Slimmer Acer Aspire One ZG8 / A0530 at the FCC

Acer Aspire One 10-inch We’ve been hearing about the rumors and leaked information since last month, and now we have some confirmation – This new netbook/ultraportable has now shown up at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for testing of its communications hardware (WiFi, etc.). The document dates are listed as March 9, 2009, with some of the submission documents listing March 4, 2009 in the headers, while some of the documentation lists application dates of February 11, with test dates of February 27, 2009.

One of the documents lists this information:
We, Acer Inc, hereby declare that ZG8, Aspire one, AO530 (model name) can not be used for operation of HSUPA and CDMA2000 1xRTT/EV DO function. The HSUPA and CDMA2000 1xRTT/EV DO functions of this EUT are disabled by firmware control, which the users cannot enable it.

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Adding eSATA to an Acer Aspire One (tnkgrl)

If adding a touchscreen to your 8.9-inch Acer Aspire One wasn’t enough, tnkgrl Mobile has put together the 4th part in their ongoing series on modding the AAO. This time around, it’s a really major mod/upgrade, but it wasn’t as difficult as some mods. She’s … Read more

Netbooks Boosting Cloud Computing?

Jason Hiner at ZDNet, has written an article, “Are netbooks quietly driving us toward cloud computing?” He’s laid out a case that not only are netbooks/subnotebooks bucking the current trends of the PC industry (shrinking sales with some companies), but that they are poised to … Read more

Asus Eee PC Shell in April, Plus New 1000HE Colors

DigiTimes/Commercial Times is reporting that Asustek will be launching it’s new slim/ultra-thing netbook later this year, in April. It’s going to be somewhere above the 10-inch Asus Eee PC S101 as far as features and battery life. DT also mentions it being “easier to carry” … Read more

More on the Slimmer / Slimline Acer Aspire One

Acer Aspire One 10-inch There’s been some talk and some images popping up about a slimmer than usual Acer Aspire One. Macles had a few photos, along with speculation that it would be packing a Solid State Drive (SSD) or similar flash memory-based storage in order to keep the size of the profile down, as well as moving some of the ports around.

An anonymous reader of NetbookNews.de has sent them quite a bit of information along with photos that are clearly not publicity or marketing stills – they show the machine in use, as well as closeups of the ports. They claim it’s got a normal Intel Atom N270 (1.6GHz) CPU under the hood, and is based on the current 945GME chipset (ICH7).

Just as important – they claim it’s got a 160GB HDD, which you would think might add to the bulk, however if the measurements they gave NetbookNews.de are accurate, namely the thickness of 0.9 inches / 24 mm, then it is indeed quite a bit slimmer than the 10″ Acer Aspire Ones that are currently shipping.

The keyboard layout resembles the current 10.1-inch Acer Aspire One, although the Synaptics touchpad looks larger. In one of the photos you can clearly see the SD Expansion slot, something that was dropped between the 10″ and 8.9″ Acer Aspire One.

Some notes on the “Slimline” Acer Aspire One AAO:

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