computers, cells and gadgets, then I'll consider it. I'm not paying for a seperate $50+ plan for each. That's just crazy.
In retrospect I bet you are realizing that using Cable TV as an example wasn't the best idea. Most people would agree that cable is a total rip off and we only use it because our options are limited.
Also, I think the life cost of this device matters because it only is a webbook. The iphone is a phone and has all the other functions as perks. While here it is a data plan being paid for jsut for internet access, which is often redundant for a lot of us to need.
Any of you in the Philly/Atlanta area? There are 8 stores in each market running 5 different mini laptop models right now. They have this same Acer for $49.99 when you sign up for the data plan and also have DSL at home. They also carry Dell Mini 9 ($99) Dell Mini 12 ($249) LG X110 ($149) and Lenovo X200 ($749). All are cheaper when you have DSL. Prices online do not reflect discount for having DSL.
screw that i refuse to compromise my principles to put pants on for anything less than a full laptop!
Why would one want to pay for a provider-locked netbook?
Is the netbook yours after the contract is over?
Well, sure. You just wouldn't get service unless you got another plan, I would imagine. Same as a cell phone.
This has become one of their huge push points. They have been keeping little tally sheets and calling around to the stores getting our netbook sales numbers every few hours for the past week or so. Would actually be okay if the conversation didn't go like this:
"Hey, Lee, how many netbooks have you sold for me?"
"Zero, still."
"Oh, man, you need to going out there. You're gonna have to pick up the pace. What's going on?"
"It's probably that I still have the same number of netbooks in the store as when you called me last: None."
im a manager at a radioshack in chicago and i honestly can tell you they are pushing these things like there is no tomorrow. one of the stores in my district fired a girl because she didn't offer a netbook to a customer while the DM visited the store. how crazy is that. its reasons like this that i think radioshack is gonna go under: they care too much about cell phones and cell phone service rather than everything else theyre actually known for. dont mind my rant, but ive been with the company for 18 years and i cant tell you guys how many people walk in look around and say what the hell happened to radioshack. also this netbook is terrible for the price and and yes the ATT corporate stores are going to be selling it for 60 bucks PLUS first month of internet for free so yeah once again radioshack gets screwed.
If you are going to smack people for 60 bucks a month, why even charge the initial $80 for the netbook?
As a manager of a Radioshack in the los angeles area, I'd like to clarify that we've had that same netbook for $79.99 in the west area since the first of April. I really need to start contributing more so that things like this don't become news all late. For example, I could have unboxed this netbook a week before the engadget reported it, but didn't, maybe next time.
WiMAX !
That surprises me. Sprint uses WiMAX while AT&T and Verizon are working on a 4G system known as LTE.
If they bring the price down to $30/month I could see it being appealing. At $60/month, I can't imagine anyone who would sign up for this. If you are willing to pay that much for wireless, you probably have a better notebook already.
I don't understnad the $60 price point for 3G. Does this mean they're gonna charge even more when LTE is avail? How could it be double the iPhone 3g data plan??
at end of the day top mobiles cost £200-£300 which is the same as netbooks. only decent mobile deal atm is three mobile's £15 for 15gb... if they had a £250 netbook over 18month contract they would be charging around £30 a month which aint too bad for 15gb contract. + netbook for 18months
so how much would it cost me to cancel my contract after a month if I didn't want the service?
I believe by law you can cancel up to 30 days with a full refund (Not sure). But read the fine print as these things change on a daily basis.
This deal is available on the east coast and there have been newspaper reports of a businessperson drinking more than 5gb of bits per month and getting a very large bill from ATT. Better to get this by itself from Amazon for 360 and go find a starbucks and get free wifi......
Atom processor for full online freedom? interesting.
Godd discussion. The real value for this is for those who want to combine their data and cell use while not needing massive data or being able to get it at a wifi place. If you spend the typical $250 per month you can lower that to $75 or so and use this system with skype for
unlimited calling. It's clunky but it's cheap! PS - I have no relationship with any company. I'm trying out an ASUS eee with verizon broadband and so far so good.