Looks as if someone has finally got the formula right *&* managed to keep the cost down - id say this could be the first serious competition the Eee has had to contend with!

Can anyone old enough to remember Unix actually fit their grubby paws around this thing?

Anyone here wanna guess which one I'll buy and ASUS or Acer? look at the acer, it's lovely, it has "style"

the asus is just boxy and ugly, asus have style, similar price, anyone should reward that with their booty.

where's the (I thought) obligatory lovely? And a pic of the Asus yummy for comparison?

I brought one of the oringal EEEs and while I love it I'm looking for something with a little more screen real-estate yet still small, cute, cheap and MS free. Looks like this may well be a serious contender. Yay.

Without question this beats the Eee hands down. It has everything that people wanted from the Eee 900 series with a price that is better than the Eee 700 series.

It was the price which got most people interested in the Eee, it might have attracted buyers at twice the price, but it wouldn't have been nearly as popular. The price made the Eee close to disposable, it was a device you could literally throw into a bag, carry everywhere and if it was damaged or stolen, then so be it. Asus didn't realise this when they launch the updated version and neither did any of the Eee rivals, they priced it far too high.

I came very close to buying the original Eee but stock issues thwarted that impulse buy and instead is looks like my money will go to Acer. I'll wait a couple of days for more details and images to appear, but it seems to fit my needs precisely.

My other Acer, a TravelMate 8204WLMi, is still being shown as top rated in the review finder ->

It has been absolutely flawless for the two years I've had it, and is the reason I'll buy one of these over the eee.

Kudos to the eee though, better looking advertising ;)

These L199 comes out to about $391. I bought an Acer Aspire 3460(maybe 3640) at WalMart for $424 with tax and that was with Vista on it. It's an overall better computer, they should throw fedora on the 3460 and make it cheaper then the aspire one.

"anyone old enough to remember Unix"

The reports of UNIX's death have been greatly exaggerated.

But not available yet? These things are beyond my understanding.

Should I have an Apple 'Air' or six of those? Tricky...

Looks the biz, though. Perhaps I'll have just the one and pocket the odd grand.

Well it's got the Eee PC licked in the looks dept: that metallic blue one is very tasty, you wouldn't be ashamed pulling that out of a rucksack on a train would you?!

And to be honest the 8GB SSD version would run XP quite happily (self-installed natch), just use the memory or USB slots for some 'user' storage capacity and you're good to go. I wouldn't splurge the extra £100 just for a HD and XP Home.

Paris, 'cos they both have the looks AND are really cheap.

I don't know why you're complaining about the battery life - it's better than the Eee 900. Unless of course you compare to the Eee with the smaller, less power hungry screen..

What's the price of the extended battery? 7 Hours raises this almost to a pick up and go device.

Really, it looks like a fantastic spec for the price. There's 600 vertical pixels so it'll be fine with XP, Linux or web browsing. 8GB is ok for solid state. A media slot and PCI are great features.

The other limitations you can live with, given the price..

Having spent days reading up on the Asus EEEPC, deciding whether to take the plunge, waiting for the 901 reviews to confirm specs etc, I decided to take a walk up Tottenham Court Road this lunchtime to have a play on one in one of the stores.

I'm glad I did because I will have been sorely disappointed by what is fast becoming an overpriced toy (a bit like certain footballers i could mention ... and their wives ...).

I'd kept an eye on the alternatives, and now i read this review of the Acer ... as already pointed out, someone has listened to the public, got the spec nerly spot on, and is trying to flog it at under £200. Not only that, but it looks as good as the Asus beach bird, especially in blue.

As soon as i can get my hands on one of these, i think I will be parting with my hard earned cash, as £200 is much easier to stomach that £350 (ish) for the Asus that originally had my name on, but had kit on it that I dont really want.

Someones got it right! Cheap, proper screen, minimal storage, compact. Well done Acer.

... want that one.

..that 199 8GB linux one fits my wishlist perfectly... plus it's sexy without cellulite.

Bigger screen, AND cheaper than the 701...

They'll shift those by the truckload.

£199 for linux version - its better value than my £160 eeePC.

Bigger screen (although 1024x768 would have been much much better). Bigger storage (8G vs 2G).

Good to see it cheaper than windows version :P No crappy useless software.

Does everything the Eee701 did, but with a larger screen and better battery life. Oh, and cheaper.

Considering the ASUS 901 new spec just released and the relatively high cost I think think that ACER have got an EEEPC killer here.

Plus I would agree the ACER is lovely looking even without any accompanying lady shapes 8-)

Fingers crossed that the £199 cost includes all taxes and is an RRP which can get discounted and that they have plenty of stock!! Its very sad to see the EEEPC 700 that I bought for £219 inc VAT in December to have shot up to over £250 + delivery due to supply issues ... please let ACER learn from that and have the stock ready to roll.

Might have to get one of those once some guru posts the *BSD install instructions - I try and keep the Borg out of my stuff. But this is obviously just the start of these devices. Bet Sony the's first to release one with an OLED screen for around €500

"smooth" indeed!

like it. acer are making some nice computers.

i still say that this space should only contain SSD based machines, tho.

they are right for this market. spinning platters are not right. extra noise, heat, power AND lower perf..it's a no brainer! (ok, cost)

;)

I really wanted to get my hands on an EeePC especially after having a play at a recent Ubuntu Linux Demo day, although now I've seen this I'm glad I've waited.

This really does meet the spec I've been looking for. Finally something I can stick in a bag and take with me when I'm out and about. Sure I have a work laptop (Dell Latitude D610) which I use when I'm on call but it's to heavy to take everywhere. Something like this would fit the bill perfectly.

I can't help but think that with all these machines coming out now, the prices are going to keep going down which has got to be good.

Any details of what Linux distro will be pre-installed?

Rob

That's the sub-notebook for me.

My only requirement for a new laptop is that it comes in different colours, so the Acer automatically gets my vote.

Why not racing green? Sunflower yellow? Cheap-looking gold effect for the gangstas? This is the age of personalised products right? So where the hell is my personalised Acer?

However, I wish people would stop making pink electronics. A pink laptop simply looks like a giantess's powder compact.

Paris, because she probably already owns a pink one.

I've been in the market for a micro-lappy recently, but see no point in going over £250, which only left me with the Eee 701 and its just *slightly* too small screen.

This thing beats its arse clean off. Unless there is something seriously wrong with this expect it to FLY off the shelves soon enough.

See you all in the queue.

I hope to go acer dont try and load it full of their software!

If they load the xp version with their software it will kill it. as for the linux version.. that looks awesome. Can't wait

Where are they?! I can't even throw money at one of these things right now. Wallet, waiting, hurry.

DO WANT.

WHEN??? WHERE???

Me wants the hot sexy One.

According to CNET, it comes with Linpus Lite Linux. This is a Taiwanese distro based on Fedora, with a front end like the Eee.

WikiPedia says (crosses himself) "Linpus was designed specifically to fully support the Asian market" and The Linpus site shows that they provide a Chinese version of Open Office. I assume this will be changed for the target markets.

Personally I would have preferred (X)Ubuntu, but it should be easy enough to change.

Yes, it is nice. My son and I both have Acer laptops already and the quality isn't bad. I now have to persuade my wife she needs a new laptop (I don't think I could get away with buying a third laptop for myself) then "borrow" it. Hope she doesn't choose pink!

I Wonder how long the flash will last!

Any chance of a full review when the vultures get their claws on it? Also, which version of Linux is it or is it an in-house version like on the Eee?

Asus completely missed why everyone flipped over the EEE701 when they brought the new models out, pretty much the *only* thing they had to do was sort out a slightly larger screen, everything else was OK at that price.

The same goes with the few others that arrived to compete, they all just pwned by Acer and this little beauty, spot on spec by the looks of it and at that "impulse buy" price of under £200. Sure I think it may benefit from a little more RAM, but didn't I read they wisely have an empty slot inside, sorted!

The wife wanted to know what I wanted for my birthday later this month, I think I just found it :]

Awesome!

I really want one of these tiny laptops, but they are kind of useless without HSDPA. How cool would it be to use the internet on these anywhere - at HSDPA speeds too!!

And i bet some phone companies will subsidise them too!

Bur my wife loves her ACER. Hell I like her ACER, cheap and cheerful as it is, it has a nice keyboard and just works.

But if I was ever insane enough to splash £200 for a new slightly bigger screened microlaptop, that ACER looks the first of the new bunch to tempt me.

Actual pictures of it in action:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/03/hands-on-acers-aspire-one-netbook/

Interesting twist on the microsoft tax: if you want a decent size hdd, you gotta pay for Windows!

Give me a decent keyboard and a trackpoint and I'll be tempted to drop my trusty thinkpad X40. Let's hope the markets bloom!

I've had two Acer laptops and they've been great, though my Ferrari's power brick died after a ceiling leak (don't ask). That thing is small, cheap, looks great, does the job and I'm willing to bet it's more robust than the Asus. I want one.

But do I need one... I already have an Athena. C'mon, Reg Readers. Help me justify this latest impulse purchase.

I think that's the game-changing aspect of these devices. The original eee was /almost/ what I wanted - just needed a bigger screen and 3G for the same price. Strange that Asus decided to move away from the "so cheap, so why not?" point and left it to Acer to move in.

All we need now is some canny mobilecos to flog these at a discount (or even free) with a mobile broadband subscription and they start becoming no-brainers for cheap, portable always-on web access without the constraints of a smartphone's too-small size.

I can certainly see myself getting one by the end of the year, and then I can do my El Reg/Digg/Slashdot/Facebook spodding on the train home and make my other half happy by spending time with her in the evening and not the interweb.

That's her Xmas present sorted, and it isn't even Summer yet!

I want one. Sooner than immediately. And am willing to lie down on the floor and throw a Veruca Salt-style tantrum until I get one.

(puts eeepc on ebay).

www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/15110/16134/acer-aspire-one-in-pictures.phtml

Finally, someone's got the formula spot on! It's such a shame it had to be Acer... we got about 100 of their laptops in at work and on probably 50% of them the trackpad buttons have fallen apart. Can't blame cack handed users either because mine did the same thing, even though I rarely use the buttons. They were snazzy, but the build quality was horrible, and as such I've sworn off ever buying an Acer product again. Such a shame...

Hmm, I've been spending quite a bit of money recently but then again...I do have a 533MHz SO-DIMM lying around doing nothing. It would be a shame not to make use of that right?

Purchase justified.

I hope they don't charge silly money for the larger battery though...

There is a finnish computer magazine which states that Acer expects to sell aroun 6 milloin minilaptops (8,9" and 12,1" combined) before the end of the year. I don't know what resource the site quotes. But it seems that they are at least trying to be prepared to satisfy the market.

Anything less than 1280x768 is a toy. For a toy, this is rather nice looking, and nicely priced. I can't believe that HP seems to be the only company that thinks a laptop needs a decent set of pixels (Mininote 2133.)

From what I can gather the Linux used on this is Linpus Lite.

Does anyone know if this has a VPN client available, and also an RDP client?

It'd be a great gadget to carry around when on call, to be able to vpn into the office, and remote into a server etc. (I currently manage to do this in an emergency from a treo, so a small, portable unit with a real screen that can do this would be a BIG plus)

I know a number of other distros have this ability, I've used them myself in the past, but I can't seem to find an answer on the all knowing interweb as to if there's a client that will run on Linpus (I assume there is, but need confirmation)

Thanks for you answers (or flames I suppose)

WANT! WANT! WANT!

SHINY!

*scrabbles around for 200 quid*

*drools*

Ok, i'll calm down now.

From price & looks alone it's an Eee beater from my point of view. Nice to see a full review sooner rather than later.

"if you want a decent size hdd, you gotta pay for Windows!"

I think you'll find it's the other way round. If you ain't got Windoze, you don't need an HD (and these machines shouldn't have one). Eff off Ballmer - this is the future and you're not included.

Sod the laptop, where's the gorgeous bird to advertise it?

Mine must be the dirty raincoat.

I wish I'd waited a couple of weeks for this little beauty. It has the big screen that would make the Web a bit less frustrating and those looks - for less than £200 there's a machine that looks as sexy as something from Apple or Sony.

Hmmm can I persuade the office I need to do a comparison of various sublappies?

Here in NZ we've had these for a while. Preloaded with Ubuntu. Work fine for most things.

http://www.dse.co.nz/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/4845c1960098d8e6273fc0a87f3b0719/Product/View/XC5822

NZD 559 (after cashback) == approx 230 quid.

Is it under 1KG? looks like it could be, if it is I might get one.

What Linux disto is it running?

Not only is this cheaper, but I want to point something out. The HP would have been THE machine, except, they crippled it with a very low end GFX / CPU combo.

The reason this will be the killer is is simple.

Intel's 945GSE chipset in particular the gfx, which while not Nvidia/ATI level, beats the living daylights out of the awful offerings on the other machines.

Out of all the UMPCs in this grouping, that alone is the reason to take one of these over the EEE, Wind, HP, Openbook, and others.

The HP is the nearly machine, but not being able to use the webcam fully, not even coping with playing back youtube, and the other 'issues' mean its a miss. A shame, because in quite a few ways, the HP was nearly there. If only this hardware spec had been inside the HP case.

Competition in this area, gleefully for anyone willing to hold on to their hard earned £$ will mean specs rise, prices fall, and in months, not years, we'll see refreshes coming to wipe the floor with whats currently shipping

Wheres the totty? Asus EeePC was brought purely for the hopes of the totty, shame the small print read Model not included xD

I knew him, Acer.

Mines the one with the skull in the pocket

Asus started it, so they got it then they lost it.

Others tried to get it but they didn't get it at all.

But it looks like Acer gets it better than the rest and they will get mine and I will get theirs.

Then it will be smiles all round.

<>Interesting twist on the Microsoft tax: if you want a decent size hdd, you gotta pay for Windows!</>

I don't think we are ready for direct comparisons yet. Once the industry has been sued comprehensively or a starter company can get one in that is direct competition to companies that have made us all pay, things could get interesting.

If one of these goeralongwiths puts out a machine with equal rites and the same price, M$ and ALL the computer sellers that only supplied M$ machines, can be sued successfully.

We'll just haveto wait for the Ubuntu or RedHat people to bring one out.

Now THAT would be interesting. Linux made, with a choice, at market prices.

The phrase "so we ain't going to" comes to mind. Pity the Register can't get it in print. I bet they must have heard it said "off the record" though.

Nice looking beast, shame its supplied by a company who told me I'd invalidated my machine's warranty by installing XP over Vista. The same company who took three weeks to repair a backlight on a two month old Aspire laptop and returned it when I wasn't in, so it went back to Acer to be repaired again. Not to mention the other 1 year old Aspires I have here with failed DVD and hard drives....

Pull the SSD drive and either flog on ebay or use for something else, replace with an 80gb HDD, do my own XP install from one of my spare licenses.

No bloatware and at least £50 saved. Nice.

Having had experience of Acer's warranty service, I really couldn't recommend the brand to anyone. That said, it's a £200 machine with no moving parts (Linux version) and a low-wattage CPU designed to not need much cooling. And with Linux it's very little hassle to rescue your system i(both config and data) if the non-storage hardware croaks. Mo MS Anti-copy bollox to get around.

But ideally it'll just force ASUS up make some price cuts, and I want to see an Eee 1000 before settling on a 900.

Reasonable idea but you will then have to find all the drivers to make XP work with the hardware.

So not quite as easy as you thought?

So why not do the honest thing and at least try the (cheaper) linux version.

You would never go back!

spegru

So ASUS can keep their current prices for another couple of months.