Acer Aspire One
January 9th, 2009
The wifey gave me an Acer Aspire One for Christmas. The AAO, is a min-laptop, or netbook as this class of computers is often called. It weighs only two pounds or so, and is a full functioning Windows XP computer. Holding it closed in your hand, is like holding an average-sized hardback book.
After playing with this device for a couple of weeks, I love it. It is a perfect little laptop for surfing the internet, blogging, and listening to music. It also would be a wonderful little laptop to use as a dump station if you needed to make more room on your camera’s memory cards, while out in the field.
The screen is an 8.9″ LCD, with a native format of 1024×600. Yes it is a fairly wide small screen, but it is perfect for reading web pages and such. It produces very crisp and clean images and text.
The machine comes with an Intel Atom processor running at 1.6 Ghz, 1 GB of memory, and a 160 GB hard drive. This is not a powerhouse by any means, but it is more than sufficient for the purposes for which it was designed.
I have even played World of Warcraft on this computer some. It runs it fairly well at lower graphics settings, but the writing in the game is a bit small for me to see, and without an external mouse, nearly unplayable. The AAO will run lots of games just fine however, especially older titles, that aren’t as demanding as current releases.
The keyboard is smaller than a regular laptop keyboard of course, but with a little practice, even the fat-fingered such as myself, can type on it. The touchpad is right below the keyboard, and has a button on either side. This is my only gripe about the machine. The buttons on the sides are a bit ackward to click. Using the touchpad to click and double click works very well however, better than most I have dealt with in fact, so this alleviates the button problem for the most part. You can also designate the corners of the touchpad for certain functions, like going to the menu of the current application, minimizing the current window, and so forth. Finally, the touchpad also allows you to scroll using the bottom and right hand edges. This feature is very nice. There is no need to fumble with the arrow keys on this one while reading long web pages.
One interesting aspect of the device is it’s lack of an optical drive. There simply is no way one could be fitted in this configuration. It would just add to the weight and bulk of the machine anyway, which would defeat the purpose of the whole design. There are plenty of other options for transferring data however. You can use the built-in SD reader (perfect for cleaning out the camera’s memory or transfering files. The machine has three USB ports so thumb drives, external hard drive, and external optical drives are all options as well. Obviously if you are on a network or the internet you can transfer files to and from the AAO easily that way as well.
This machine is made for surfing at the coffee shop (not something I ever do) or sitting in a comfy chair on the back porch. It has built wi-fi support of course, and the battery lasts around three hours. Bigger battery packs are avaiable, and I plan on getting one.
As I mentioned mine came with XP, but you can also get a Linux version for slightly less if you are so inclined. Mine cost around $375 I am guessing. That is probably the best argument for the netbooks. They are cheap. You really do get a lot for the money. If you are looking for a desktop replacement, obviously this is not the machine for you. If you need a cool, ultra-portable, second or third computer, you might take a look at them.
