Acer has bucked the trend with the Aspire One.

While the likes of MSI and even Asus are focusing their latest models on the more lucrative £300 market, this little machine is aimed squarely as a replacement to the original Eee 700.

That means the dream features found on the Wind or Eee PC 901 have been ignored in favour of keeping the price low.

A rival to the Eee PC

It's as if Acer interviewed the first batch of Eee PC owners and asked them what would they change about the original machine, and what they would want to stay the same. More powerful processor? Oh, look what Intel has just released, that'll do nicely.

Larger solid state drive? Check, easily sorted. Larger screen supporting a standard resolution? Consider it done. Slightly better designed keyboard? You got it. How about doing these things while maintaining the stunning price point of the original Eee PC? Go on then... if we must.

Price is right

And this is the biggest trick of the Acer Aspire One. Price. While everyone else is off adding features that bump the price tag up, said manufacturers seem to have forgotten why these machines are worth considering in the first place – the price.

£230 isn't a lot to pay for a fully functioning PC that is so utterly versatile, yet weighs just a kilo. Don't be fooled by the size either, this is a keen performer.

Intel's Atom N270 certainly helps to keep things ticking along smoothly, operating at 1.6GHz on full whack, speed-stepping down to 800MHz to help conserve battery life at every opportunity it can.

This is combined with Intel's 945GM chipset to enable the machine to handle media decoding of 720p content.

It's a great way of exhausting battery life of course, but even with the brightness on full, this system still managed just over 100 minutes of continuous use. This leapt to nearer four hours when used for more sober pursuits.

Excellent portability

As you would expect from a sub-notebook, the Acer Aspire One is designed with portability in mind, although the decision to opt for a 3-cell 2200mAh battery as standard does work against it slightly.

Even so, the options for forcing the processor to run at 800MHz are easily accessed, and the brightness settings for the 8.9-inch screen are genuinely usable as opposed to a gimmick.