Acer's low-priced nicely configured Aspire One netbooks have a commanding netbook marketshare. I guess that's one reason they can take the kind of chances in component choices like the ones for the...

Acer Aspire One 571

Two of the design changes look like winners to me:

- 10.1 inch LCD with a high definition capable (720p) resolution of 1280x720
- They're also using a Qartics Q1721 Multimedia Coprocessor to make up for the Atom N280 processor which is not designed for high end multimedia use

Photo courtesy of Vmedia

Then, there's this head-scratching component:

- Vmedia 32mm (1.26 inch) 1GB optical drive (see photo of its disc above)

I wish Acer and Vmedia with the best of luck promoting this new optical storage system. But, 1GB seems awfully small. And, even the 2GB capacity Vmedia says will be available in about a years seems pretty small compared to the flash drive storage we already have. Then, there's the little matter of Vmedia currently being read-only.