Acer Aspire One 10.1" (AOD150-1165) Netbook Review

I'll be honest: I'm not really sure what prompted me to buy a netbook computer. I do next to no traveling. I have a menial, non-business-related job. I have a fast computer at home, with an equally fast cable internet connection. Maybe I just want to look like a hip yuppie typing away at the chic wi-fi coffee houses. Or maybe it was an impulse from the same part of my brain that makes me drool over sporty coupes and yawn at more practical sedans. Whatever the reason, I decided that I simply had to have a metallic blue Acer Aspire One, with its new-and-improved 10.1-inch screen. And I'm happy to report that, while I don't necessarily need the thing in any practical sense, I don't regret my purchase at all. This Aspire One is a pretty cool device, as long as one understands its inherent limitations.

Before proceeding, it might be useful to explain exactly what a netbook is. Netbooks are similar in design to traditional laptops, but they are significantly smaller, and are less robust in terms of computing power. This Aspire One has 1 gigabyte of RAM, and a power-efficient Intel Atom processor that clocks in at 1.6 gigahertz. It has a 160-gigabyte hard drive, and runs Windows XP Home Edition. It has integrated graphics, rather than a dedicated GPU card. It does not have an optical drive. As such, it is typical of the netbook market at the time of this review, with the main differences between various netbooks boiling down to battery life, screen size, and RAM and hard drive capacities. Simply put, the Acer Aspire One is equivalent to a PC from a few years ago, which means that it isn't a viable choice for processor-hungry tasks like video editing or hardcore gaming. However it is ideal for office applications and internet use on the go, boasting an ultra-portable size and a battery life significantly longer than that of a laptop.

Looking down at the Aspire One with the lid closed, it is about an inch and a half thick. It measures about ten inches horizontally and seven inches vertically, and weighs a mere three pounds. This is without the battery, which juts out about an inch from the back and adds about a pound of weight. The back of the lid is plastic, and is painted a dark, metallic blue color. The inside of the lid features the LCD screen, which is encased in glossy, reflective plastic. There is an integrated webcam and microphone above the display. The flat bottom section features the power button and the keyboard, which does not extend all the way to the edge of the netbook. The touchpad is located below the keyboard, and features one bar which serves as both the left and right mouse button. The empty surface where the hands rest when typing is metal, which is also painted metallic blue.

The side edges of the Aspire One are black plastic. The right side features two USB 2.0 ports and an AC Adapter Jack. The left side has a VGA-out port for an external display, a 10/100 Ethernet port, another USB 2.0 port, headphone and microphone-in ports, and a multi-card reader. The front edge has a small switch that toggles the wireless receiver on or off.

Upon initializing the unit and setting up my XP account I was immediately impressed with the display; it's obviously a little on the small side, but very sharp and clear, with rich colors. There were no dead pixels. The default (maximum) brightness is a little too bright for my liking, I prefer it two or three notches lower. The screen resolution is 1024x600. This makes text and icons pretty small. While typing this review, I increased my font size to 14, where I usually use 12 on my desktop PC. While playing games, I found myself squinting at objects in the distance. I can see how prolonged sessions could potentially lead to eyestrain. The resolution can be changed to 800x600, but this makes things look kind of stretched out and chunky.

As I mentioned earlier, the screen and the plastic framing it are quite glossy. This gives the Aspire a cool, space-age look. However this shiny surface will inevitably pick up fingerprints, dust, and smudges. Also, if there is a bright light behind you, the glossy screen will reflect it into your eyes. Forget using the Aspire One outside in the sunlight; it's like looking at a mirror.

I appreciated the inclusion of a webcam and microphone, even if they are standard fare on modern portables. The camera is well-situated on the top-center of the monitor so that you'll be framed nicely when you're looking at the screen. The microphone is adequate for basic use. The camera, however, provides a small, grainy image that suffers from a slow framerate, thus causing video feed to be blurry and choppy. Snapshots taken from the webcam are predictably grainy as well. Since I don't do video chatting or conferencing, I don't really care. The cam and mic are there if you need them, which beats carrying external ones.

Onto the keyboard and mouse. I'll admit that I didn't like the keyboard at first. I mentioned that the keyboard doesn't extend all the way to the edges, as it does on some other netbooks. This makes it kind of cramped, to the point where my thumbs are almost touching as they hover over the spacebar. Also, the keys seem a little stiff because they don't go down as far as the keys on a normal keyboard. But after using the Aspire for a few weeks, I'm almost typing at my usual 75-80 WPM. The only trouble I'm having now is with the keys off to the right side, like the quotation mark and the question mark. A little more keyboard real estate would have been nice, but overall, I think it's adequate.

I have made no such peace with the touchpad, however. It's very small. Dragging the cursor all the way across the screen seems like an obscene amount of wasted energy; when I reach the edge of the tiny pad, the cursor stops and I have to move my finger back to the other side to "grab" it again. At times I find the cursor mysteriously "warping" across the screen as I drag it. And with maddening combinations of clicks, taps, and double-taps, I find myself selecting things I don't want to select, and scrolling when I don't want to scroll. And I'm no novice to touchpads, having owned a laptop before. The mouse button bar below the pad is equally vexing. I have to press the buttons really hard, resulting in a nasty creaking noise. I often have to press more than once for it to register. This is really tough on the fingers. I started using an external USB mouse almost immediately.

I found sound quality from the Aspire's speakers to be average, while headphones sounded much better. I listened to a variety of MP3 files and found that, with the volume cranked all the way up, the volume was acceptable but less than I would have liked. The volume wasn't enough to fill even a small room. Also the sound was kind of tinny with weak bass. Watching streaming content on Netflix, the volume was just barely audible even when cranked to the max. Plugging earbuds into the headphone jack yielded the opposite result. Everything sounded pretty good, and bass was strong. As for volume, I had to turn it down most of the way to avoid having my eardrums blasted out.

The Aspire's battery is one of its strongest selling points. The battery, though kind of bulky, advertises a six-hour life, which is miles ahead of current laptops and earlier netbooks. After some testing I think this figure is fairly accurate. But as always, battery life is going to depend on your settings and on what you're doing with the unit. Playing games and watching movies is going to drain the battery faster than casual web surfing. Keeping wi-fi on when it isn't needed and keeping the screen on its brightest setting will also suck more power. The battery lasted at least four to five hours during my test runs, which wasn't too shabby. It should be noted that the battery also takes at least four hours to charge fully when mostly depleted.

I wasn't sure what to expect from the Aspire in the graphics department. I knew that the graphics were "integrated," meaning that the chipset shares system resources, which usually limits performance potential. Digging deep in the system info, I found out that the Intel chipset has access to between 8 MB and 224 MB of graphics memory. Since there is no way to toggle the video memory size, the Aspire graphics controller likely "borrows" system memory as needed.

Wanting to get some gaming on, I started with some console emulators. I fired up some old-school Sega and Super Nintendo games. They ran fine. The same is true of DOOM and Starcraft, as they are older titles with fairly light system requirements. Half-Life also ran without problems. I got a little bolder and installed Unreal Tournament. I was surprised and impressed that it actually ran smoothly and looked good with only an occasional lag. Excited, I installed Elder Scrolls: Morrowind. Here I ran into problems. On 800x600 resolution the game lagged constantly and was dogged by such a choppy framerate that it was almost unplayable. Toning it down to 640x480 didn't help much; the slowdown was simply too distracting.

As far as video playback, the Aspire is OK for windowed viewing on Youtube and Netflix instant, but full-screen viewing showed noticeable screen tear during fast movements. While the integrated graphics chipset is a performance bottleneck, the Aspire performed better than I'd expected when running older games.

For everyday duties, the Aspire is reasonably quick. It generally shuts down in under 20 seconds, and boots Windows in under 40, even with the password prompt. However there is a sticky delay of a little over a minute before I can open a web browser, or access the "My Computer" icon. I'm guessing that Windows is initializing all the pre-installed crap set to run on startup. I experimented with running multiple programs and web browser windows while checking the Task Manager CPU usage meter. The results were inconsistent, with the results randomly fluctuating all over the chart. I noticed the most usage spikes when running streaming video.

I was curious to see how an image editing program would work on this rig, so I installed GIMP, a freeware editor roughly equivalent to Photoshop. While it was workable, I noticed that applying effects sometimes took a painfully long time, sometimes several minutes, as compared to less than a minute on my desktop PC.

I ordered a RAM upgrade for my Aspire for about $25 through crucial.com. The Aspire supports up to 2 Gigabytes of RAM, though some retail websites strangely list it as supporting up to 1.5 GB. Unlike some netbooks, the upgrade is an easy one, which involves removing one small screw from a panel on the bottom, removing the old RAM stick, and slipping the new one into place. Since there is only one RAM slot, you'll have to retire the old stick unless the new one causes problems.

Windows and BIOS recognized the 2-Gigabyte stick automatically. I didn't notice a marked increase in performance when booting up. Startup and shut down time remained about the same, and unfortunately, so did the initial lag between first booting windows and being able to get online or access the hard drive. Applying effects in GIMP was still quite slow. However I was able to run Morrowind with a noticeably improved framerate, which actually made it playable.

The Aspire has a built-in 802.11g wireless adapter. Having never needed or used a wireless network before, I wasn't sure what to expect. Fortunately, connecting to wireless networks is a snap; the Aspire automatically detects and displays wireless connections when Windows boots. I was surprised to see a potential wireless connection at home, probably belonging to one of my neighbors. Intrigued, I tossed the Aspire onto the passenger's seat of my car and drove around like a creeper looking for wireless signals. Just about everywhere I parked, there were a few signals detected, some secured and others not. I even detected someone's wireless network while parked in a carwash stall. I didn't actually connect to any of these, as that would have been kind of... illegal. But I was impressed by the wireless card's sensitivity, nonetheless.

I actually did connect at public wi-fi hotspots, like the University food court, and local coffee houses. I got a strong signal, and could even see signals from nearby businesses on my list. I was treated to a fast connection, and was able to stream Netflix content without delays. Connecting to the wireless network at my father's house, I was able to get a signal throughout the house, and up to a distance of about 300 feet in every direction outside.

There's a lot to like about the new Acer Aspire One. It delivers respectable performance in a small, attractive package for a price well below that of an entry-level notebook. It's no powerhouse, though. Some users may be put off by the small screen, and the lack of an optical drive and a dialup modem, (even though USB versions can be bought cheaply). I was irked by the touchpad, and by a rather "bloated" Windows installation, which comes pre-loaded with many free trials of expensive software. I was also disappointed that the sizeable hard drive only offered one partition (C:/), thereby forcing users to mix system files and personal files. However, this unit should still be at the top of the list for those looking for an ultra-portable computer with excellent battery life. I would advise interested shoppers to go check out the floor model at an electronics retailer to test out the Aspire One's size and feel, as both take a little getting used to.

My summary of the Aspire One's strengths and weaknesses:

Pros:

Extremely portable

Relatively easy on the wallet at $350

Sleek, sexy design

Generous Hard Drive Capacity

Expandable RAM with easy access to RAM slot

Battery life is among the best currently on the market, lasting up to 6 hours (depending on use and settings)

Built-in Ethernet and Wi-fi make for easy connectivity

Handy built-in webcam and microphone

Performs respectably for most basic needs

Runs quietly

Good sound through headphones

Bright, crisp display

Respectable performance playing older games

Cons:

Touchpad and mouse buttons could be more responsive

Not the most comfortable keyboard I've ever used (though I've had worse)

Sound from speakers is not very loud, and sounds kind of harsh

Only one hard drive partition (Drive C:/) means that all your personal files will be mixed in with system folders

Lack of integrated 56k modem will put off dialup users

Lack of optical drive will mean having to buy an external one or getting creative with CD image files

Windows Installation is "bloated" with unnecessary software and trial versions of expensive programs.

Possible eyestrain from staring at such a small screen

The instruction manual isn't very useful

Slight lag at startup

Most newer games will be unplayable on this unit