On this occasion, it isn’t the hardware I was interested in, but the software. For this is the first netbook PC Pro has seen to include Android as the OS, and the big question is – just how well can an operating system designed to work on a phone work on a full-blown PC?

The answer is, from my initial experiences, not very convincingly. This photo shows all the apps that are bundled as standard, which as you can see won’t stun you. There’s a photo gallery, Mozilla Firefox, a camera app, a horrendously basic music player, email – and that’s pretty much your lot.

Once I’d convinced the Aspire to join the wireless network, browsing was a fairly pleasant experience – so long as you don’t try and do anything rash, such as watch BBC iPlayer (I couldn’t get this to work).

I was impressed by the boot-up times, though, with the netbook living up to Acer’s promise of booting within 30 seconds. Battery life appears pretty poor, though, and I wouldn’t expect it to last much more than two hours.

If you want to move away from Android then you can instantly boot into Windows, but I couldn’t find a way to swap from Windows 7 to Android: there’s nothing built into Acer’s installation of Windows 7 that allows this (although there is a Quick Switch option from Android).

Aside from the software, the Acer Aspire One D520 does have some appeal: it’s slim and light, and definitely has more than a hint of style. The maroon finish here is particularly nice, to my eyes at least.

I’ll now be haranguing Acer so we can get a sample to fully test in the Labs, so look out for a review soon.

Once upon a time, manufacturers would launch one product at a time, allowing you to soak up the details pass comment and have time for reflection. Some, however, insist on the scatter gun approach.

And Acer, having just announced a new netbook, six new laptops, two nettops, and several all-in-one PCs, including a Windows 7-equipped touchscreen model (which a spokesman said would be on the shelves on October 23) fall firmly into the latter category. First on show was the new Timeline series of laptops (pictured above), a range targeted firmly at consumers and focused on long battery life. We weren’t bowled over by the looks – all silver-grey with very little concession to style – but we did like the feel of the machines. The aluminium lid felt pleasingly cold to the touch and the low-profile keyboard with its scrabble-style keys was nice to type on.

And with prices promised to start at £549 for the 13.3in model, added to eight-hour plus claimed battery life, things look more interesting still. There are three chassis in the range: that 13.3in model (3810T/3810TG) plus 14.1in (4810T/4810TG) and 15.4in (5810T/5810G) models. All employ Intel Centrino 2 Utra Low Voltage processors, boast LED backlit screens and, interestingly, boast “multi-gesture” trackpads, which allow Mac-alike pinch-to-zoom actions. Though we didn’t like these much.

Next up were the new netbooks: a 10.1in model and a larger 11.6in model the Aspire One 751. The former looks like pretty standard netbook fare, but the latter is more interesting.

As with the Timeline series, it boasts scrabble-style low profile keys, that stretch all the way to the edge of the chassis and, from the brief encounter we had with it, was very nice to type on.

Also interesting, but not necessarily in a good way, was the fact that the 11.6in netbook runs on Intel’s 1.33GHz Z520 Atom. In our experience performance with this processor is even slower than a standard 1.6GHz N270. It’s unlikely to be any different here.

That’s before we get to the Revo – a nettop based on Nvidia’s Atom-based Ion platform. Acer was showing off Call of Duty 4 being played on one of these and it looked pretty smooth. There are those new all-in-one desktops, too, with touchscreens and Windows 7 on board. The pictures looked nice in the presentation, but alas there weren’t any to play with at the event.

What were on show, but sadly neglected in the excitement over the netbooks and Timeline laptops, were a couple of the new Aspire range of laptops, which looked very nice indeed. These are set to replace the home entertainment-focussed  Gemstone Blue. More subtly styled this time around, these laptops boast glowing keyboards, striking looks and familiar-looking crazy media controls to the right of the keyboard.

All of which we’ll be getting in for a thorough going over, of course, just as soon as we can. So be sure to check back soon for our full reviews.

Straight away it feels sturdier than the Eee, more like a real laptop in its build quality. The curvy lid has a smooth sheen and uses a slightly different type of hinge – set back like a VAIO to make for a thinner lid. The 8.9in 1,024 x 600 screen matches the Asus, yet the more grown-up styling moves it away from that laptop’s my-first-PC feel.

Other than the extra inch or so in the Acer’s width, the keyboards of the two are almost identical: the Acer has its cursor keys slightly offset from the rest to make room for a larger shift key, and also includes the right-CTRL key the Asus lacks. It still retains the annoying half-height Enter key though, something we’ve yet to see a mini-notebook overcome.

The touchpad is responsive in use but it’s a bit too squashed and narrow for comfort, and we can’t stand Acer’s positioning of the mouse buttons either side of it. It’s fiddly and hard to get used to, particularly as there’s a large enough gap beneath the pad to fit them on the edge of the base.

The One comes with 802.11g Wi-Fi, 10/100 Ethernet and three USB ports spread over both sides. There’s a VGA output and two 3.5mm audio connectors, and we were intrigued to see two memory card slots, only one of which acts as a standard 8-in-1 reader.

The other is for storage expansion: when the internal hard disk is getting full, just pop in an SD card and the Acer will integrate it – rather than showing up as a separate drive, you’ll see the hard disk capacity grow as the two are combined. A nice touch, but we’re waiting to hear from Acer how the One ensures important application files aren’t spread across the two – removing the card at a later date could surely render apps useless.

The Acer uses the 1.6GHz Atom N270 processor, so we’ll be interested to see how long the battery lasts. Options start from an incredible £199 inc VAT, which includes the Linpus Linux Lite installation, 512MB of memory and an 8GB NAND flash drive. Others will be available up to £299, which gets you Windows XP Home, 1GB of RAM and an 80GB hard disk.

First impressions are positive to say the least, and we’re currently busy brushing off our benchmarks and getting our XP disks out to see just how it does. Will it be faster than the Eee? The smaller amount of RAM suggests not – although models at prices closer to the £319 of the Eee PC 901 will come with a more sensible 1GB – and the 4,400mAh battery also packs less juice than the Asus.

But we’ll wait for the full results before we cast judgement, so check back for a full review next week.

Click here to see a hands-on video from the Acer launch at the start of June.