Acer AO521 – powerful 10 incher, with AMD inside

Intel hardware can be found on a vast majority of the existing netbooks these days. And although AMD is present in the 11.6 inch and 12 inch segments, AMD powered mini laptops are almost completely absent in the 10 inch class. However, this might change in the future, as AMD preps a new platform ready to compete with the ATOMs and one of its first implementations will be on the recently announced Acer Aspire One 521.

Acer are at the moment the biggest netbook sellers in the world, mostly based to their smart price policies. Now, with the AO521, they will be able to offer a more potent 10 incher than the standard exiting netbooks with ATOM N450, hopefully while keeping price below 400 bucks.

The Aspire One 521 will be powered by an AMD V105 processor, a single-core CPU clocked at 1.2 GHz, with 512 KB L2 Cache, DDR3 support and 9W TDP. Will come paired with the AMD M880G chipset and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4225 graphics. This is just an minor updated version of the HD4200, so don’t expect too much out of it. However, when compared to Intel solution for 10 inch netbooks (GMA 3150), this one will be far superior in term of performance, being able to handle HD content (720p for sure, maybe even 1080p) and some games. Of course, it probably won’t be a competitor for the Nvidia ION platform (not even the 8 Cuda Cores one), but it will also be cheaper. Anyway, we’ll find more on performance levels once this AMD platform gets some benchmarks, probably be next month.

Acer AO521 - improved looks and powerful AMD hardware

The Acer AO521 is expected to offer up to 7 hours battery life, which might not sound that impressive when compared to the likes of Asus 1005PE or Toshiba NB305, but is still pretty good for an AMD powered device. Plus, Acer plans to add some new features, like Bluetooth 3.0+HS, HDMI output and an ultra-compact power adapter with interchangeable plugs. And in terms of design and build quality, the AO 521 seems quite nice for an Acer (compare it to the current Acer AO532 to see the differences), with a solid matte finish and big keyboard, as you can see from the picture above.

That’s all we know for sure, but I for one consider the Acer Aspire One 521 a mini laptop we should keep an eye on. No exact info on availability and prices are available for the moment, but stay tuned for updates.

Source: Macles

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Tags: 10" netbook, Acer, Acer Aspire, AMD

Last updated: April 23, 2010 | Published: April 19th, 2010 | Add the first comment!