At this point, it's pretty hard to figure out which netbook is better than another, but if you've been keyed in on Acer's version for whatever reason, Laptop has a review sure to pique your interest. The Aspire One was praised just as soon as it left the box for its classy styling and super portable design. After getting down to business, however, reviewers felt that the typing experience was only "decent" and the touchpad was "cramped" -- two things we actually would expect from a device of this stature. Nevertheless, the port selection was tolerable, the performance was passable and the battery life left a bit to be desired. As you can tell, this one seemed perfectly average on the whole, though it was deemed a "pretty good bargain" at $379. Huzzah?

The Centrino 2 bandwagon is all but overflowing, but apparently there's still room for Acer. Announced today, the outfit has revealed four new Aspire laptops along with five TravelMates with the aforesaid platform at the helm. The TravelMate 6293, 5730, 7730, 6593, and 6493 all come with WWAN options, Core 2 Duo processors, up to 4GB of RAM, integrated WiFi and a wide range of HDDs, graphics cards and other hardware. Per usual, mum's the word on dollars and cents, but feel free to pass the time in the photo gallery waiting down there in the read link.

[Via Laptop]

Acer played it safe early last month by telling Americans to expect its Aspire One "later this year," but just a month and change after UKers had the privilege of toying with one on video, here she comes. So far, we're seeing a couple of variations for sale here in the US, two of which include the $399.99 A110-1295 (8GB SSD) and the $422.99 A150-1006 (120GB HDD). We're also hearing that select e-tailers are already slapping those shipping labels on there and moving 'em out to anxious consumers, so be sure and chime in when your confirmation arrives. Wait, what? You already own six netbooks? Ah well, what's another one amongst family?

[Via AspireOne, thanks Tony and Timothy]

The folks at Tech Digest got a look at the new Acer Aspire One, and they seem to like what they see. High points abound, but of particular note is the solid "it's almost like a real laptop" build quality, the Atom processor that runs cool enough to require zero fan usage in the time they've been testing, and the strong battery life. The rest of the quite-lovable specs we're sure you all know by heart -- either that or you're so sick of looking at netbooks by now that you're contemplating a monastic existence just to be rid of the things. Video is after the break.

Aw, snap. Our Chinese branch just happened upon Acer's totally unmistakable new gaming rig at Computex, and while they couldn't spend enough time with it to confirm or deny whether it really was faster, better, stronger or longer than anything else, they did manage to capture a few shots. Granted, that little "Don't Touch" sign technically makes this a hands-off, but either way, we're sure you'll enjoy the close-ups found in the read link below.

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]

Look out, Alienware -- your fancy new Area-51 ALX has a carnivore hot on its trail. The Acer Aspire Predator, which was officially unveiled yesterday, has already found its way into the loving arms of Bit-Tech. Over there, folks were able to spend a good bit of time with the rig, snap a smattering of photos and dish out some initial impressions. There's some pretty interesting tidbits to be had (for example, every single part possesses its own bar code, the motherboard is a customized MSI nForce 780i SLI, etc.), so be sure and tap the read link to get their view on how this beast will likely shake out.

[Thanks, Daren]

Hey, that's Acer's overtly compensating tag line, not our take on this totally over-the-top gaming rig. Acer's new Aspire G7700 Predator desktop offers options such as an overclocking quad-core, Core 2 Extreme proc, up to 8GB of DDR2 800/1066 memory, and 3x NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX graphics cards kept in check by a liquid cooled core. It features what Acer calls a "world's first optical bay mechanism" revealing a pair of 5.25-inch drive bays which you can stuff with a DVD drive, Blu-ray/HD DVD drive or both. The box can be configured with up to 4x, 3.5-inch SATA hot-swappable hard drives (including 10k RPM raptors) with RAID support. No street date or pricing yet, but we've got plenty of pics in the gallery.

You already know full well what these buggers look like, and you've even had ample time to roll that 8920 review around in your noggin. Now, the moment of truth has arrived. Both of Acer's Gemstone Blue lappies -- the 16-inch Aspire 6920 and 18.4-inch Aspire 8920 -- are finally available in North America. Prospective buyers can snatch either up starting at $849 / $1,299, respectively, though real hardware junkies will insist on paying more for those high-brow components. Shamelessly, at that.

First things first: just in case that headline didn't really sink in, this is an 18.4-inch laptop. In other words, those of you with even the slightest of back problems should probably just pass this one right on by. If you're still with us, however, you'll likely be totally engrossed by Laptop Mag's review of the Acer Aspire 8920G. The larger of the two second-gen Gemstones was said to feature a "gorgeous" Full HD display, impressive audio output, a respectable webcam and plenty of power under the hood. They also found the unique CineDash Media Console to be quite effective, save for accidentally activating the multimedia hub on occasion. Overall, critics deemed the lappie a "stellar" machine, but we'd certainly recommend browsing through the review just to make sure you're really interested in picking up a slab this gigantic.

We'd already heard a few tantalizing details about Acer's forthcoming Eee PC competitors, but now thanks to some unspecified "sources at notebook ODMs" speaking to DigiTimes we have a few more tidbits on the low-cost laptops. If this latest report is to be believed, Acer will be shipping both the 8.9-inch Aspire and 12.1-inch Slim Gemstone Aspire in the second half of 2008, with at least the 8.9-incher unsurprisingly based on Intel's budget-friendly Atom processor. That model will also apparently be available with your choice of Linux or Windows XP, and your choice of SSD or regular hard drives (no word on capacities), with it setting you back between $300 and $450 depending on the configuration (that's a slight change from the $350 to $400 we heard earlier). Details on the 12.1-inch model are considerably lighter, unfortunately, although DigiTimes says that Acer ordered a million of the 12.1-inch panels in March, and that they cost between $40 to $50 less than other "high-end" panels of the same size. It also looks like Acer is trying to match Asus in the boasting department, with it reportedly declaring that it'll ship a hefty 5 to 5.5 million of the 8.9-inch models in the second half of 2008 alone.

[Via Electronista]

We got a good long look at those new Gemstone Blue notebooks from Acer, the Aspire 6920 (16-inch) and 8920G (18.4-inch). We can't say we're crazy about the "CineTouch" controls to the left of the keyboard, and both laptops -- while certainly thin for their class -- are still bulky enough to make our chiropractor take pause. That said, Acer is certainly working a lot more design polish into its product, and the specs are, as ever, quite lovable. Hit up the read links below for official PR from Acer.



Read - Aspire 6920
Read - Aspire 8920G

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]

We already saw the Amilo Xi 2550 from Fujitsu-Siemens, but if you thought that was the only mobile Penryn-based lappie you'd see prior to January 6th, you've got another a few more things coming. Spotted over at Notebook Italia, we've got five new Acer Aspires (2920, 4920, 5920, 7720 and 9920), a pair of new Acer Travelmates (6492 and 6592G), a couple of Fujitsu-Siemens (the aforementioned Amilo Pi Amilo Xi 2550 and the 2428) and four new Sony VAIOs (FZ31, SZ71, CR31 and AR61) -- all of which will be housing that Penryn goodness when they launch. As you can imagine, there's far too many specs between the 13 new machines to cover in this space, but feel free to tag the links below for all the details on each.

Read - Fujitsu-Siemens
Read - Acer Aspires
Read - Acer Travelmates
Read - Sony VAIOs