The Acer Aspire One

Well I've been wanting to get a netbook for some time now... initially I had been thinking UMPC but then when I heard about the EeePC and then the OLPC I new this form factor would be a better solution. So at that point I wanted the EeePC, plus it was the only netbook available, but thankfully I'm a big talker and actually take for ever to finally make th decision on any items (it also helps that I'm cheap when it comes to things like electronics, I guess I'm kind of strange for a gadget freak). So by the time I finally convinced Lauren (and myself) that is was a good purchase, I started my final research. I've heard great things about almost all of the netbooks on the market. I was thinking that I was going to like the one from Dell, I already thought that the one from HP was a good piece of equipement so I thought that they would be pretty competitive. So I started thinking about it, and what I noticed almost all of the netbooks were using 'small' SSD, and I mean small, from what I saw, we're talking 8-16GB... heck SD cards can almost hold that much... and being that part of the reason I wanted to get a netbook was for travelling I wanted something that I could off load my camera card onto. I've got a 2GB camera card and I can fill it pretty quick if I'm not carefull, and when travelling, no one has enough time to look at the view screen and filter them. So basically 8GB was not going to work.

Other limitation was that bulk of them were Linux based. Now don't get me wrong, for those of you who know me, I'm a Linux fan though out... my desktop is linux, I've got VMWare on my Mac so I can run linux, not windows.... I'm anything but a windows fan... heck even the reason I chose the G1 from T-Mobile was because of its linux base (also I'm a huge fan of open source which lead partially to my linux fandom). But even with my love for Linux I felt that this machine was not just for me, and currently the primary push for getting a netbook was for Lauren. She has to lug her 6.6lbs laptop back and forth to school everyday.... not fun. So basically there I had my requirements... light (solved by all netbooks), ms windows (solved by some, and actually I think all have a windows flavor now) and I wanted a 'big' hard drive.

Well that lead me to the Acer Aspire One. It comes in both Linux and Windows flavors, but more importantly the Windows version comes with a 160GB harddrive. It also comes with a 6cell battery which is suppose to get about 4-6 hrs off life (I'll comment on this later)... So there you have it, I selected the Acer Aspire One....

Well it arrived on Tuesday, the same day as my G1, you can guess which I opened first... surprisingly the Acer. Now yes I've blogged out of order than, but I wanted to get the Acer unboxed so Lauren could take it with her to Ohio.

 

By the way, besides the computer itself being small, the power adapter is no bigger than the average cell phone charger.

So with the Acer out of its box, on it went... initial startup was extreme slow. It had to go through the standard initial windows setup for a new machine, but then it start loading the 12 or so packages that optimizes Windows for the small form factor. But I think by the time it was done and the various patches from Microsoft were downloaded and installed, the battery was fully charged... well if I remember correctly it started at around 60%.

So with the system up and running it was ready to go in about 30 minutes... it also took a bit longer since at first it didn't recognize our wireless. For an interesting comparison in size here is a pic of the Acer resting on top of Lauren's current laptop.

 

So you can image review comment #1... size does matter, but I think any of the netbooks would have a similar review statement....

Well as for a review... I think it is great. The keyboard is small (if that is a hurdle, take a look at the HP, I believe it has a full-size keyboard that expands out), but the keyboard size was a know factor, heck this entire blog post was typed on the Acer, so with time you get use to the keys, I'm even using all 8 fingers (10 if you include the thumbs for the spacebar). My only 'complaint'  on the input side of the picture would be the touch pad. I don't find the touchpad responsive enough, but then again I'm used to the touchpad of a Mac which is great, I don't even like the touchpad on Lauren's laptop. But regardless, the machine has 3 USB ports so I think we can sacrafice one for a mouse.

Speaking of ports... the Acer has 3 USB, headphone/microphone jacks, built-in webcam, ethernet (also has builtin wireless) and 2 card readers. One of the card readers is SD cards only but the other is can read almost any format. This is something I think is really cool... this means I can actually copy pictures from one card to another, or be reading from one while clearing or writing to another. The fact that it has a card reader was another big selling point... while I think the Acer will be great for Lauren to take notes, I would not recommend a netbook as a primary machine... this is definitely a supplement computer, I can't imagine Lauren running regression analysis on this thing, the Atom chip from Intel is good, but my guess is not that good... So if you ask why I think the card reader is such a good factor when thinking about Lauren's use... well her current laptop also has a card reader, so what I'm envisioning is having her store her active documents on a card and then that way she can easily transfer them back and forth between machines... I guess I should buy a card reader and install it in my desktop...

So there you have it.. the Acer Aspire One... a great versitile netbook that with its built-in 160GB harddrive and card readers makes it an even more excellent supplament machine and travel companion.

Oh wait, I mentioned the battery life earlier... I kind of made it sound like the battery wasn't all it was cracked up to be.... well I lied... it's excellent... we plugged in the Acer when it arrived and I unplugged it when it finished charging. My plan is to drain the battery completely before recharinging it.... I know any manual you read will say that it is not necessary to drain a Lithium battery, but I've seen the difference on Macs, if you charge-drain-charge-drain-charge you'll get a much longer battery life (Apple actually has documented this and if you search their support site, you'll find it). So we charged the battery on Tuesday, Lauren took the Acer with her to Ohio on Wednesday, she used it for an hour or so (or that is what she tells me) and now I've used it for about 2 hours today... When it was finished charging, the icon said it had approx. 6hrs, well the battery is still saying is still saying that it has about 2hrs remaining. And this has been with the wireless on the entire time, and if you've ever checked, the wireless is what drains batteries the fastest... so the 6-cell battery is definitely worth the extra money.

One other comment Lauren's only complaint about the Acer as of yet has been the 'eye-level' factor... she says that it is to low... now I can see where she is coming from, but as I've only been using it on my lap, I didn't expect it to be at eye-level. Also the screen can lean back almost another 45degrees so when on your lap, it works out perfectly in my opinion, but I've noticed that everybody has there prefered positions for comfortably using any computer desktop or laptop. So if this is a factor, I suggest testing before buying. I heard that MicroCenter has a good selection of netbook on display you can play with, and today we saw the Acer at Costco, and for those of you who may be reading this and attending MSB-Georgetown, find Lauren, she'll show it to you.

update (940pm): I just tested Pandora and Hulu, sound is not great and it is a bit jumpy, but it handles both media sights pretty well... I'll need to test Hulu with the TV and Pandora with a pair of headphones. Also Hulu barely fits into the firefox window with the basic toolbars loaded but full screen works fine... next besides testing Hulu with the TV I'll need to test out Netflix on demand.

update 2 (1030pm): well I'm trying to test the Acer with NetFlix, but it turns out I need to install all the  Silverlight/ActiveX/MS crap.... so it is taking longer than I expected, but while I'm waiting, I plugged the Acer into the TV... wow this graphic card is impressive, it can power the big old 32" LCD with ease, and it has both clone and extended capabilities... I'm liking this Acer more and more... and this is still all on the first battery charge, over 30minutes left.