Acer unveils Aspire One Cloudbook range running Windows 10

Ultra low-budget laptops to launch in October

Acer has announced two "online-focused" budget laptops, the Aspire One Cloudbook 11 and Aspire One Cloudbook 14, both of which will come pre-installed with Windows 10 Home.

Starting at £179.99 for the Acer Aspire One Cloudbook 11 and £199.99 for the larger Aspire One Cloudbook 14 - named for their screen size in inches - neither are particularly high-powered machines.

Both include dual-core Intel Celeron N3050 processors at a base clock speed of 1.6GHz, plus 2GB of RAM. The Aspire One Cloudbook 11 will be available with just 16GB or 32GB of built-in storage, whereas the Aspire One Cloudbook 14 will come with 32GB or 64GB.

However, the small, energy-efficient Broadwell CPU allows for fanless designs, resulting in a depth of just 17.9mm. Both devices are also designed to be light, at 1.15kg for the Aspire One Cloudbook 11 and 1.6kg for the Aspire One Cloudbook 14.

In addition to Microsoft's latest operating system, which is otherwise slowly rolling out as a free upgrade to registered Windows users, the Cloudbooks offer one-year subscriptions to Office 365 Personal and 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage - making them potentially viable options for small businesses.

As the Cloudbook name suggests, Acer is looking to compensate for the lack of high-end specs by closely integrating these cloud-based services.

Both devices also include 1366x768 LCD-backlit displays, most likely TFT, as well as full-sized HDMI, USB 3.0, USB 2.0 and SD Card ports. They will launch in the UK in October.

Windows 10 is available as a free upgrade to Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users, and the Acer Aspire One Cloudbooks represent two of the more affordable options for ineligible or non-Windows users hoping to adopt the new operating system.

To put it into perspective, a fresh licence for Windows 10 Home, the cheapest edition available, costs £99.99, half as much as a 32GB Aspire One Cloudbook 14 with the OS already installed.