Acer Aspire One full review

Allow me to introduce you to the recently released Acer Aspire One. The Aspire One is Acer’s first foray into the netbook space. It is nice to see lesser recognized laptop OEMs such as Acer have the ability to jump quickly into the netbook area with a quality product. I have been testing the Aspire One, provided by Dynamism, for the last few weeks and I have had a positive experience with the computer which is the first Atom based device I have used.

(continue reading…)

The Aspire One that I have been testing has a 1.6GHz Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, 120GB HDD, and Windows XP ($450 with that configuration). The whole unit can be bought starting at a very reasonable $399.

Hardware Tour

Check out the formal unboxing here.

Front: Nothing on the front but a spring loaded WLAN radio toggle.

Left Side (right to left): AC plug, VGA output, small vent, 10/100 ethernet, USB 2.0 port, SD slot (SD only).

Back: Nothing but battery. Under the battery is a faux SIM card slot, presumably for integrated 3G on later models.

Right Side: Mic input, audio output, USB 2.0 port x2, multi-card reader (MMC, SD, xD, Memory Sick), Kensington lock.

LED Indicators: Battery status, HDD use, Num-Lock, Caps-Lock.

Screen: 0.3 MP camera.

And a quick size comparison shot.

Initial Thoughts

When I got the Aspire One unboxed, I was quite surprised at the attention to detail. This $450 netbook is actually one of the more finely styled laptops I’ve ever used. They didn’t go overboard trying to make the unit look ’stylish’ like you might notice on some HP laptops. Instead, there is a very simplistic tone that is accented by a few sharp details. Most notably of course are the rings near the screen hinge which appear as metallic orange/red color. They are deceiving as they aren’t actually part of the hinge as you might be lead to believe when the lid is closed. It is apparent that the design was not an afterthought.

The top of the lid is a glossy finish but doesn’t show fingerprints too much because of the white color. The lid also has some nice, subtle, rounded edges that add to the simple style of the unit. Opening up the lid will reveal some commonly placed rubber stoppers that allow the screen to close safely and make sure the bezel doesn’t scratch on the body of the computer.

Upon booting the Acer for the first time, it took 10 minutes or so to get through the regular Windows setup process, then the ‘Aspire Launch Tool’ ran which took another 10 minutes and installed drivers, a screensaver, etcetera. Speaking of which, come on Acer, do you really need to advertise a product I already own to me through a screensaver?

Hardware

Most people are familiar with the standard laptop form-factor, this is exactly the same, just smaller. The unit itself feels nice and solid, there is no battery wiggle which is always a good sign. Putting a card into the left SD slot can result in it being very hard to remove; when it is inserted, it is almost flush with the side of the device, making it hard to trigger the spring which pushes it back out. Worst-case would only involve getting something small and pointy to make it easier to push in and eject, but it would be nice if it stuck out a bit more. Oddly enough, on the right multi-card reader, there is plenty of overhang making it very easy to press in and remove.

Trackpad

The trackpad on the device is smaller than that of a full sized laptop, but uses Synaptics pointing and is very customizable. There are lots of options for tuning the pad to function just like you want it. It can detect multiple fingers so there are a few multi-touch gestures available to you. However in my limited testing, it seemed these gestures worked inconsistently at best, sometimes I couldn’t seem to get them to work at all. The default configuration of the trackpad left the mouse moving very slowly and it required several swipes to move fully across the screen. I personally like a bit more sensitivity, and I adjusted my mouse movement speed so that one full swipe from left to right will move the cursor about half way across the screen.

The mouse buttons flank the trackpad on the Aspire One. On this particular unit, the left mouse button has a nice audible click, and could be just a tiny bit easier to press, but it feels pretty good overall. Unfortunately, the right mouse button barely makes a sound and is more on the squishy end of the spectrum; still plenty usable. I personally like to use the tap-to-click feature of most modern trackpads, but the placement of the left button doesn’t seem to be any worse than the traditional below-the-trackpad placement.

Screen

The Aspire One has an 8.9″ screen running the standard 1024×600 resolution. The screen’s finish is slightly glossy, and brightness seems adequate. The bezel around the screen is not any wider than many other netbooks.

The only problem I have with the screen is that it seems to have a small vertical viewing angle. The screen washes out if you are looking at it at an acute angle, or the contrast will die out if your viewing angle becomes too obtuse. This happens with all LCD screens, but the Aspire One seems to have a smaller vertical viewing angle than most. To put this into perspective: if you are working on a word processing document and adjust your seating position from being slouched over a bit to a more upright position, you will probably notice the wash-out and have to adjust the screen. It is possible that this particular unit has a screen issue that is causing it, but the horizontal viewing angle range seems just fine so I’m leaning toward this being an actual characteristic of the screen.

Keyboard

I have heard many people complain about keyboards being one of the major problems with netbooks, and I’m happy to be able to tell anyone reading this review that the keyboard on the Aspire One is absolutely superb. This is a big change from the Vye S41 that I looked at last time, which had a cramped keyboard on par with the first batch of 7″ Eee PCs. Acer did a great job with the keyboard on the Aspire One, staying true to most standard key placements. The full sized shift-keys on the left and right are very welcomed, as a small shift key can be frustrating. Every key has a regular laptop feel to it, and I haven’t had to modify my typing style very much at all to use the Aspire One’s keyboard efficiently. I would say my fingers are medium-small, and the keyboard really feels like it is offering a full typing experience. I can safely recommend it to people who need to be writing papers on the go. In fact, this entire review is being written on the Aspire One’s keyboard.

The keys are white with black characters, and special FN characters are a royal blue color, which I think looks nice on the white keys. F1 through F8 are bound to alternate functions which are useful for calling up info quickly. There is help, power options, system properties, sleep, monitor output, screen off, trackpad toggle, and mute buttons all bound across said F-keys. Activating Num-Lock (F11) will allow you to use the quasi-numeric FN keypad that has been placed over some of the standard alphabet characters.

Software

This was my first time testing an Atom based device. I’ve read much about it, but you really don’t know until you have tried it for yourself. It should be known that my experience with the 1.6GHz Atom CPU in the Aspire One was definitely positive. Running Windows XP, the Aspire one zooms around quite nicely, never seeming to hang on window or application loading. It is important to be realistic when it comes to your CPU, this definitely won’t be running any heavy games, but it has the power to run the things is was designed to; primarily surfing the web, consuming lite media, and simple tasks like photo organizing or word-processing.

Performance

Lets take a look at some numbers. Here is how the Aspire One handled Crystal Mark:

I was impressed to see the Aspire One score 27k in Crystal Mark. This isn’t a super high score by any means, but considering the price of the computer, it is pretty impressive. The VAIO UX180 that has been my main computer for almost three years now, scores around 23k. The major difference is that the Aspire One can be had for $450, while my UX had cost $1800+ back then. So it is great to know that the Aspire One is a bit more powerful, and considerably less expensive.

The HDD score seems very good, as the SSD equipped UXs score 8k-9k in this area. While the HDD is a bit slower than those blindingly fast SSDs, it has a very sumptuous 120GB capacity.

Here are some quick boot tests:

Boot times don’t look out of the ordinary. Standby was pretty snappy, but I still always set the power button to hibernate as it takes just a few more seconds, but does a complete power down, as opposed to standby’s low-power mode.

YouTube playback works without any problems. Flash h.264 720p video works pretty well through a web browser, but I was experiencing a few slow downs during busy scenes. The same 720p video downloaded as a WMV played back with no problem through WMP.

Included Software

Above you can get a small glimpse of the incredible amount of options that the Synaptics configuration tool gives you. I was really impressed with how configurable to trackpad was, and I would recommend that any new Aspire One user peruse all the settings and understand all the different ways that they can configure their trackpad.

I was a bit taken back by the lack of power configuration options on the computer. There is nothing beyond the default Windows options (how long you want the computer to wait before standby and such). I thought I would at least be able to set brightness while plugged in/unplugged but it doesn’t seem like that can be done. The Linux variation of the Aspire One might have more robust power options.

Aside from that, there are not many other piece of included software that you wouldn’t find on any other default Windows XP install. There isn’t even a web cam utility like some other laptops might include, you just access the webcam using Windows default handling of it, or through other applications.

Battery Life

Battery life is always one of the most important parts in a laptop purchasing decision, and unfortunately I can’t say that the Aspire One is going to impress anyone with its battery life. Using the Battery Eater Pro program and running the classic test, which runs the CPU near 100% usage until the battery dies, the Aspire One saw just under 1 hour and 40 minutes of usage. The battery discharged consistently the whole way which is a good thing. Remember though that the classic test is constantly stressing the CPU; you can expect a battery life of 2:00-2:30 during regular use. The optional 6-cell extended battery should bump the battery life up to around 5 hours (Acer claims 7 hours).

The fan noise seems standard for a netbook like this, and the heat produce seems to be average as well. The fan is always going at a low hum, but occasionally it cranks itself up pretty high.

Included Accesories

The only thing that came with the Aspire One beyond standard documentation and an A/C adapter was a simple slip case. The case seems to be made out of a fake black leather but it feels nice. It is adorned by an imprinted Acer logo, but other than that it is quite bland. It is pretty thin so don’t expect it to save your Aspire One against any big drops, it is mostly just for protecting against scratches during travel. It does not have any way to seal shut, you just slide the Aspire One in and go.

Closing Thoughts

The Aspire One feels like a well designed product and a pretty good start into the netbook arena for Acer. Unfortunately, there is so much competition out there right now that it seems like there might be better alternatives. When it comes down to it, the battery life is the deal breaker. The Aspire One is an attractive netbook with a great keyboard, and all the ports/features you would expect, unfortunately there are similar devices out there that can get better battery life. I still think the Aspire One is a great deal for $450, and would work great for someone who is purchasing it because of its low cost and not for mobility. Additionally, the (current) lack of 3G and Bluetooth may cause mobile warriors to start looking for a new netbook that better suits their needs.

Thanks to Dynamism.com for providing the Acer Aspire One for review.