Acer cutting orders on 11.6” Aspire One 751 due to poor sales
June 3, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Acer is reportedly reducing volumes of its 11.6-inch Aspire One 751 netbook due to disappointing sales. Industry sources say that sales of the 11.6-inch netbook have not met expectations, with consumers picking 10-inch models instead, that offer better mobility.
Quanta Computer who manufactures the netbook is said to be winding down volumes. This seems like a strange move, especially since the 751 (or AO751h as it is known in the US) has not yet made it to US shores. Pre-orders only recently went up from our quick look around. Demand may start to pick up as the price inevitably declines.
The Aspire One 751 has mainly been criticised for poor hardware performance (mainly down to the Z520 Atom processor), despite offering an attractive and slim chassis with high-resolution display.
June 3rd, 2009 2:07 PM
yes. beside the weak cpu {which does not seem to be weak when running xp} there is an issue with the graphics chip. in short: undocumented intel GMA 500. therefore no linux support, meaning no native resolution, meaning does not matter if the LCD is 1366 wide, only 1024×768 is supported in linux. more on my blog.m
June 3rd, 2009 2:34 PM
I’ll look at buying something like the 751 and what took the 751 out of the running is limp CPU, poor keyboard & poor build quality. My Acer laptop (15inch) has become dodgy and unreliable way too early. That chassis wasn’t particularly robust and I doubt that the big 751 netbook’s is either. That said, I find the small Aspire One to be much more solid.
I wasn’t aware of the poor Linux support.
June 3rd, 2009 7:07 PM
mrn has a point. I will be bying an 11″ – 12″ netbook as soon as one comes out with good Linux support. All the ones that have come out so far (at least in my country) have not fully functional graphics drivers, such as the ones from Dell and Samsung).
June 3rd, 2009 9:11 PM
I expect to buy an 11″ netbook. Buts it going to have to have a 1.6GHz or better CPU–sorry, but the Atom in my Mini 9 is barely acceptable. Its going to have to have decent battery life. Hey, there’s more room in the chassis for an extra cell or two. Its going to have to be 1″ thick or less. Its going to have to have a full sized right shift key. Its going to have to have ~720p screen resolution.
If you can’t do all of these things in a netbook at this point, you shouldn’t be playing!
I’ll be waiting for Windows 7 and Pineview, so it’ll be the second half of this year at least…
June 4th, 2009 8:03 PM
I have the Acer Aspire One 10″ running Fedora 10 and really like it. (Unfortunately they never got around to shipping a Linux config at a proper price point so Acer and I paid Microsoft a license fee for no reason other than the gutless US “justice” department not enforcing the laws…)
I was quite interested in something similar with a higher resolution screen…. (But if the screen does not have proper Linux support they can forget it…) I refuse to be XP’d on…
June 29th, 2009 7:11 PM
Good news guys, there is a driver for the gma500, so linux definitely is an option. It’s not too hard to get going, google around. In fact i’m typing this on my ubuntu 9.04-running 751. Apart from suspend and hibernate, everything is working right out of the box. I really like this machine. Beautiful screen, full-sized keyboard and great batterylife.
I suspect (and hope) this is in the next official distro.
September 28th, 2009 7:30 PM
I saw it in local store today. I did like the size and guess I had bought it if it came with Linux. Any tips for a 11-12 inch low prised linux machine?