I'm using my wife's Amazon account. I've been in the computer industry since 1985, currently manage two data centers, and have managed PC manufacturing lines in the past. I've wanted a small laptop for ~10 years, back when the Toshiba Libretto was popular. It cost ~$1700 and I could not justify the expense. The Intel Atom processor has changed the game, and of all the netbooks the hundreds reviews I read steered me to the Acer Aspire One. I really loved the idea of 5.5 hours of battery life so I went with the 6 cell version. I strongly recommend the 6 cell, it's great! Battery life is as advertised.
I've had the laptop for 4 days now and have not had any issues. First thing I did was to remove the McAfee anti-virus trial and install AVG, no issues. I removed all the stuff I did not want from Control Panel Add-Remove programs, and ran msconfig to un-check all the junk I did not want to run at startup. It is a fast implementation of XP; it starts in ~30 seconds and only takes ~15 seconds to shut down!
I changed the Power Options to turn off the display and hard disks after 30 minutes, and to go to Standby after 1 hour. I disabled the hibernate feature; Windows has a history of issues with hibernation on several laptops I have used - I call it "sleep mode hell". When I shut the lid on the Aspire One I have it go to Standby, perfectly safe for carrying around the house or a quick trip to work. For long trips I'll do a shutdown. One last power note, the manual (yes, I read the manuals) says to fully charge the battery and run the Aspire One on battery until it gives a warning (by default at 10% for first warning), and then recharge the battery completely. They say to do this 3 times to insure the best possible battery performance (a break-in kinda thing). It pays to read the manuals sometimes...
Of all the amazing things this unit delivers the 2 best items are the crystal clear display and the overall speed. You can't imagine how good the display is, really. I read one review where a guy said that his Aspire One was easier on his eyes than his 15 inch laptop, now I can see why he would say that. There are no issues with reading small fonts when they occur, and the overall screen is bright and CRYSTAL clear! You can easily increase the brightness while running on battery using the Fn - Right Arrow key. When my friends see it for the first time they are always amazed by the display. As for the speed, the 1.6Ghz Atom combined with the 1 GB RAM makes this laptop really fly! Everything I run is very fast; I can see why gamers say they can run WOW and other games on it though it'd be silly to buy this unit and expect it to be a high end gaming machine. When I use the left or right arrow keys the cursor flies across the screen, it's really fast. Web browsing is very fast.
The next thing that impresses me the most is the manufacturing quality of this unit. It is a solid, tightly built unit. Acer must have focused on quality control over the last 2 years or so, this unit is very well built. It feels compact and solid. The hinge on the display is tight but not hard to use. I was a bit surprised that the display does not have a release button to use when opening the LCD, you just lift it up. Since it is so tight and well made I am not concerned about it wearing out over time. The keyboard feels solid, and the track pad is easy to use. Yes, the buttons are a bit harder than normal to click with, but I had no problems adjusting to using the trackpad to single click, it's easier and faster than clicking a button. The only time I use a mouse button is when I right click, or click and drag. You can use the trackpad to do those actions as well, I have just not learned to do that without thinking yet.
I use Firefox for browsing, it is more secure and has a full screen mode that is easy to toggle with using the F11 key. There is a plugin available which allows you to include the Bookmarks menu while in full screen mode, I need to get that still. I grabbed an app called AA1FanControl to control the fan with, evidently the Acer BIOS runs the fan more often than is required. When my fan runs it is not loud at all, just nice to have silence if the fan is not required.
I was concerned that the keyboard may be hard to use, I actually prefer the closer keys because I can type faster with it than a normal keyboard. I'm a big guy, so the keyboard should be OK for anybody. I bought an 8 GB USB flash drive at Fry's for $19 yesterday and plan on copying the contents of some software CDs/DVDs onto it and will run the installs that way. I shared my CD optical drive on my iMac but have not attached to it yet using Bonjour because I must not be smart enough to figure that out. I will Google that, just have not had time yet.
I got a Dell Mini 9 laptop case from Amazon, don't get that for a 6 cell version because it does not fit... I got a 13 inch laptop bag at Fry's for $19 that has enough room for all my accessories. I liked the idea of a tight little bag thinking it would be snick, but that was pride over-riding common sense. The case does get fingerprints on it but it is beautiful. I keep it clean by using a cloth I got with my iPhone, it's not been hard to keep clean.
There is a great forum for Aspire One users at aspireoneuser.com, it's a must for any Aspire One owner. For $379 this is an amazing laptop. You will be happy you took the plunge! I have an IT friend who saw it and immediately decided to get one for his wife (yeah right...) and will recommend it at work as the perfect laptop to use for traveling. If Acer keeps up quality like this they will win the consumer market from Dell. Enjoy!
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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