Wait a second -- can this be real? Are we seriously seeing a drastic diversion from the cookie-cutter nature that has long since bored us of netbooks? The typically trustworthy
macles* has shots and details of an all new Acer
Aspire One, one that dyslexic folk will likely confuse with the already shipping
Aspire One 751. Indeed, the Aspire One 571 looks an awful lot like other Acer netbooks, but it's the internals that set it apart. For starters, it's rockin' a 1.66GHz Atom N280 processor and a 1,280 x 720 resolution panel; sure it's still just 10.1-inches, but hey, we'll take 720p. Furthermore, there's a Quartics Q1721 Multimedia Processor shoved in there -- you know, so it can handle decoding and encoding of H.264 content while adding hardware scaling and filtering. Eager for more? That
Vmedia comeback we heard about is on, as the left palm rest boasts one of the miniature optical drives. Mum's the word on price and availability, but you can peek a few more shots in the read link.
posted May 15th 2009 10:36AM
"...one that dyslexic folk will likely confuse with the already shipping Aspire One 751."
Looks like you did too. You have the title as 751 instead of the 571.
I can see squeezing in a miniCD/miniDVD optical drive. But Vmedia... please.
720 on 10.1 = WIN Vmedia on netbook = FAIL.
Plus, an idiotic glossy screen!
WHAT A WINNER.
Exactly what will be distributed on those optical disks?
And how does VMedia expect to make any money with this distribution system, when you can get a class 6, 16Gb SDHC card for £25?
VMedia disk =/= Win.
"Vmedia, which are basically tiny Blu-Ray discs, protected in a plastic cartridge"
Sounds like a new UMD thing....
Vmedia != win
yes, that you can't record to... so useless.
too many netbooks!...(head explodes)
Acer Aspire 751 ?! O_o
The only way I see success from this is if they contracted with schools, to give these to children. And put books and education media on the disks. Other then that humongous fail.
No ion=no go. You need to give at least ion.
They could fit ION where the stupid little Vmedia drive is.
Another media format that has hardly any backing whatsoever. WTH is someone supposed to do with a 2GB vmedia disc at this point?! Are companies planning to release software and movies on these any time soon?! Heck no! And a 2GB disc isn't gonna do any thing for blank media storage anyhow; flash media still is the desired removable storage format for netbooks. This vmedia addition just adds costs, wastes space, and battery life.
I do however welcome the OTHER additions to this new netbook, especially that 720p resolution screen.
Damn!! So many netbook releases lately, I mean would it kill companies to wait a few months for Intel's new atom processors, before they start pumping out endless models of the same nonsense (I'm looking at YOU Asus).
"we'd bet the industry adopts a few standard video codecs for SD and microSD long before we see a mainstream cellphone or netbook with a clunky mechanical optical drive in it. In fact, hell, let's get crazy: we're willing to bet that UMD will take over as a dominant format before we see a Vmedia drive in a name-brand device."-- Nilay Patel
http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/03/vmedia-not-dead-yet-wants-to-bring-optical-media-to-netbooks/
Well, Vmedia now has just as many major consumer devices as UMD does now, unless you want to count the different versions of PSP as different devices. UMD also has a crapton more software available now (http://www.neoseeker.com/Games/title/PSP/all.html, and then some movies and games not listed). I can't go to Wal-Mart and get anything on Vmedia. AFAIK, UMD > Vmedia.
The point is that Nilay Patel has ended up with his foot in his mouth and this post said nothing about anyone eating there words, as it should have. "...we'd bet the industry adopts a few standard video codecs for SD and microSD...we're willing to bet that UMD will take over as a dominant format before we see a Vmedia drive in a name-brand device" ... I don't know what bet you ended up agreeing to but you and whomever you referred to when you said "we're" should totally be posting some pictures of your heads shaved or SOMETHING! You guys were dead wrong.
What you were right about, however, is that this is a ridiculous format. Memory cards and the cloud already won the war. Your mistake was not underestimating the viability of this format, but underestimating the ineptitude of certain companies when it comes to evaluating which formats to offer in their products. I like Acer, but they failed here. Just like the buttons flanking the touch pad in the original AspireOne Acer's design guys have made another bone-head move in another attempt to distinguish themselves in the wrong way from the competition.
I hope they offer it without the Vmedia drive. I'd love to have that resolution (and the cost savings of opting OUT on the drive). Like someone said yesterday in this blog, it seems every netbook at comes out has one or two defects/setbacks that makes it not perfect.
Any netbook with a higher res. than 1024x600 is welcome to me. Hopefully it doesn't fail to badly because of the Vmedia drive...
Look Asus got beat to market by Acer with a netbook with respectable screen resolution. I refuse to get a netbook with 1024x600, its too small to browse with unless you like seeing half an article at a time on the front page of Engadget. I'll get this one if its got >=6hr battery life! Get on your game Asus, higher screen rez!
The Vmedia drive makes this whole thing suspect. In all honesty I think it would KILL this project if you tried to add something like that. It's called 'feature creep'.
Netbooks are supposed to be low cost, easy to use, basic computers. If you add this drive people will need to know what 'Vmedia' is...there goes simple (yes, most people are too lazy or stupid to do 10 minutes of research). You tell people it can play movies off an optical disk they'll think DVD and end up disapointed.
Also, if you add another component with moving parts that will shoot the price up at least $50 a unit, probably more. Adding more silicon with that Quartics engine will also add at least $25 - $50 more. And since the 3-cell Aspire battery only gives about 2.5 hours of battery life on the old model you're gonna have to make the 6-cell battery standard to fuel this rig, those two new components and the snazzy new screen (for which you can tack on another $25 - $40). So add another $25 - $50 bucks for the battery upgrade.
So that's about $200 on top of the pretty standard $300 - $330 for an Aspire One (assuming the Atom N280 can be had about at the same price as it's predecessor). So this Nettie is about in the $500 range...so much for low cost.
Don't get me wrong, It looks like a freakin awesome device, but I can't see it selling in large numbers when it really is priced in line with regular laptops but has much lower performance. And at that, even if it is released as a niche item, that means it will cost even more per unit because they can't leverage economies of scale. Either way it seems unlikely that a smart company like Acer would actually do it.
Still, never say never. Stranger things have happened. But I agree with some of the other posters. While a mini optical disc is cool (and would satisfy so many of my late 90's techno fantasies), and while I like to support the underdog, I think using Vmedia would be a mistake. 8cm DVD or CD in a cartridge could work, or they could license UMD or even HiMD from Sony. At least with UMD there'd be content available from day one in most places. Where the heck are you supposed to get Vmedias ?
If the answer does NOT include Walmart...instant fail...
All IMHO...
I would like to see a version of this WITHOUT the propriorary VMedia drive. Instead of adding a pointless optical drive, they could have added the ability to handle a second 1.8" harddrive.
It looks good other than the vmedia. If anyone really needs an optical drive, just get the USB Samsung drive for $59 and you can use normal CD and DVD media instead of some weird off standard disc. Also you don't have to carry it when not needed.
The Aspire AOA150 can play 720P rips no problem!
You mean the 9inch one??
Umm... maybe this "product announcement" is a fake?
I just dont get what that vmedia is useful for. If they wanted to give someone something cool that pops out, a little 5-1 card reader wouldve been really sweet.
But the earlier post seems to be valid "creep feature" seems to be the proper idea....
Can this play dvd's?
Yes it has an optical drive.
Sad really. As kind of cool the discs look who wants to carry several of these things just so you can watch your criterion collection "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas".....
Please tell me the VMedia thing is a joke.
That pop-up drive would be totally bad-ass if it could take a removal HDD, a popup card reader that would store the entire SD card (or two or three, in raid), or a pico projector (god knows where it would project).
Seriously. VMedia is so 1998.
needs ION. It's getting there...
The couldn't get native 1024 x 768? What a dumbass move. FAIL
Screen resolution is good. The Atom processor is not strong enough. Wait for the Atom2 processors come out.
http://jamesmsingleton.com
actually the n270 is strong enough to push 720p with aero disabled. you just need the right codec (coreavc & mpc). slap a hdmi port on this and ill buy one today.
I really like the higher screen resolution on this. I couldn't care much less about the Vmedia drive so I wish you could just drop it and lower the price. The whole low screen resolution thing is what has stopped me from getting a netbook up to this point.