AMD netbooks: Acer Aspire One 521 and Gateway LT22 hands-on

Sure, Acer may already have the Ion 2-powered Aspire One 532g in its arsenal, but who's going to complain about two more HD-capable, 10-inch netbooks? Showing some serious love to AMD, the Acer Aspire One 521 and Gateway LT22 both pack new 1.2GHz AMD V105 processors along with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4225 graphics. The latter is what had us most impressed when we caught some time with the duo at the Netbook Summit -- the 521 and LT22 handled 1080p WMV video and light gaming without any stuttering. We'll hold our real performance conclusions until we can test the battery life on these bad boys, but other than that they look like decent netbook contenders with the standard 1GB of RAM and 160GB hard drives. And unlike the typical Atom netbook, they have HDMI ports. We can't say we're the biggest fans of the 521's in-your-face Aspire One branding on its glossy cover, but the LT2203 delights with its textured matte lid. No word from Acer on the availability and pricing of these here in the US, but hit the gallery below for some imagery, or the source link even further below for a video of these two in action.

Acer Aspire One 521, Gateway LT22 and LT2203

[deliteguy Posted May 26th 2010 5:45PM]

HD capability is the new standard people!

[abedinthehouse Posted May 26th 2010 5:49PM]

@deliteguy
1080Please

not that 720 BS.



.....cant wait till 2K and 4K (3D) become a standard [=

[blland Posted May 26th 2010 6:35PM]

@abedinthehouse why settle for 4K? why not 640K?

640K ought to be enough for everyb-

[abedinthehouse Posted May 26th 2010 7:06PM]

640K?

I hope your joking because I never herd of such a resolution....not in movies anyway.

4K being 4096×3072 pixels

[bebopblues Posted May 26th 2010 7:38PM]

@abedinthehouse It's a joke in reference to a Bill Gates quote
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/b/billgates379657.html

[Fr0 Posted May 26th 2010 8:26PM]

@deliteguy
It would be nice if it came with a screen capable of displaying movies in HD and battery capable of actually watching a movie or two...

[Ducman69 Posted May 26th 2010 11:39PM]

@bebopblues I don't get that joke though. Its like saying 8GB of RAM ought to be enough for everyone... and it is, right now. He never said, "for all time".

[Sogeking Posted May 27th 2010 12:37AM]

@abedinthehouse

noob

[tkuhl87 Posted May 27th 2010 8:43AM]

@blland you forgot your Sarc Marks apparently. :)

[jamielesiea Posted May 31st 2010 3:34PM]

@deliteguy I wish it will be faster and have a dual core capability. A good memory upgrade would be great as well. http://j.mp/aspire-one-full-preview

[abedinthehouse Posted May 26th 2010 5:47PM]

As long as I can stream my collection of 1080P movies without the battery dieing in the middle of the second movie, I shall be happy.

.....so, let gets those battery test shall we?

[mark29 Posted May 26th 2010 5:59PM]

Amd need to enforce 2gb ram to stand out against atom netbooks imo.

[theone87 Posted May 26th 2010 6:02PM]

@mark29 Totally agree, but think its some licensing issue with Microsoft for Windows that prevents the manufacturers from putting more than 1gb RAM in netbooks.

[infamous1 Posted May 26th 2010 6:22PM]

@theone87

I disagree, 1GB RAM is enough for the purposes of a netbook

[mark29 Posted May 26th 2010 6:24PM]

@theone87 Yeah i forgot, it would be interesting to see how well a 2gb ram with ubuntu would sell, anyone who would choose it would surely know how to get windows on it if needed, I definitely would have bought it over a nornal netbook.

[bebop Posted May 26th 2010 7:23PM]

@mark29

Dell tried the Mini9 with Ubuntu at a better price or better spec than the XP version. I don't think it worked out...

[Ducman69 Posted May 26th 2010 11:41PM]

@bebop Not only didn't it sell, but of those that sold, the vast majority were people who were just going to install a pirated copy of XP or W7 on there and didn't want to pay for a license.

[LEDfoot Posted May 26th 2010 11:51PM]

@Ducman69 Oh really, you conducted a survey or something?

[abedinthehouse Posted May 26th 2010 6:00PM]

*lets get to those

[Muu Posted May 26th 2010 6:03PM]

can these pass audio through the HDMI or do we have to wait for AMD to release netbook versions of HD5xxx radeons? Could be pretty nice as a portable HD playback device if that's the case.

[StalkyTheFish Posted May 26th 2010 6:04PM]

Am I the only one who just wants small and speedy and discrete graphics and doesn't care about battery life?

If I'm going to do something taxing on it, I'll plug it in.

[Fanfoot Posted May 26th 2010 8:01PM]

@StalkyTheFish Yup

[Ducman69 Posted May 26th 2010 11:42PM]

@StalkyTheFish Thats what hybrid graphics are for. Light battery use on the go, plug in when doing something taxing.

There is no need for a V8 engine in a school zone.

[H264 Posted May 26th 2010 6:11PM]

I'll take twenty!

[darthgault Posted May 26th 2010 6:26PM]

@hated one

to answer your question who uses a netbook? way more people than use an ipad ... i am still waiting for software that makes my ipad useful ... anyone who has to write anything can scratch the ipad off their list.

your ipad can't touch the speed of this netbook you silly person.

ipads are toys not tools.

[neillien Posted May 26th 2010 6:28PM]

Why 1024x600 still?

[mike808 Posted May 26th 2010 6:32PM]

So I guess you use the HDMI to actually view your 1080i or 720p video on a real monitor, because that 800x600 screen resolution certainly can't.

[voodoo Posted May 26th 2010 6:33PM]

In the Acer video, the guy plays Hulu and says 'see how the playback is fairly smooth', but you can clearly see that it's choppy and drops a lot of frames...

[Fanfoot Posted May 26th 2010 8:03PM]

@voodoo Agreed. Doesn't look that good. Not clear if ATI is still shaking out their Flash 10.1 support or whether this thing just can't handle "HQ" Flash video that well. Deal killer for me if you're going to watch Hulu via that HDMI port...

[Robot Overlord Posted May 26th 2010 6:33PM]

Why do you write like this?
Why am I replying like this?
I hate you.
I hate myself more for replying to you.

[benjgvps Posted May 26th 2010 6:54PM]

@Robot Overlord So he can see what he writes when the onscreen keyboard takes up half the screen.

[markolic Posted May 26th 2010 6:54PM]

Death by scrundy

[benjgvps Posted May 26th 2010 6:55PM]

Define "Light Gaming". If I can play Counter Strike Source or Team Fortress 2 on low settings, I'd be extremely happy (If it was also around $399).

[Ruben Posted May 26th 2010 10:46PM]

@benjgvps +1 for the sad truth of slates.

Lets hope that hindrance reduces his comment count.