I checked out the Circuit City in Victor, NY on my lunch break and saw that they had a blue Aspire One locked in a display cabinet with a sale price tag of $309 on it. I asked the guy if I could try it out because I had never even seen one in person before (I'm actually from Canada). He told me that he didn't even know why they had it and that they had discontinued the model and hadn't sold one "in a couple years." I obviously knew he didn't know what this thing even was and then I was suprised that he said he could sell it for $280 because it was a display unit!
I told him that I would be back later on and asked if it might disappear before then. He said I had nothing to worry about. I spent the afternoon reading this forum on all the mods and upgrades to do to it and then when I finally went back I got them to bring out the box of accessories so I could make sure I had the battery and sleeve. While I was waiting another guy came buy and was hanging around the display case and seriously looked like he would snatch it up ASAP. They brought out a plain carboard box but it had all the stuff in it and it was all still sealed. Because the original guy wasn't around I was still able to get them to sell it to me at the discounted price while the other buyer walked away because they didn't have any more.
Regardless, I picked up a brand new blue AA1 for $280+tax which was a few cents under $300, crazy 10% NY taxes. It works perfectly, I typed this all on it! I'll be buying a 1GB stick of RAM and probably putting a Bluetooth module in later on along with putting XP or even Vista on it as well. I doubt I'll change the drive unless XP or Vista is unuseable. The 30GB iPod drives go for really cheap on eBay so that's probably the way to go.
I told him that I would be back later on and asked if it might disappear before then. He said I had nothing to worry about. I spent the afternoon reading this forum on all the mods and upgrades to do to it and then when I finally went back I got them to bring out the box of accessories so I could make sure I had the battery and sleeve. While I was waiting another guy came buy and was hanging around the display case and seriously looked like he would snatch it up ASAP. They brought out a plain carboard box but it had all the stuff in it and it was all still sealed. Because the original guy wasn't around I was still able to get them to sell it to me at the discounted price while the other buyer walked away because they didn't have any more.
Regardless, I picked up a brand new blue AA1 for $280+tax which was a few cents under $300, crazy 10% NY taxes. It works perfectly, I typed this all on it! I'll be buying a 1GB stick of RAM and probably putting a Bluetooth module in later on along with putting XP or even Vista on it as well. I doubt I'll change the drive unless XP or Vista is unuseable. The 30GB iPod drives go for really cheap on eBay so that's probably the way to go.
