Acer Aspire One to Sport Intel Atom, 3G Web

The much-rumored Acer Aspire one will make use of Intel's latest mobile processor, come with 3G capability in the future, and start at just $379.

After months of heavy speculation about a new ultra-low-cost PC out of Acer to be dubbed the Aspire one, the Taiwanese company came through on Tuesday by revealing full specs on the machine that are sure not to disappoint rumormongers. The latest Asus Eee competitor will be among the first to use Intel’s new Atom processor, will support 3G Internet access in the future, and will ring in well under $400 in its cheapest configuration.

The Aspire one uses the same tiny clamshell design as the Eee and its clones, but Acer has attempted to spice it up with a choice of four colors: sapphire blue, seashell white, golden brown and coral pink (although only the first two will be available upon launch). The machine also gets a 8.9-inch screen, up to 1GB of memory, and can be equipped with either an 8GB NAND flash module or a 80GB hard drive.

Acer promises that one of the Aspire one’s main attractions, its Intel Atom processor, will endow it with six hours of battery life – but only with an optional six-cell battery that doubles the life of the standard three-cell battery. Its other killer feature, 3G capability, will not appear as an option until later this year.

Buyers will be able to order the Aspire one with either Windows XP or Linpus Linux Lite, a tweaked version of Linux that Acer claims is both responsive and easy to use. Other software will include OpenOffice 2.3, along with generic mail and messaging packages.

The Aspire one will appear sometime in the third quarter of 2008 with prices starting at $379.