Product Description

Weighing in at just over 2 pounds, the Aspire one mobile Internet device is the ideal traveling companion that lets you take the Internet on the road without the heavy load. Good things come in small packages, just like the Acer Aspire one mobile Internet device providing ultra-portable performance to enjoy full Internet browsing, communicate with friends and family and enjoy a variety of entertainment in a small portable design that keeps you connected on-the-go. The Intel Atom Processor combines performance, power and efficiency to explore the Internet and stay connected while on the go. Enjoy reliable on-line access with 802.11b/g Wireless to explore the Internet and view photos or video clips and listen to music in a comfortable browsing environment on the Acer CrystalBrite display. Windows XP Home Edition lets you surf the Internet, edit documents and photos, read email, and enjoy the webcam to chat online with or take still photos smoothly and reliably right out-of-the-box at a great price. Store all of your digital albums, music libraries and documents on the high-speed 120GB hard drive. Sufficient storage that's easy to upgrade, just pop in an external SD card. Whether you are a first time user or just want a second computing device to easily check e-mail and surf the Internet, the Aspire one was designed for simplicity with a intuitive desktop design, widescreen display and easy-typing keyboard. 8.9 diagonal WSVGA (1024 x 600) CrystalBrite TFT LCD Display Integrated Crystal Eye Webcam Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 Built-in Stereo Speakers Acer InviLink 802.11b/g Wireless 10/100 Ethernet LAN Multi-in-1 Card Reader SD, MMC, RS-MMC, MS, MS Pro, xD 3 x USB 2.0, Headphone/Speaker/Line-Out, Microphone-in, VGA, RJ-45 (LAN) Approximate Unit Dimensions - 9.8 (W) x 6.7 (D) x 1.14 (H) Approximate Unit Weight - 2.19 Pounds

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #353 in Personal Computers
• Brand: Acer
• Model: LU.S050B.111
• Dimensions: 1.14" h x 6.70" w x 9.80" l, 2.30 pounds
• CPU: Intel Core Solo 1.6 GHz
• Memory: 1000MB DDR2 SDRAM
• Hard Disk: 120GB
• Processors: 1
• Display size: 8.9

Features

• Box Contents - Acer AOA150-1570 Mobile Internet Device, 3-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery, AC Power Adapter, AC Power Cord; Software Bundle - Windows XP Home, McAfee Internet Security Suite, 1-Year International Travelers Warranty
• Intel Atom N270 1.6 GHz Processor
• 512 KB L2 Cache, 533 MHz Front Bus speed
• 1024 MB DDR2 (PC2-4200) RAM
• 120GB (5400 RPM) SATA Hard Drive

Customer Reviews

An amazing little machine
I suppose I should state at the onset of this review that I am a hopeless computer junkie. With the purchase of the Aspire One I now have four notebook computers and two desktop units (In my defense one of the notebooks is owned by my employer). To give you an idea of what I consider fun, I converted an IBM Thinkpad X41 to use a solid state disk drive. So I like to tinker with computers.

I got the Aspire One to monitor my personal email account at work. My employer has been setting up more and more stringent firewalls to the point where I couldn't access my email from the IT network. They *do* provide a 'guest' network, however, and it is through this that the Aspire will communicate with the outside world.

So what do I think of it?

Pros:
- The machine is very well built. The fit and finish is very nice.
- The keyboard is very usable - I found I could touch type on it with only a little adjustment. All the keys are where they should be, with nothing out of place (see where they put the right hand shift key on the EEE PC, for example).
- The wireless connected easily with my home network. I found that it initially ran very slowly when the unit was using the battery but this was easily corrected by setting the 'Power Save Mode' on the device's Advanced tab to 'Normal'.
- The screen is sharp and bright, but does have a reflective surface that some might not like.
- It runs Windows XP and has lots of room for applications and data
- The webcam is fun - I installed Skype and had a blast making video calls to my family.

Cons:
- The fan is noisy and runs continuously. This would have been a deal-killer had I not located a fan control utility on aspireoneuser.com. With this utility running the fan only comes on when you are running processor intensive applications. And the CPU does not get overly hot. I highly recommend it.
- The trackpad is poorly laid out. The left and right buttons are in the wrong spot and make selecting and clicking a two-handed operation. It helps to use the 'tap' feature but there are still times when you have to use both hands. I chalk this up to one of the trade offs the designers had to make to keep the machine small.
- The 3-cell battery can only power the machine for ~2.5 hours, and that is with the screen on half-intensity. I am already considering getting a 6-cell battery from 'Santa' at Christmas. Reports indicate that it will give you more than 5 hours of endurance which would be nice to have. The downside is the price - it lists for $120. That's a lot to shell out when the whole machine costs only $350, but I figure if it is a gift it won't count. ;-). I've heard that Acer is releasing a model with the 6-cell battery and 160GB hard driver for only $400. If you can wait this might be the way to go.
- I worry about the long term stability of the hard drive. When I first turned the machine on and set up Windows I tried putting it into 'standby' mode. I found that I couldn't get it out of standby no matter what I tried. In desperation I powered the machine down (a no-no with Windows) and restarted it.

On restart, Windows ran CHKDSK and found scores of bad pointers and orphaned files! When the desktop appeared I found that I could no longer configure power management, volume or networking. When I attempted to use the Acer system restore function that too was inoperable, complaining that a .DLL file was missing or corrupted. I found that Acer would send me a system recovery disk for $30 but then I would still have to get an external USB optical drive to use it. I was not pleased.

But like I said, I like to tinker. With a little time and effort I was able to download the corrupted .DLL file and get the hard drive restored to its factory default image. I regained access to all the missing applications and I have not had any further issues with standby.

Still, I worry about the hard drive. Once, I was putting the machine into hibernation and it accidentally got bumped. It took a real long time to finish the hibernation process and when I attempted to restart the machine it gave me an error message saying there was 'no boot disk' available. Powering the unit off and rebooting 'solved' the problem and I ran a utility to examine the health of the drive that found no issues. Still, I think Acer should develop a HD protection system similar to what IBM has for its Thinkpad models. The One is so light and portable that it is inevitable that it will get bumped around. Of course, you could also get the Linux model with the solid state hard drive but then you sacrifice all that disk capacity.

In conclusion, I like the Aspire One and feel it will fulfill its mission. For the money, it is a very good deal.

Acer Aspire One gets my vote, with no reservations!
I had a wretched experience with the HP 2133. I mentioned in the Amazon review of it (which I had no idea would end up all over the 'Net, tons of other sites are pilfering and posting these reviews) that I had bought an Acer Aspire One.

I like toys, I gave away the ASUS when I bought the HP 2133.

To complete the story:

I've taken the Acer on road trips, occasionally used it at home. It's small, the keyboard is barely big enough for touch typing, but, barely is enough. I'm half deaf, if the fan rattles I never hear it. I'm used to the SONY Vaio, so I'm thrilled with 2.5 hours battery. After stripping almost all the startup programs with msconfig, boot is much faster. We bought new office machines with VISTA when it was first released, XP on the Acer is an old friend ... one I'd missed.

The 120gig hd version wasn't priced much higher than the computer with the smaller flash memory, although the hd is more likely to be busted if dropped. I'm taking the chance.

All I want from a road-warrior notebook is Internet, some word processing, occasionally a Powerpoint. I don't crunch major spreadsheets, do graphics or edit video on the road. I don't much care which processor it has, all I want is basic functionality, reliability, with no surprises or drama. I want the wireless to work every time I turn the computer on. I expect the OS to boot up in a minute or so. The Acer delivers.

It doesn't hurt that it cost $349.

It gets my no-reservations vote. It's the rare combination of ingredients that's worth more than the cost.

A bang for the buck
I had this little guy for about 2 weeks now and I must say this is the coolest little computer that I ever owned.

The specs are pretty impressive. Comes with a 120 gig hard drive of which a 100 will be available to you. The rest is an invisible restore partition. That is plenty of space to work with for an XP home operating system. Comes with 1 Gig of RAM. More than sufficient for running XP. With Vista it is a different story. You can upgrade the RAM if need be but it is a complicated process. If you are like me..using the notebook for email, pictures and streaming content..1 gig is more than sufficient. The Atom processor is quite apt for this tiny guy. It handles most daily processes with relative ease without putting out a ton of heat. The 3 cell battery lasts about 2 and 1/2 hours under normal use. Make sure to turn down the LCD brightness. Some people have complained about the loud fan, but my experience is , unless you are listening for it, you will not be bothered. The wifi radio is a breeze. Very sensitive to pick up access points and quick to connect. My guy has never dropped a connection yet. The keyboard is slightly tricky at first but you will get used to it.

Viewing webpages is a slight challenge. You will have to be constantly scrolling down. On the IE 7, make sure you do away with the menubar and the toolbars to give the bowser maximum possible viewing area. The view is better at a 75% zoom level but you will need really good eyes to read.

The Aspire one DOSE NOT have an optical drive to read cd's or dvd's. To load programs or drivers you have one of 2 options. Directly from the net or via the network. (On your home network)Share the cd or dvd drive on your desktop PC . Now map it as a network drive on the Aspire one. Pop the cd in the optical drive of your desktop and access it from the Aspire one.

Also missing is the bluetooth radio. The easy way is to get a tiny usb bluetooth adapter off ebay. The smallest ones just stick about half and inch out. Make sure they come with the drivers. Windows has its own BT stack but very basic. If you are want it to connect to headphones to listen to music etc, you will need specialized drivers. IVT Bluesoleil is a pretty good stack and I have used it for few years without issues. Make sure the BT adapter ships with DRIVERS. My adpater is permanently plugged in to one of my usb ports. It slips into the provided pouch, no problem with the USB BT attached.

Screen is pretty bright and webcam is fair to use for yahoo,skype etc.

The case is a fingerprint magnet. Make sure you do not touch the screen unless you want to leave prints all over. A good wipedown with a soft cloth may be in order from time to time. It is ultra portable, super light weight..You probably get the picture.

Other than that, regular maintainence like cleaning the temp files, defraging etc will keep it running like new.