The members of the Aspire One netbook series from consumer electronics company Acer Inc. are designed to be ultraportable and inexpensive, perfect for light computer work or for carrying around. The ZG5 belongs to this line-up, with a pre-installed Windows XP operating system and a price tag too low to pass up.

Released in 2011, the Acer Aspire One ZG5 weighs 2.2 pounds and sports an 8.9-inch LED-backlit and glossy LCD screen that provides a resolution of 1,024 by 600 pixels. For handling multitasking, the mini-notebook is supported by the single-core 1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 central processing unit (CPU) and 1 GB of DDR2 RAM. And since it has two RAM slots—with one occupied and the other vacant—you can expand the memory to 1.5 GB for a boost in performance. This would be especially great for the integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950, the graphics processing unit (GPU) that takes care of the computer’s graphics and video, since it uses some of its RAM.

The Acer Aspire One ZG5 has an 802.11 b/g network adapter for getting on the Internet wirelessly. For wired connectivity, however, Acer includes a 10/100 Ethernet port, with speeds of up to 100 megabits per second (Mbps). In addition to the Ethernet port, the Zg5 has a VGA output for hooking up an external monitor, and two USB 2.0 ports for connecting peripherals like printers and wireless mice.

For storing your files, the Acer Aspire One ZG5 comes with a 160 GB hard disk drive. That’s sufficient for all your Word documents, music, and pictures. There’s also a slot at one of the netbook’s sides for accommodating the following brands of flash memory cards: Secure Digital, MMC, Memory Stick, and xD.

Check online today for retail or electronics stores that carry the Acer Aspire One ZG5.