Looking for an ultraportable system packing a bit more power than your average netbook but at an affordable price tag? The new Acer Aspire 1551 might be right up your alley. Externally, the laptop looks a lot like Acer's Intel-based 1810 Timeline, measuring 11.22 x 8.03 x 1.01 inches with an 11.6" screen, but inside there's a dual-core AMD Turion II K625 processor running at 1.5GHz, alongside 4GB of RAM and an M880G chipset with Radeon HD 4225 integrated graphics.

The K625 CPU is part of AMD's new Nile platform, which is manufactured using 45nm process technology and has a fairly low 15W thermal envelope. Other specs include a 320GB hard drive, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, three USB 2.0 ports, HDMI, multi-card reader, 1.3MP webcam, a 6-cell battery and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.


The Acer Aspire 1551 is available for $550 on Newegg. A lower-end model sporting a 1.3GHz AMD Athlon II Neo K325 processor, 3GB of memory and a 250GB hard drive is also available for $480.