The Acer Aspire One 531 netbook first showed up on Acer’s German web site earlier this month. Then it disappeared for a little while. Now it’s back, and it’s not alone. It looks like Acer will be selling two very similar netbooks, an Aspire One 531 and an Aspire One Pro 531.
Both models sport 10.1 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel displays and a choice of a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 or 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 CPU, accompanied by either an Intel 945GSE Express Chipset or an Intel 82801GBM chipset. Both netbooks come with 802.11b/g WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, and optional 3G modems.
But here’s where things start to get a bit different. The Aspire One Pro 531 is available with Windows Vista Business, Windows XP Professional, or Windows XP Home. The standard 531 model just comes with XP Home. The Pro also supports hard drives up to 250GB or a 64GB SSD, while the standard model comes with a 160GB hard drive.
The 531 is a tiny bit smaller than the Pro model, measuring 255mm x 183mm x 26.9mm versus the Aspire One Pro 531’s 259.4mm x 186.8mm x 33.1mm. The weight depends on the battery and storage configurations, but the 531 is generally a little lighter than the Pro as well.
In related news, the Aspire One A531 is now shipping in Italy, and Netbook News Italy has posted an unboxing video which you can check out after the break.
via Netbook News.de
I’m waiting for a higher resolution model running Linux (preferably Ubuntu – but I can load Ubuntu myself if necessary) or no software at all.
I find it hard to get excited about this offering therefore – though the possibility of different storage configurations is interesting.
I’d prefer a stripped down version with no disk at all – then I could slap in a 320GB SATA drive myself.