Hi I went to my friend's shop and checked out the PC. Its performance is really good. However, it is a little heavier than the previous model I purchased (Acer TravelMate 290E). It is really fast, very good graphics. The final price I think should be around 33K. (Get Vashi billing, with mumbai address, carry on own - so no octrio paid, tell them you dont need them to install anything and so wont pay installation charges and dont need their carry bag - there are equally good cheaper bags available in shops) The only problem is that the wifi chip they use does not have an linux driver at present. The chip is (I understand from friends) capable of transmitting in any frequency (including milerary reserved frequency) and the US govt has asked the company not to release the chip specifications to opensource till they can get a workround for the problem. The website says that the driver should be available in 2 months time. Acer is not a popular brand, but I find their performance very good, and the price - performance ratio is really attractive. We plan to acquire 2 of them for our office and would like to add up orders from anyone else wanting it to get volume price advantages. Regards Saswata Binulal Narayanan wrote:

Binulal Narayanan wrote: Hello: Just wanted to give a heads up with this old post of mine. Thanks to all ( especially to Saswata, for the guidance - "Waiting a little before buying a Laptop never hurts" ) After a month's wait, I just bought an Acer Aspire 3002 , which has the same configuration as the discontinued Acer Aspire 1362. Config is "AMD Sempron 2800+, 256MB DDR333, 15" XGA TFT, 40GB HDD, DVD/CD-RW Combo." To draw a small comparison - 1) the 1362 was 3.6 Kg, the 3002 is 2.8 kg. The Acer guy (I hate to mention the name) told me that the 1362 had a bad design (problem?), and hence the weight . I'd like to mention that around forty 1362's were sold off last month. Hope they won't say my 3002 have the same prob when they introduce the next in the line ! 2) 3002 has sleeker case/look 3) As far as I know 3002 uses a VIA K8N800 mobo, 1362 had VIA K8M800 The distro that comes with the 3002 is "Linpus Linux - www.linupus.com " from Taiwan - running linux-2.6.7. X hasn't come up yet. Still working on it :) And now the best part of it- the price. All the Acer Retailers ask for 35000 to 36500; And this is the same price at which they sold most of the 1362's. But I got it for 33800 from Fdisk India P.L. -reseller - ( 30000 for laptop + 2500 for carrying charges, freight and carry bag + 1300 as 4% VAT.) They didn't charge any octroi. Good people. I think it was a fair deal for both of us. That's all for now Thank you Binulal Narayanan