Acer D255 Dual-Core Atom Netbook – Hands-on. Initial Tests

Posted on 13 September 2010, Last updated on 14 October 2015 by

IMG_4962 My current laptop is a netbook. I’ve been using it as my portable computer for well over a year and I’m very happy with it. I’m using XP, it’s got a 2GB RAM upgrade and a fast SSD and a great built-in 3G module. The only issue with it is that any other netbook out there is a downgrade for me because switching to Windows 7 on a standard netbook is noticeably slower.

That all changed today when I took on the Acer D255 as a loaner for the Intel Developer Forum I’m attending this week. [Thanks to Intel They paid for the trip over here] It’s truly the first netbook I’ve used that gives me a smooth and reliable Windows 7 experience and having already tested battery drain, 720p playback, Crystalmark and video rendering performance, I can say that it really does well, It’s light and Sascha (Netbooknews) tells me it only costs 350 Euros. That’s a stunning price for 6-8hrs of dual-core action.

Here’s a little look-round on the device. See below for some early benchmark results.

I’ve done three benchmarking tests on the device. The first is a battery drain test and I’m pleased to see that Acer appear to be getting the best possible out of the platform. With screen brightness at minimum and Wifi off I was able to get a figure of just 4W. With Wifi on, that went up to 4.6W. Average drain for web browsing is around the 7-8W mark which means that the 49Wh battery is going to give a good 6hrs of action. Rendering a video with all cores and at 100% i was 11W of drain. For a device that weighs 1250 grams thats pretty good. A better quality 6-cell battery could yield even better results.

Acer D255 Minimum drain

I terms of CrystalMark, I’m seeing results that will make anyone happy. 35K is not a figure we see often in the mobile computing world. The hard disk is impressive to.

crystalmark-acer

My final benchmark was a video rendering test. It looks like I’m going to save 25-30% in terms of time on rendering and that’s well worth the 50-euro premium that a dual-core Atom netbook is costing.

7 Comments For This Post

  1. Gretchen Glasscock says:

    Acer D255 Dual-Core Atom Netbook – Hands-on. Initial Tests: My current laptop is a netbook. I’ Read more …

    Rel… http://bit.ly/czWpFG

  2. Alltop Mobile says:

    Acer D255 Dual-Core Atom Netbook – Hands-on. Initial Tests http://bit.ly/bUEyKF

  3. Durk says:

    would you say a N550 with W7 is as snappy as a N270 – N475 with XP?

  4. notlofty says:

    If its snappy and smooth right now I’m sure with your SSD or a MeeGo on it it’ll be really nice!

  5. the_holodoc says:

    If you want to have rendering power in the 10″ formfactor you could also consider the Acer Aspire One 521. With its AMD Athlon II Neo K125 at 1.7 GHz it runs circles around a singlecore Atom and should also be faster than the N550. And the best thing at the end: it is thats already available for around 320€.

  6. Gearsguy says:

    HAH I WIN
    TOLD YOU MINIPCPRO

    >:D

  7. medah4rick says:

    too bad its 1024×600

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