Less than a week after becoming available, Asus’ EeeBook X205 neo-notebook already has some competition. Say hello to the latest version of Acer’s Aspire E 11, which costs almost exactly the same, at $199.99, and is superficially not all that different from the Asus machine.

Like the EeeBook X205, the Aspire E 11 has an 11.6″ 1366×768 display, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of solid-state storage, and Windows 8.1 with Bing pre-installed. Acer has gone with a dual-core Celeron N2840 processor instead of the quad-core Atom Z3735, though, and it seems to have opted for a smaller battery. Acer quotes a run time of only five hours for the Aspire E 11, compared to 12 hours for the EeeBook X205. Finally, the Acer system is a little heavier, at 2.84 lbs instead of 2.2 lbs.

Since these two notebooks cost basically the same, I’d say the EeeBook X205 is probably the better buy here. The Aspire E 11’s arrival does, however, tell us that Asus isn’t the only player trying to bring netbooks back into style. Perhaps we’ll see more contenders at $199 as the holidays approach.

By the way, the Aspire E 11 is also available in several other variants, which have more RAM and mechanical storage instead of eMMC flash. Prices for those other models start at $249.99. (Thanks to Liliputing for the link.)