"The most basic model of the Acer Aspire One can be found for
£179 in Britain and around $300 in America. It simply
switches on and runs with the minimum of fuss. It has 8 gigabytes
(GB) of flash storage and 512 megabytes of RAM, which is a bit
puny. But that is perfectly adequate to run the customised version
of Linux that comes pre-installed on it, along with a suite of
software, including Open Office. With no hard drive, and a switch
to turn off the wireless connection (not the fastest in the world),
power can be conserved. So a bigger, bulkier battery may not be
necessary either, unless you want to use the computer untethered
for long periods. Because it boots up in a few seconds, rather than
thinking of the Acer as a mini laptop it might make more sense to
view it as a beefed-up personal digital assistant, such as an old
PalmPilot or Psion, but with a better screen and a proper
keyboard."
