Photos: Acer Aspire One gets 10-inch screen

If there's one thing the world needs, it's another netbook -- or at the very least, a tiny netbook-looking laptop whose manufacturer claims isn't a netbook because the netbook market is so damn cluttered -- Sony, Acer, we're looking at you, and your NETBOOKS.

Acer in particular is under the spotlight today, because it's just released a new 10-inch version of its popular Aspire One. Known in geek circles as the 'AOD150', this model ships in a 1.2kg chassis measuring 260 by 185 by 33mm, making it larger and heavier than the current models' 995g, 249 by 170 by 29mm frame.

The larger screen should make the new One easier to use for long periods, but it won't give you more space to move your application windows around, as it shares the same 1,024x600-pixel resolution. The other significant improvement is a 160GB mechanical hard drive -- a far more useful addition than the paltry 8GB solid-state disk in the previous One.

Acer will sell the new One with a three-cell 2,200mAh battery, so battery life will probably be as bad as before -- and possibly worse because of the larger display. Users who fancy using the One for longer than about 2 hours have the option of buying six-cell 4,400mAh or 5,200mAh batteries.

Acer says the AOD150 will ship in the next couple of months with Windows XP (there's no Linux edition), 1GB of RAM, a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU, plus an integrated 3G SIM card bay for go-anywhere Internet access.

We'll have a full review soon, but in the meantime, check out the pictures by hitting 'Continue'.