Acer Aspire One

Full review of Acer Aspire One

The Aspire One is an 8.9" netbook with an Intel Atom N270 processor and GMA950 integrated graphics just like every other netbook out there. With identical hardware, you would assume to get roughly the same performance out of it, and you would assume correctly.

Features

There is still a measure of variation between different netbooks and brands, most notably the appearance, but quality aspects are naturally also important, as well as connectivity, hard drive, RAM and battery size.

Regarding the last item in the list, we managed to find the desirable and elusive model with the 6-cell battery, which offered 5 hours and 40 minutes of battery life with wireless on and backlight set to 75%. It wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that the 3-cell, which is more common, would yield about half of that.

Big for a Netbook

Of course, getting the larger battery also means sacrificing some portability. The Aspire One is actually a bit large already (as far as netbooks go), and the 6-cell battery increases the weight to roughly 2.5 pounds. Another minor annoyance with the Acer is the relatively wide and thick bezel that makes it even slightly larger than some 10-inch netbooks.

That annoyingly large LCD bezel is unfortunately not the only letdown as far as the screen is concerned. Its viewing angles are also very poor - colors start shifting as soon as you're not exactly in front of the screen.

Bottom Line

You also get varying amounts of RAM and hard drive (or SSD) space depending on which version you get. The Aspire One is available with both flash memory-based Solid State Drives in smaller sizes and regular notebook hard drives. Our review model had 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive - both quite generous for a netbook. In most aspects, you actually get a lot of "bang for the buck" with the Aspire One.

On the whole it's a reasonably well-rounded netbook that - like most netbooks - offer few surprises. Considering what you have to pay for it, it's hard not to recommend this netbook in spite of a few flaws.

Acer Aspire One Technical Specifications

• Processor Intel Atom N270 1.6 GHz
• Memory 1GB
• Harddrive 160GB
• OS Windows XP Home
• Weight 2.2 lbs
• Screen 8.9
• Screen resolution 1024 x 600
• Graphic Card Intel Graphics Media Accelerator
• Battery Life 3 hours

Pros

• Looks Pretty
• Very Affordable
• Comfortable Keyboard

Cons

• Poor Viewing Angles
• Relatively Large for a Netbook