Acer has a number of low-cost notebooks, but I’m going to look at the Aspire 3680-2682 because it’s under $500 and includes some nifty features. (That said, the company has some pretty unhappy customers out there, if the reviews on PriceGrabber are any indication. More on that shortly.)

This machine — not exactly ultra-portable with its 14.1″ display and 5.3 pound heft — includes both Ethernet and wireless (802.11 b/g) connectivity, a CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive, a 1.86 GHz processor, and slots for any little thing you’d like to plug in — MMC, SD, xD and Type I and II PC cards. Although it holds up to 2Gb of RAM, it comes with 512Mb. Since it’s running Vista Home as the operating system, that’s sufficient, but not blazing.

Now for those reviews. MarkLawless from CA had a major difficulty in getting wireless to work. Even a replacement receiver was defective. Mark calls the device a “good basic laptop,” but he thinks the Atheros wireless card is “junk.”

funkmonk from CA bought an Acer at a retail clearance sale and finds his computer “very slow. More troubling, the unit goes into emergency hibernate after a couple of hours of life. “On the bright side,” he writes, “it’ll play or stream my music or videos without any issues.” Next time, he says, he’ll spend an extra $100 or $150 to get a bit more.

Finally, jd_e from OR was “expecting more from this laptop.” The system, according to jd, is “low and periodically does not respond or delays response for up to a minute, particularly when loading software or adding hardware.” Otherwise, the reviewer notes, “it works just fine.”

In a few months Acer will be launching its Aspire One, which comes in at 2.2 pounds and includes either Linux or Windows XP. Some of the performance issues may disappear with this new release. That won’t help those who have already bought units, but it’ll be worth some side-by-side comparisons for those of you who are simply in look-see mode right now and wouldn’t mind going either alternative or back to the past for your OS…