Acer has announced some serious price cuts for its Aspire One laptop series. Like $50 price cuts. Here’s a rundown of the new pricing structure:

• Aspire One AOA110-1722 with Linpus Linux Lite, 8GB SSD, and 3 cell battery - $329 (was $379)
• Aspire One AOA150-1570 with Windows XP, 120GB HDD, and 3 cell battery - $349 (was $399)
• Aspire One AOA150-1447 with Windows XP, 160GB HDD and 6 cell battery - $399 (new)

Why slash prices on a PC that’s only been out a few months? I don’t know, but I’m sure it doesn’t have anything to do with a $299 coming soon from Dell…

I checked a few online shops and the new prices don’t seem to be widely in effect yet. But hopefully we’ll see updated listings shortly.

[via Laptop Magazine and Engadget]

A few days ago we discovered pictures of what appears to be a 6-cell, high capacity battery plugged into an Acer Aspire One laptop. Now one astute Liliputing reader has spotted a product page at CDW for a 6-cell battery.

The battery isn’t available yet, and there’s no official picture. But there is a price: $119.99. For a battery that goes with a $380 computer. That’s right, the battery costs almost 1/3rd as much as the full computer.

Computer companies have a track record of charging ridiculously high prices for batteries. But it’s one thing to charge $120 for a battery for a $1000 computer. It’s quite another to ask users to pony up more than 30% of what they paid for a computer for the privilege of running it a few hours longer. Hopefully Acer will offer a version of the Aspire One that comes bundled with the higher capacity battery for a more reasonable price. But if you’ve already purchased an Aspire One with a 3 cell battery, it looks like you’ll just have to shell out the cash to upgrade your battery whenever this thing becomes available.

A few weeks ago AspireOneUser uploaded a series of drivers that you could use to get Windows XP up and running on an Acer Aspire One Laptop. Now it looks like you don’t have to rely on these unofficial drivers anymore, since Acer has uploaded its own drivers to its FTP site.

At the moment, Acer is only selling a Linux version of the laptop. While you can certainly install Windows XP yourself, using a USB DVD-ROM drive or a USB flash drive (if you modify these installation instructions), there’s a good chance that some things won’t work properly without the proper drivers. So I’d recommend downloading and installing the audio, card reader, chipset, LAN, WLAN, display, touchpad, and other drivers if you plan to install Windows on an Aspire One that came with Linux preloaded.

[via LowCost Laptop]

The Acer Aspire One may be one of the cheapest ultraportable laptops around, with prices starting at just $379. But it’s also one of the slower laptops on the market. The folks at the Acer Aspire One User forums have discovered the hard way that the SSD or solid state disk used by the Aspire One A110 has a slow read speed. That means that while the laptop offers decent performance with Linpus Linux Lite, Windows XP is pretty sluggish.

So what do you do if you’ve already dropped $400 on a laptop and don’t feel like trading up for another model? Disconnect the SSD, buy a speedy CompactFlash card and get a CF to ZIF adapter to throw into your laptop. At least that’s what forum member andy53 did.

He picked up a Transcend 300x CF card, which has aread speed of 44MB/s and a write speed of 22MB/s. That’s a bit faster than the read/write speeds you’d get from an Eee PC 900 and nearly twice the read speed and 4 times the write speed of the internal SSD that ships with the Acer Aspire One.

[via jkkmobile]

I go offline for a day or two, and look what happens? Here’s a brief roundup of news that broke while I was in the process of moving and getting my broadband connection up and running:Asus Eee PC News

• Elantech, the maker of the Eee PC 901 touchpad have issued a software update that enables additional multi-touch features like task switching, rotating, scrolling, and zooming. Jkkmobile has more, plus a video which you can find below.
• Jkkmobile also added an internal 3G card to his Eee PC 900. You can check out a ton of pictures and some video on his site.
• But wait, there’s more. Jkkmobile also decided to slap a touchscreen display in his Eee PC 900. This isn’t jkkmobile’s first foray into touchscreen Eee PCs. He was also one of the first folks to add a touchscreen to an Eee PC 701. You can check out a video of the touchscreen Eee PC 900 below.

  PC Retail Magazine says it has received confirmation from Asus that the company will indeed be releasing a laptop bearing the Eee PC 904 moniker. The Eee PC 904 HD will be available in the UK within the next few weeks, and will be the same size as an Eee PC 1000, but while that means it will have a larger keyboard than the Eee PC 901, it will have the 901’s smaller 8.9 inch display (and a big bezel around the screen). The price hasn’t been set, but PC Retail Magazine reports it will be around £250, or about $500 US.

• 

  A whole slew of Eee Monitor photos leaked out this week. The Eee Monitor is basically an all-in-one PC that bears a vague resemblance to the Apple iMac. In other words, it basically packs all your usual PC components into a case that’s not much bigger than an LCD monitor. Oh yeah, and it includes an LCD monitor, plus 6 USB ports, a webcam, ethernet, and audio ports. Word on the street is that this puppy will start at around $500 and will run Linux or Windows XP.

MSI Wind News

• While it should be a few more days before the Wind notebook lands in the US, it looks like the company has managed to push a handful of units out the door in Europe. Scan Computers in the UK had a few units in stock briefly. And reviews and hands-on videos are starting to pop up. [via Mobility Site]
• The Medion Akoya Mini, which is basically identical to the MSI Wind in all but name is also on sale in Europe. And you can find unboxing photos and reviews for that as well. Sascha Pallenberg promises to post an English language video later today.

Acer Aspire One NewsIt looks like the Acer Aspire One will come in several flavors. Acer has announced a new 150 series to compliment the 110 series. The 150 will have a higher price tag and a larger hard drive. Oh yeah, and Acer appears to have bumped the price up a notch. According to the product pages at Netbooksbillinger.de, here’s a rundown of the prices and specs:

• Acer Aspire One A110L - 329 EUR (or $522 US), 512MB RAM, 8GB SSD, Linux OS
• Acer Aspire One A150L - 359 EUR (or $570 US), 1GB RAM, 120GB HDD, Linux OS
• Acer Aspire One A150X - 399 EUR (or $633 US), 1GB RAM, 120GB HDD, Windows XP Home OS

It’s not clear yet whether those prices will be reflective of the US price. Acer had originally promised to release a $379 laptop, and generally computers do cost less in the US. But $140 less? We’ll just have to wait and see.[via Eee PC News.de]

Eee PC multi-touch:

Eee PC 900 with a touch screen display:

As expected, Acer has jumped into the low-cost mini-notebook fray. The company introduced the Aspire One today at Computex in Taipei. Here’s a rundown of the specs:

The Computex technology trade show starts on Tuesday, and while there will be over 1700 exhibitors, there are some companies and products that are worth keeping a closer eye on than others.

Asus

Asus will probably introducing a few dozen devices at Computext. OK, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but over the past few weeks the company has let loose with some limited amount of info about its upcoming Eee PC desktop, two new laptops, and a Wii-mote inspired remote control.

• Eee PC 901 - This will be the first mini-notebook from Asus sporting an Intel Atom CPU. We haven’t seen an official price or list of specs yet, so I suspect that Asus will release those this week. The 901 is rumored to have a price as high as $650, which is a far cry from the mythical $200 laptop the company first promised last year. But you get what you pay for, and in this case that could mean longer battery life and better performance.
• Eee PC 1000 - Asus will also be introducing its first mini-laptop with a 10 inch display. No word on the processor, price, display resolution or release date.
• Eee Box - A few web sites have already gotten their hands on the upcoming Eee Box or EBOX. This desktop computer will likely come in Windows XP and Linux varieties. Both will be tiny by desktop standards and lack an optical disc drive. While it might be tempting to stick one next to your TV and use it as a media center, the noisy fans and relatively slow CPU will limit their utility for home media center use. Plus, you know, that lack of an optical drive. On the plus side, hard drives will range from 80GB to 250GB. There’s no need for solid state memory if your PC is going to be sitting in one place most of the time.

Acer

We’ve heard next to nothing about the Acer Aspire One — the upcoming low-cost laptop from Acer. A few leaked photos hit the web last week, but that’s about all we have to go on. No word on pricing, availability, or specs. Stay tuned.
MSI

The MSI Wind laptop is probably the most exciting subnotebook since the Asus Eee PC. The computer sports an Intel Atom CPU, up to 7 hours of battery life (if you believe the official specs), a full sized keyboard, and a 10 inch 1024 x 600 pixel display. The computer weighs less than 3 pounds, which means it’s a bit heavier than the competition, but still small by today’s notebook standards. And best of all, the Linux model will reportedly cost just $399 while the Windows XP version will sell for $549, making the MSI Wind one of the most affordable computers on the market without sacrificing performance. MSI also plans to release a desktop version of the Wind.

Dell

We’ve known for a while that Dell was going to be entering the low-cost ultraportable market. It’s still not 100% clear whether Dell’s upcoming subnotebook will be available in developed markets or if it’s just meant for distribution in developing nations (think the OLPC XO Laptop). But we do know one thing for certain: It sure looks pretty. Gizmodo’s Brian Lam talked CEO Michael Dell into letting him snap a few photos last week, and the company followed up with a few press shots of its own.

HP

Last we heard, HP doesn’t plan to offer an updated version of the HP 2133 Mini-Note for another 5 months or so. But with the Intel Atom CPU coming out in June and the VIA Nano processor set to launch not long after, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear a little something from HP next week. While the Mini-Note has the most attractive screen and keyboard of any existing low-cost subnotebook, the sluggish VIA C7-M CPU really drags down the computer’s performance. If HP can upgrade that chip soon, it should be able to hold its own against Asus, MSI, and Acer in this space.

I’m sure there will be a few other exciting announcements. At the very least, we can be certain that some of the less well known computer makers I’ve been covering for the past few months will be presenting their PCs at Computex. But for now, I’d say Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, and MSI are the companies to keep a close eye on. What do you think? What computers and companies are you hoping/expecting to hear more from next week?

Update: As Josh points out in the comments, Dell and HP are not on the exhibitor list. I wouldn’t put it past either company to make an announcement to coincide with Computex. But it’s kind of wishful thinking on my part that HP might announce anything this week. Dell, on the other hand… yeah, that might be wishful thinking too. But it does look like they at least have a prototype, since Michael Dell was carrying one around with him last week.

Now that you know what Dell’s low-cost mini-laptop looks like, say hello to Acer’s entry, which will reportedly be called the Acer Aspire One. A couple of allegedly leaked photos of this laptop are making the rounds. And 3fire reports that the computer will feature:

Acer hasn’t even launched their expected low-cost mini-notebook yet, but Acer president Gianfranco Lanci tells IDG News that he expects the company to sell between 5 and 7 million netbooks (Intel’s word for liliputers) this year. The company is expected to launch a sub-$300 laptop with an 8.9 inch display at Computex in June.

What I find interesting is that Lanci thinks netbook sales will cannibalize desktop sales a bit, but not laptop sales. Honestly, I think the opposite is possible. Part of the reason I bought a laptop in the first place was that I was tired of being chained to my desk. But I’ve never been thrilled with the sacrifices you need to make to work on a laptop. They’re less expandable than desktop computers, and parts are more expensive so you wind up paying a lot of money to get the same processor performance and storage capacity you’d get from a much cheaper desktop computer.

If I could have a cheap desktop in my office and a low-cost notebook I could take with me anywhere, that could be enough to make me happy. I’m not sure I’d need three computers: A desktop, a laptop, and a netbook. I mean, I’m a big nerd so I’d probably have at least those three anyway. But I’m not sure I’d need them all.

On the other hand, consumer laptop sales are starting to surpass desktop sales. So maybe it’s not too much of a stretch to say that netbooks won’t affect traditional laptop sales, because growth in that area is already so strong. Netbook sales could just help turn the 2 computer household into a different kind of 2 computer household. You have your full fledged laptop which you leave on your desk, but which you can move around the house when you need to. And you’ve got your low-cost, light-weight computer which you can throw in a bag and carry with you wherever you go without breaking your back or the bank.

The evolution of the low-cost ultraportable market is kind of intriguing, because nobody really thought the market existed a few years ago. When Nicholas Negroponte and company decided to start work on the XO Laptop, the goal was to create a rugged, durable, and extraordinarily cheap laptop that could help bridge the digital divide between developed and developing nations. It wasn’t supposed to be sold commercially in developed countries. And Intel’s Classmate PC was designed for the same target market: educational use, primarily in developing countries.

But then along comes Asus, who decides to build a similar computer for a similar price, and target Europe, Asia, an the US. And you know what? The Eee PC sold like hotcakes, which has prompted everyone to rethink their strategy. Because not only are these underpowered computers cheaper for consumers, they’re significantly cheaper for manufacturers to build.

In fact, DigiTimes reports that Acer Computers chairman JT Wang says traditional notebooks have a 4 to 5% profit margin, while low-cost models have up to a 10% margin. What’s more, he says that 30% of the people who buy low cost laptops like the Eee PC are replacing a larger 14 or 15 inch notebook computer. That means 70% of buyers are not. And that means the low-cost ultraportable has opened up an entirely new market consisting of first time notebook purchasers and people who are buying a second portable computer.

Acer is expected to launch its own low-cost ultraportable this year.