I've been waiting until I had a few months under my belt before I reviewed the Acer Aspire One (6-cell). I've had it for about three months now, and I feel I can offer a true and informative review for potential purchasers.
Value - First off, let me say that $325-$375 for a Windows XP laptop with a 6-cell battery is just an outstanding price. As you've no doubt read above, this comes with 160gb of hard drive storage, a full WinXP home install, and a 2-month trial of McAfee, as well as an MS Office trial. I deleted the Office trial and installed an older version with a USB drive. McAfee is a bit expensive to renew, I will probably go with ZoneAlarm. But anyway, $375 is a great deal for a fully featured PC laptop with this much storage.
Keyboard - I'm very pleased with this keyboard. It's about 90 percent the size of a normal keyboard. After an hour, you'll be typing nearly as fast as you would on a larger keyboard. I estimate I can get up to 50wpm on it, with only a few more errors than on a big keyboard. It also has dedicated Page up and Page down buttons by the arrows, which are very helpful for browsing. The only drawback is no numpad - but what do you expect for a laptop that is ten inches wide?
Mouse - The trackpad works fine, and it includes a neat function where you can simulate mouse clicks by tapping (or double tapping). This is a good thing, because the buttons themselves are atrocious. You'll definitely want to pick up a good USB mouse if you are going to be doing any serious mouse work. The trackpad also has scrolling functions along the right and bottom sides. They are convenient, but sometimes a tad difficult to get to work reliably. Either way, a nice addition.
Fan Noise - Not as quiet as a MacBook, but it is quieter than most PC laptops I've experienced. It generally runs at a steady hum. It's about as loud as a normal PC tower. It certainly doesn't overpower other sounds such as a TV, conversation, or music.
Heat - The Aspire one generates a bit of heat in the bottom left corner, to the left of the trackpad. It is not excessive, though. Probably about 85 degrees, tops. There is another slightly cooler hotspot just above and to the right of the trackpad. I assume these hotspots are where the CPU and RAM are housed. Overall, this is a bit cooler than most laptops.
Boot speed - I was very pleasantly surprised here. It's 30 seconds or less to wireless connectivity. This boots faster than my WinXP PC, which has much more CPU horsepower. I am endeavoring to not load the Acer up with any extras just to preserve this fast boot speed!
Multitasking - The Acer has no problem handling multiple applications - let's say Firefox, Excel, and a picture viewer, all up at once. As long as you manage your expectations (Photoshop, iTunes, and high-res video from Quicktime might not all play at once...), you should not be disappointed.
Wireless - The Acer picks up my home network without a hitch. The router is probably 150 feet away, with 1 or 2 walls blocking it. Detection is automatic, and then you just type in your passkey. Then it automatically hooks up to this network upon bootup. A switch on the front right turns wireless on and off.
Gaming - I have installed Fallout 1, Civilization 2, Sim City 3000, and several emulators like MAME onto the Acer. It handles all of them with no lag whatsoever. Again, I think it you manage expectations, you will be pleased. You're not going to run Crysis on this thing. But it handles older PC software (1995-2000?) without any issues at all. So get busy with classic gaming!
Video - The Aspire One handles WMV and MPEG files with aplomb. Youtube plays just fine. Netflix streaming also plays without a hitch. Some sites' videos seem to chug more than others - but this seems to be a server side issue, not a local issue. Overall, I was very pleasantly surprised on this score.
LCD Display - The 9-inch display is very bright. VERY bright! It should be relatively easy to see what you need to outdoors, in class, or on a plane. It doesn't have the best off-angle viewing, but it is very capable for what it is. Most webpages fit the dimensions of the screen, 1024x600. It is widescreen, so you will scroll quite a bit vertically. But that's really not an issue - all widescreen displays have this drawback. Brightness is easily adjustable through shortcut keys, to optimize battery life. Off angle viewing is not great on this LCD. But this is a problem with many laptops, and I wasn't expecting a home theater-quality display on a budget laptop.
Battery Life - With wireless turned off and brightness at default, you'll probably get 8 hours. With wi-fi on, more like 5-6. It all depends on what you are doing. The figures above are normal multitasking numbers. If you're watching video, probably a bit less. Overall, great performance any way you slice it.
Build Quality - My happiest surprise is how solid and sturdy this laptop feels. The clamshell LCD never feels flimsy, it is nice and thick. The base is very solid and the rubber feet do a great job of keeping the laptop steady on a table. 3 USB ports, a VGA port, and 2 flash memory slots (including one multi-port) round out a great package.
Summary -- Incredible value, great performance for normal everyday tasks (not high-end gaming or graphic design), a few things to get used to (smaller keyboard and monitor, some fan noise). This is an ideal travel laptop, a great laptop to get for your kids, and a great computer for school or around the house. If you're a PC person who has never taken the plunge into a laptop, this is a no-brainer as a capable satellite for your home network. If you're sick of laptops that poop out on you, this is a great cheap alternative. As long as you know how to get around the lack of an optical drive, you can install whatever you like on this, making it essentially a fully functioning PC. If I did not need an optical drive for copying and installing software, I could live without my desktop quite easily with the Acer Aspire One. I can't think of a better endorsement than that.
Get more detail about Acer Aspire One AOA150-1049 8.9-Inch Netbook (1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 Processor, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, XP Home, 6 Cell Battery) Black.
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