Acer has started shipping its Aspire 1551. The 11.6 inch notebook has better specs than a typical netbook. Still, it is cheaper than most thin and light notebooks on the market.

The Acer Aspire 1551-5448 is powered by a 1.5GHz AMD Turion II Neo K625 dual core processor with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4225 graphics. The powerful ATI graphics will give the machine enough oomph to handle 1080p HD video playback. And with the dual core processor, you should be able to get decent performance.

Other specifications include 4GB of DDR3 memory, a 320GB, 5400rpm hard drive, 1.3 megapixel webcam, Dolby sound system, multi-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader, WiFi 802.11b/g/n, Gigabit Ethernet, 3 USB 2.0 ports, HDMI port and multi-gesture touchpad. The notebook runs Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit operating system. It ships with a 6-cell battery rated at 4400 mAh. Acer claims that you will get around 5 hours of battery life.

The Aspire 1551 measures around 1 inch in thickness and weighs just over four pounds. It is now available for purchase from Amazon
and some other retailers. Prices start at $550.

The Toshiba Satellite T200 series notebooks are now available for under $500. These are thin and light machines with low power processors and many of them were on display at Computex, a few weeks ago.

The Toshiba Satellite T215 has an 11.6 inch HD display with 1366 x 768 pixels. It is powered by an AMD Athlon II Neo processor (both single core and dual core versions are available) with ATI graphics, 2GB of RAM, 320GB storage and Windows 7 Home Premium.

The Satellite T215 weighs around 3.3 pounds. The laptop will cost $470 with the single core processor and $500 with the dual core processor.

The 13.3 inch Satellite T235 will be available with your choice of an AMD Neo (Athlon II or Turion II) or an Intel Pentium Dual Core U5400 processor. This model will cost $549 with the AMD processor and $629 with Intel inside. It weighs around 3.9 pounds. Both Satellite T215 and T235 are available in red, black and white.

Availability

Both models will be available on June 20 for a starting price of $469.99.

Source: Engadget