ACER Aspire One - the cute little netbook
The Acer Aspire one!
I bought this one as a present to my wife when she was carrying meenuty.
The specification of the netbook which I bought was,
· 1.6GHz N270 Intel Atom Processor
· 1GB DDR2 533MHz
· Windows XP Home SP3
· 8.9" 1024 x 600 WSVGA glossy LED backlit display
· 160GB HDD
· 802.11b/g Atheros Wireless · 3-Cell 23Wh battery · Memory card slot (2 slots – one for sony memory cards and rest all fit to the other one)
I Loaded: Google Chrome, ITunes, Yahoo messenger, Google talk etc.
1. Build and Design:
The first impression was that the built quality is solid and the construction feels strong (infact it was proved when it was accidently slipped out of my mother’s hand). This is rigid enough to handle the compression is kept inside a bag. The screen cover is also strong to protect the LCD screen. I don’t know how easy it is to dismantle it – because I buy these things to use and not to spoil. If you require the inner hardware details, check some note book review sites. This blog will carry only a review on daily using aspects.
Keyboard is worth mentioning. This is small but I didn’t find any difficulty in typing with that. Initially I faced a problem of missing keys since I am used to type in my Acer 4720g with a normal keypad. How ever a period of time typing in this little monster, I felt the keys are properly placed. No missing of keys was noticed after the initial few weeks.
Multitouch Touchpad.
The touch pad features multi touch. You can increase the picture size and do website zooming (the same function as pressing control and using the scroll button) using the multitouch touchpad. I haven’t seen it in anyother laptops till now (except for HP TX series). The buttons are on the side, rather than on the top or bottom. This sometimes feels odd. However, I don’t use touch pad, but a mouse.
The display is very bright and solid. This is clearly legible in bright sunlight. After all a net book is meant for emailing and internet browsing. I don’t think there is any point in comparing this with a 42inch LCD screen. Overall the screen is clear, visible and color output is excellent. The reading legibility of the screen is very decent. The only thing that made me decide against buying a mini Sony was the screen size. The screen was tooo small to read. I found it difficult to read even the start menu items in Sony. How ever, Acer is neat in doing that.
With the Intel N270 atom processor cloaked at 1.6 Ghz I think the netbook was fast. I loaded google chrome, itunes, and few other software. Still the system didn’t tent to slow down. Its response was very fast. To tell the truth, it is performing faster than my official Toshiba A300 Laptop.
The speaker volume is low (do you expect a net book to give u sound like a HP media station?). The other thing worth mentioning is the webcam attached. It does the job neatly.
Problem I faced: Apart from the good thing above, there are some bad things also. Connecting the wifi to my network was a herculean task. Acer took a lot of time to connect. Even after connecting I had occasional disconnections also. I think that is the software problem. Probably ACER will be coming up with some upgrade to that. It was a nightmare to connect Acer wirelessly to my network!!!
Connectivity:
It has one Lan port, 2 card readers, 3 USB ports, a VGA port and audio jack ports.
Battery life: Battery life is decent. It lasts for two and a half hours on a normal use (with wifi on). If heavy multimedia files are laoded, then it may come down but will how ever last for 2 hours. That’s guaranteed. This computer has solid build quality to handle being tossed around in a backpack or purse, and modest performance to handle common software applications with ease.
Conclusion:
I found this a very good product, value for money. But, ACER if you are listening, please make sure the wifi is connecting properly.
The managed to get the PC benchmarking scores (which determines how better is the performance is) from a popular website.
| CMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance): | |
| | |
| Notebook | PCMark05 Score |
| Sony VAIO TZ (1.20GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600) | 2446 |
| Toshiba Portege R500 (1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600) | 1839 |
| Acer Aspire One (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950) | 1555 |
| Sony VAIO VGN-G11XN/B (1.33GHz Core Solo U1500) | 1554 |
| ASUS Eee PC 900 (900MHz Intel Celeron M ULV) | 1172 |
| Fujitsu LifeBook P7230 (1.2GHz Intel Core Solo U1400) | 1152 |
| ASUS Eee PC 4G (900MHz Intel Celeron M ULV) | 1132 |
| ASUS Eee PC 4G (630MHz Intel Celeron M ULV) | 908 |
| HTC Shift (800MHz Intel A110) - Laptop or mobile? | 891 |
| HP 2133 Mini-Note (1.6GHz VIA C7-M ULV) | 801 |
| ASUS Eee PC 901 (1.60GHz Intel Atom) | 746 |
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