[ubuntu-uk] EeePC 900A vs Acer Aspire One

[Rob Beard]

Hi folks,

Okay so all this talk of Windows free laptops got me thinking about 
plumping for a cheapo netbook to tide me over until next year when I can 
afford something a bit more powerful.

Looking at Tesco's (Tesco Direct) web site at the moment they have two 
options which are in my price range (under £200).

The cheapest option is the 8.9" Asus EeePC 900A N270 with 1GB Ram and an 
8GB SSD.  It doesn't say what CPU it has (I presume it would be the 
1.6GHz single core Atom?).  This one in white or black is £194.

The next option up is the Aspire One A110L with 512MB Ram and an 8GB 
SSD.  This also mentions N270, so presumably this is the same CPU as the 
EeePC 900A?

The Aspire One A110L is £198.

Now I was leaning towards the Aspire One due to it having two SD card 
slots (I figured I could pop in 2 x 8GB SD cards for extra storage space 
- not that I need much anyway on a laptop/netbook).  The one thing that 
is putting me off is forking out for another 512MB memory (I wasn't sure 
how many slots they have).

So I was wondering generally what they are like.  Does the battery last 
long, what are they like performance wise?

I'm not expecting the same sort of performance as a Core 2 Duo but I 
could do with something speedy enough to run Java applets (LogMeIn 
remote control software) and Firefox/Thunderbird.

Rob