14 DAY TRIAL // After we've seen ASUS' new Eee PC lineup, it's time we paid a little attention as well to one of its wannabe competitors. Acer, which has seen a number of product releases this year, has announced its Aspire One during the Computex trade show. The product is nothing more than an 8.9-inch, Intel Atom-based competitor to ASUS' new Eee PC and MSI's Wind.
With the new product, Acer might just have come up with a strong alternative to ASUS' Eee PC 901. The sub-notebook seems to bring the same number of features as the 8.9-inch Eee PC: both of them are based on Intel's new Atom CPU, both offer an 8.9-inch display and both of them can provide the user with a choice concerning the operating system.
Acer's Aspire One has officially received technical specs and pictures at the Computex show. The device will sport a CrystalBrite LED backlit display capable of providing a 1024 by 600 resolution, and is equipped with an Intel 945GSE mobo, 8 GB of flash storage and 512MB of RAM memory. The product will come with a Linpus Linux Lite operating system, but users can also chose the Windows XP-enabled version, which will provide 1GB of RAM memory and even an 80GB hard drive solution.
As with the Eee PC, the Aspire One comes with an integrated CrystalEye webcam and a 5-in-1 card reader. As far as wireless connectivity is concerned, Aspire One has built-in WiFi 802.11b/g, while the Eee PC 901 provides support for wireless 802.11n technology. However, there's no word yet on Bluetooth support, for which the Eee PC is enabled.
The system is expected to become available in the US in September with a price tag of $399, which has not yet been officially confirmed. This model will come with a 3-cell battery, but customers have a choice in upgrading to a 6-cell battery as well.
