What’s Hot.
Playful colors and light weight make the Aspire One seem like the “feel good” netbook of the year. Acer packs a bright and vibrant display into a little screen.
What’s Not.
Limited battery life slightly defeats its mobility purpose. Small, glossy screen proves difficult to use in bright light.
The bottom line.
Acer’s Aspire One performs simple tasks well, and at under $400, it’s a nice choice for a highly mobile secondary laptop(ish) machine. If you are realistic with your expectations, the Aspire One won’t disappoint.
The Aspire One (8.9”) is Acer’s entry-level addition to the netbook field. A business school friend of mine used one of these little guys in class. Although I thought it gave him a funny sort of Alice in Wonderland mushroom effect at first, I appreciated it much more after lugging finance books around for a few months. How wonderful it would have been to only carry an extra 2 pounds instead of 6!
At under $400, the Aspire One is one of the least expensive netbooks on the market and comes in a glossy white, black, blue, brown and pink. The least expensive model comes with Linux, OpenOffice.org, 512 MBs of RAM and retails for $329. The Windows XP model has Microsoft Office, 1GB of RAM and retails for $349. For $20 more, the XP model seems like a better buy to me.
Both models feature a 1.6GHz Atom N270 CPU, which limits performance relative to standard notebooks. Expect the battery to last about 2 to 2.5 hours when performing tasks like surfing the Internet or word processing. I’m torn here because I love that the netbook is feather light so I wouldn’t exactly wish for a larger battery. 2 hours, however, isn’t enough time for me to be super productive (I’m a procrastinator by nature). Plugging in isn’t that difficult in theory, but there is always that one guy at the coffee shop who refuses to give up the one outlet near you.
During your limited battery-powered time, however, you will probably be pleased with your little Acer. The 8.9”-wide 1024 x 600 resolution LCD screen displays bright and vibrant colors and is wide enough to show most web pages in full horizontally. As you can imagine, you will need to scroll quite a bit to view the entire page vertically, which is why it is especially helpful that the keyboard includes page-up and page-down keys.
Overall, the Aspire One seems to be sturdy enough to endure some hard knocks in a bag or backpack. The keyboard, although more cramped than a regular notebook, is fairly large for a netbook of its size. The Aspire One also features an easy-to-use touchpad with left and right mouse buttons on either side.
The Linux version comes with an 8GB SSD drive, while the XP version features a 120 GB hard drive. The Aspire One has 3 USB ports, a web cam and an SD card reader, but no built-in Bluetooth capability or Express Card slot.
Keeping in mind the limitations of the Aspire One, it functions well for a netbook of its price. Internet and word processing performs well and video streaming and downloading goes smoothly. You might have some trouble running other applications like iTunes and Photoshop, especially if you are multitasking.
All in all, the Aspire One might look like a toy with its Candyland colors and small size, but it functions well enough to inspire confidence whether you are using it to watch YouTube during a boring class or look up some last minute numbers before a business meeting.
Netbook dimensions: 9.8”w x 6.7”d x 1.14”h
Includes one-year parts-and-labor warranty
