I am pleased to announce the newest addition to the family, an Acer Aspire One mini notebook.

Youtube review

I dont currently have any pictures of it that ive taken, but that video shows exactly what it looks like.
In two words: its awesome.

Mine's specs are:

Intel Atom 1.6Ghz single core CPU, with hyperthreading
1.5GB of ram (yes 1.5, most of them have 1 or 0.5)
160GB HDD
3-cell battery.... they say 3 hours lifetime but Id say 2.5 or 2 is more realistic
Preloaded with Linpus linux

Cost: $350 on sale, $393 after taxes and recycling fee.. picked up (wouldve been roughly $440 to my house shipped)... from www.atic.ca .. the windows XP version is more..
The website for the company that i got it from is the only place ive heardof a 1.5 GB version being mentioned, and ive heard that the official ACER site doesnt mention it either but i havent looked personally.

All in all I'm VERY impressed with this netbook... the only cons that I see so far are small.. The battery life isnt great, but then again 2 hours is realistic life for many entry level laptops. I have somewhat of a love affair with Linux, and yet I cant stand the copy that is preloaded, customization is next to nonexistent, and ev en installing ANY new program is very difficult. Also theres no CD/DVD drive, but thats expected in a laptop this size. The only other problem so far is that the Home/End keys are in a weird position..

Other than that, I absolutely love the little thing and can recommend it to anyone. I am 6 foot tall and dont have small hands but there was zero training time to use the keyboard even with my big hands. Once I install XP or a different Linux distro on it I'll love it even more.
I'm not sure hw long the sale is on at www.atic.ca, but presumably it will be til at least January but who knows.

I dont know if i will be crunching BOINC work units on this lappy, I'm a bit wary of leaving it running 24/7 because i dont want it overheating or something, though maybe im way too paranoid as ive never had a laptop before.

Most laptops have overheating problems when left at high CPU usuage for extended periods. To get around this, just crank down the max CPU usage for it and that'll help keep it cool. In the BOINC manager it's under Advanced --> Preferences --> Processor Usage tab --> Use at most xxx.xx % CPU time (right at the bottom!). Since it's a lower end laptop with a small form factor I'd try 60% to start and use monitoring software (good luck getting a good one for that distro!) to ensure your temps are good, and adjust up or down as needed. The BOINC CPU limitation isn't true "throttling" as it'll use 100% CPU for 60% of the time and 0% for 40% (as opposed to 60% usage all the time). Therefore, don't be surprised if you see CPU usage at 100% when you check your system resource usage.

Have fun with your new toy!

Thanks! Actually now that you mention that, I do remember seeing it in the BOINC settings.. Even though it is a very small form factor, it also is a very cool-running CPU so it should run fairly cool, but ill look to see what kind of CPU temp monitoring apps I can find before I keep it crunchin for extended periods. I just know with my luck if I keep it running warm often, then as soon as I hit the 1 year 1 day mark and the warranty is done with, it'll crap out on me.

Though I have heard with this netbook that its very loud compared to other ones with the same specs because its fan seems to run way faster than is necessary, so seeing as the fan sound doesnt bother me whatsoever, I'll take that as a bonus feature

Hi Streen, I've been looking into one of those to use for business, i.e., to carry with me to log all problems & solutions done for my customers. Would you rate it for that purpose? Will not use it for boinc as I consider my farm sufficient for that.