Acer Aspire One

Radio Shack is now offering one of the carrier-supplied netbooks we recently highlighted, the AT&T Acer Aspire One netbook, at a very low price. The retailer is charging $50 for the 9-inch netbook with a two-year, $60-per-month data plan.

That’s at least $200 less than you’d likely pay to buy the Acer without a contract, and even less than the $99 that AT&T is charging for the device, also in exchange for a contract commitment.

But there’s a catch. If you buy the Acer from AT&T, you can take the lowest-cost data plan, which costs $40 a month. Bought from Radio Shack, you must take the $60 monthly plan.

The pricier plan does allow you to upload or download much more data each month, and so avoid costly data-overage charges on the 3G network the device uses. However, with any AT&T data plan, the $40 cellular data plan may be all most customers need. That's because AT&T allows customers to hop onto its ubiquitous network of Wi-Fi hotspots at no extra cost, and data that moves over such Wi-Fi connections does not count towards the data limits of the AT&T plans.

Upshot: The Radio Shack price is a better deal only if you know you’ll need the $60 plan. If that is the case, act quickly; the retailer says its offer is, at present, good only until stock of the Acer is exhausted at Radio Shack stores.  —Mike Gikas