Some of you those pre-ordered the new 10-inch Aspire One may be receiving a little extra bonus, courtesy of Acer. According to company representatives, the first batch of Aspire Ones—including review units—inadvertently shipped with a 5800-mAh (milliamp-hour) six-cell battery. Needless to say, we were very impressed when our system notched 7 hours and 57 minutes of runtime on our LAPTOP Battery Test (continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi).
Turns out, the Aspire One was supposed to ship with a six-cell, 4400-mAh battery, which means it stores much less energy than the 5800-mAh battery (for a better explanation than I can give, go here). While Acer estimates that the 4400-mAh battery will get about 6 hours, our own data suggest that it may be anywhere from 4.5 hours to 5.5 hours. Other netbooks with 4400-mAh batteries, the MSI Wind U100 and Wind U120, got 5:13 and 4:28 hours, respectively, when we ran our battery test on them.
Considering that Acer won't be upping the price for the systems with the larger-capacity battery, those who can snag one of these Aspire One's with extra-long endurance will have something of a collector's item on their hands. Since there's no way to know (without breaking into Acer's inventory system) how many 5800 mAH batteries are out there, it's sort of a crap shoot as to whether you'll get one. For those that do, though, you'll be able to brag that you have the longest lasting netbook to date. How can you tell if you’re one of the lucky ones? Simply pop the battery off the back. If the label reads “5800 mAh,” you’re a winner! So act now! Supplies are limited!
