NetbookShow

The Acer Aspire One Happy has been making the rounds in Europe for a little while, showing up at Spanish and Hungarian retail sites last month. Now the mini-laptop is also heading to the UK, where it will sell for about £250, or just under $400 US.

What’s more, the UK version will apparently dual boot Windows 7 and Google Android 2.1. It’s not clear whether the version of the Aspire One Happy on sale in other countries will also feature the dual booting operating systems, although word on the street is that Acer plans to offer Android on all of its upcoming notebooks that have dual core processors. The Aspire One Happy will be available with either a single core Atom N450 processor or a dual core Atom N550 chip.

The netbook features a 10.1 inch display, WiFi, Bluetooth, and optional 3G. The Acer Aspire One Happy supports up to 2GB of memory and will be available with up to 250GB of hard drive space. The computer will be available with pink, purple, lime green, or light blue lids. Aside from the Android option, the colorful lids are probably the most distinctive feature on this laptop.

Notebook Italia reports  that the Happy will be available in Italy in November with a starting price of 349 Euros. Like the UK model, the version shipping in Italy will run both Windows 7 Starter and Google Android.

What goes better with a dual core processor than dual operating systems? Don’t see the connection? Yeah, me either. But DigiTimes is reporting that Acer plans to load both Windows 7 and Google Android on all future laptops with dual core chips.

This isn’t completely out of character for Acer. The company has already released a couple of netbook models running both Windows and Android, but they’ve been the exception and not the rule. But since Google doesn’t charge a licensing fee for Android it doesn’t cost much to throw Android on a separate partition and call it a valued added proposition.

I also suspect that DigiTimes may simply not have all the facts right. Most of Acer’s previous dual boot netbooks were only made available in a limited set of countries. It’s possible the new dual boot Windows and Android laptops could be limited editions which are only sold in certain parts of the globe.

Oh yeah, and no. I have no idea why Acer is reportedly tying the dual boot operating systems to machines with dual core processors. Single core chips handle dual boot systems just as well as multi-core chips, since you’re typically only actually running one operating system at a time. You simply choose which Acer laptop you want at startup.