netbook wanted (in Off-topic)

I want to get my mother in law a netbook for under $400. My first choice would have been the MSI Wind, but although $500 Winds are available, the $400 model seems to be AWOL.

Any advice on sub-$400 models actually in production? There's too many announcements to keep track of which ones are actually available.

"In the United States, the SUSE Linux version will have a SRP of USD$399" - omniscient wiki

Are you sure it's 400+ for a Wind?

As I explained, I'm only counting models you can actually buy.

you can buy those in the U.S., any china town will have those for sale.

I'm sure you can likely pre-order... That counts as "buy"ing, no? Even if not "posessing"

:P

I haven't even seen any reputable site offering a pre-order. But in general, you're only half right: pre-ordering only counts if there is a known release date.

First actually useful reply: the Acer Aspire One is decent, basically same specs as the Wind but 8.9" screen instead of 10 and $375 instead of maybe $400 if you can ever actually buy one: amazon link

Jon, are you committing your next six months to providing IT support to your mother-in-law? Good luck!

I would recommend the Aspire One , if you need it within this month or 2, it seems the best one, since it's cheap and the processor uses Atom, and so on...

All the others still used Celeron, Via, blabla.

Acer Aspire One - $399

8.9" Display
Intel Atom N270 (1.6GhZ)
120GB HD
1GB RAM
Windows XP

If you're looking for something without a SSD this could be an option.

I ended up ordering a Lenovo S10 for my mother in law, which with the 15% off they were running for pre-orders (maybe still are?) fit my 10-inch-screen-for-under-$400.

Then after my emergency backup laptop fried something on its motherboard (literally -- complete with burning smell and smoke) I got an Asus Aspire One for myself, after the price drop to $329 (from $379) for the low-end linux model.