Acer Aspire One Netbook: not as expensive as it used to be

Sigh. Hot on the heels of me buying my Acer Aspire One netbook, Acer has decided it needs to be more competitive in this highly saturated netbook market and has announced price drops, and pretty considerable ones at that.

So instead of the $379 you might be expected to pay for the linux netbook, it’s going to be $329, while the standard Windows netbook, formerly at $399, is now going to be $349. An interesting note that is that Acer has also announced the 6 cell battery model, which also features a 160GB HDD, for $399 (shipping with Windows).

Acer must be feeling the heat of Dell who should be launching their Dell Mininote (Dell Inspiron 910?) netbook any time soon, and Lenovo who has been getting a lot of press with their Lenovo S10 netbook. Of course, until the reviews really start rolling in, it’s hard to say how the Acer Aspire One netbook will compare, but for now, the linux model at $329 is a bargain.

I’m not 100% positive, but I think at $329, this may be the lowest priced ~9″ netbook out there, or at least the lowest priced one from a major manufacturer. The Eee 900 can go for around $379, and while you can find the smaller Eees at under $300, pretty much every other major netbook is going for $400+. This is bound to drum up some sales for Acer, assuming the price cuts get out into the wild in a hurry.

I’m going to see if I can get a refund as soon as Circuit City updates their prices, assuming they do.

Engadget has the press release.

On a side note, I’m wondering if I have a little bit of the Leo Laporte effect in me, only with Acer instead of Apple.