Acer Aspire One

Heya All,


Wondering if anyone has picked up one of these.

I picked up an Acer Aspire One, with 1gb RAM, 120gb HDD and win xp loaded for $399 this week, and WOW, am i impressed. Its slightly larger than an EeePC 701, but the change in screen and keyboard is amazing. It's actually entirely possible to use it as a daily computer and not just a netbook. I used it today to actually build a flash site, edit some photo's in photoshop and play a few rounds of Nascar Heat.

The biggest dissapointment for me is the new bilinguil keyboard that canada gets, with an extra key besides the left shift key....but thats a minor quibble.


So the question is, has anyone gotten one of these yet?


Ryan
P.S. Don't worry, My Eee is still going strong with Xandros for surfing, and Frozen Bubble!

 

I think the reason it is faster is because it has the Intel Atom CPU. Faster than the Celerons.

 

I just got my MSI wind and I'm loving it. Posting from it right now. The keyboard is much better than I expected, and I'm sure I'll be upgrading the ram/hdd/wireless eventually.

 

If it's not too much trouble, Ryan, could you take a picture of your Aspire One and your Eee PC next to each other? I'd like to see a comparison.

Lenovo's offering is looking very tempting, with a 10" screen and an 80GB hard drive for $400. Hopefully common sense will get the better of me and I'll wait for something better to come out. I would like to see a netbook CPU (probably an Atom) beat a Pentium M Dothan (which is what I have now) in benchmarks.

I miss my Eee PC, but having a 12 inch screen kicks the crap out of a 7 inch.

 

In most tests, that Atom will beat that Pentium M, and consume less power at it, too.

 

Will do when i get home tonight, The One is slightly larger, by maybe half an inch, but in in thickness and depth its pretty much a draw. Its still stupidly small compared to my 15.4 notebook, but its actually really nice to surf with.


Ryan

 

I reallt wanted to buy the A150L model (Linux, 6-cell battery, 1GB RAM, 120 GB hard drive) but as usual Portugal only got the leftovers (8gb models)

 

Not fancy the 901? bigger screen with the atom in. Looks like im getting a 901 meself next time im in the uk

 

I like the 901, I've been eye-ing a 901 for quite some time, even a 1000H, though at $599 and up, i couldn't bring myself to justify that cost. $399 for the One with basically the same specs (same resolution, smaller screen) with larger storage is what really sold me on it.

If 901/1000 were cheaper i could see picking up one of those, but i think Asus may have priced themselves out of a "low cost" market with them.

Ryan

 

I think Asus kind of shot themselves in the foot by charging so much for the newer models. At $550 for the 901, I'd rather just buy a real laptop. The 904A (I think...) looks like a good compromise, but it's still rather overpriced.

I did a quick Google search and in the few benchmarks I found, the Pentium M beat the Atom (both in SuperPi and video encoding). The one using SuperPi did so with a pre-production sample of the Atom, but I've read that final performance is similar. The Atom is quite good for what it is, but it's not that good just yet.

It also depends on which Pentium M we're talking about. The older revisions had a smaller cache and lower clock speed. I'm making my comparisons based on the Dothan, which has a 2MB L2 cache (more than both of the cores in my X2) and higher clock speed.

I can't wait for the dual-core Atoms to come out, though. I may even buy another desktop around that time.

 

Just to add to the performance issue. My One is quite nippy with XP on it, that being said, its quite slower compared to the Eee with an N-lited XP. It takes roughly a minute from cold boot to the time I'm in Firefox and on google, which is pretty good.

I figure that if it can handle complex 3d CAD drawings without a problem, then its pretty powerful

Ryan

 

Here are some size comparisons.

First up, a side by side view. The Acer is slightly deeper and wider than the Eee, but makes good use of it with a larger keyboard and good size screen.


Second shot is of the Eee ontop of the Acer, just to show how slightly larger the Acer is.



Lastly, A quick pic on the thicknesses of both units, I think the acer is actually lighter than the eee, even with the HDD!




Ryan

 

Still cant get over the size of the bezels..

 

The bezel isn't that bad, its no worse than whats on my other laptops, err i think my other "normal" acer has a larger bezel.


Ryan

 

I think that I might look into one of those Acers. They look pretty nice, I need to fins someplace around here that I can try one out first and see though.

I have tried out the Asus and I am still not really sure about that one.

 

I'm getting an Aspire One for my 3 year old for Christmas so he can go on all the kiddie flash game websites on his own.

 

I was seriously considering getting an Acer Aspire One. Some things which changed my decision were:

1. Keyboard was ok, but still a bit too small for some keys (I do programming).
2. Its difficult to upgrade. I.e No access hatch. (Need to remove whole keyboard/motherboard).
3. Standard comes with 3-cell battery (though I hear you can get 6-cell).
4. Its made by Acer. I don't regard them as very high in the build quality world.

Instead I decided to pay a bit more and wait for an Asus eee pc 1000h.

 

Build quality is pretty good...no worse than an EeePC, your right in saying the keyboard is kinda small...but which netbook isn't.

I waited speciffically for the xp 120gb hdd version, only because i knew it was nearly un-upgradable, though at its current configuration, its all pretty good.


GTA Vice City runs really well on the device


Ryan

 

Thanks for the pictures. It doesn't look substantially larger than the 701, and the bezel is definitely not a problem on the Acer. The larger keyboard is definitely a nice touch, even though I didn't have any problems with the Eee's keyboard after I got used to it.

I would've made the same choice regarding the hard drive. SSD's are really nice, but I didn't generally beat my Eee and I think it would've been fine with a conventional hard drive if it was possible to put one in. The Acer has a bigger screen and I would definitely want to load the hard drive with movies.

It's been decided: I have to get a job so I can save up for a Lenovo... (edit: as well as trivial things such as my financial well being)

 

I've found that anything <= Eee pc 901 will have a really small keyboard. HP Mini Note has something like a 98% sized keyboard but uses the crappy VIA processor. I think the Acer Aspire uses a 85% keyboard (Not great, but a lot better than most). As far as I know, the Eee pc 1000h uses a similar 98% sized keyboard, but at the expense of its footprint.