Acer Aspire One Review

Acer Aspire One Review - A Quick To the Point Netbook Guide

Acer's Aspire netbooks are one of the best valued netbooks on the market in our opinion hands down. 

At the time of this writing some of the Aspire One’s major highlights include configurations with ample 8.9 and 10.1 inch screen flavors with 1024x600 pixels, and 4 or six cell battery configurations, all in a great sub $500 affordable package. 

Not too shabby for a netbook, though the netbook base configuration on a whole (features, specifications, etc.) offered by other manufacturers including Sony, HP, Dell, Asus, Hitachi and others are also for the most part very similar across the board. 

This is pretty much due to manufacturing costs for honestly manufacturers really need to keep these little guys in the $500 price range to be competitive and to be truly classified as a netbook.   

Of course there are some so called netbooks costing over $500 but that’s another story.   Thankfully however the Aspire one series netbooks standout and are a true sub $500 netbook bargain.

Stylish Acer Aspire One Netbooks & Competitors

The Acer Aspire One series netbooks do differ from other netbooks out here in more ways than one on the other hand. 

One difference is of course exterior styling despite being pretty similar to other models including the Asus Eee PC netbook line. 

The Aspire One series do however have some distinctions and we feel the overall design is pretty good all around. 

Exterior finish is clean and overall look and feel is of good quality making the Aspire One a true and cool netbook computer.  

Acer One series netbooks run on the powerful Intel Atom mobile processor platform like many other netbooks which lends to great all around performance for basic applications such as light word processing, Internet surfing, and listening to your favorite tunes among other light duty tasks. 

Like other netbooks the Aspire One series netbooks will make a great secondary computer system and a perfect starter laptop for younger tech users but as a primary computing machine the horsepower just isn’t quite there in our opinion.  

This is to be expected however for remember the Intel Atom processors are really designed specifically for low power usage and cost. 

Of course the Atom processor is truly the perfect processor for these super small laptops and because less processing horsepower typically equates to a lower cost per processor, manufacturers are able to offer netbooks like the Acer Aspire One at the spectacular sub $500 price range. 

And we’re happy to trade off a bit of performance in this case, but don’t get me wrong, Intel Atom processors such as the N270 offer great all around performance that is perfect for common computing duties.

Aspire One Review - System Quick Highlights:

Pros

• Very affordable
• Good battery life, especially six cell netbook configurations
• Bright screen
• Decent exterior styling and finish

Cons 

• Clunky mouse button on some models 
• Debatable touchpad feel.  Can be a bit temperamental on some models
• Smaller than average keyboard when compared to some competitor netbooks

Aspire One Review - Typical Acer Aspire One System Features

• Intel Atom mobile processors
• Intel GMA 950+ Integrated Graphics
• 1 to 2GB memory configurations
• 160GB+ hard drives
• Screen resolution with 1024x600 pixels
• Built-in webcam
• VGA output
• Multi flash card reader
• Three USB 2.0 ports
• Models weigh in less than 4lbs
• Windows operating systems

Acer Aspire One - Additional Details

Models with six cell batteries such as the Acer Aspire One D150 in fact are one of the cheapest netbooks out there that can run for 5+ hours on a single charge. 

We ran our test Acer Aspire One D150 through the rounds and sure enough we achieved between 4.5 on up to a whopping 6.5 hours depending on our usage and the various configuration options that were tweaked.

Our typical usage during testing included light duty tasks like word processing and web surfing.  We figure most netbook purchasers will use their own netbooks for similar tasks and such we left out heavy duty testing scenarios. 

We always look at battery life with a grain of salt however and honestly we never really do full on consistent testing between different laptop brands and configurations for our site is marketed towards the general user and so the nitty-gritty details we leave to complex dissectors such as Anandtech, Toms Hardware, or CNET.

Acer Aspire One Review - Conclusion

In the end all great things will always have their low points.  One thing you will notice right off the bat with many Aspire One netbooks including the Aspire One D150 is a smaller than average keyboard design. 

The keyboard is not exactly a break this deal too small for remember once again a netbook is small as hell so sacrifices are to be expected, but it does seem that many Aspire One’s have smaller keyboards than some of the competitors netbooks.

This will most certainly take some time getting used to for many of you.  And if you have big ass hands forget about it, we advise you guys and gals to stay away from Netbooks in general including the Aspire One unless you truly don’t mind micro peck typing with typos imminent. 

Another low point for some Aspire One models such as the Aspire One D150 is a lackluster trackpad and trackpad button.  Of course with time and a bit of patience we do feel most of you will get used to it.  And well we do figure corners had to be cut somewhere by Acer so they could push the envelope and offer some of the lowest priced netbooks around.

For a highly functioning netbook laptop that gets great battery life at the same time costing far less than $500 who’s really complaining?  Not us, and it is for this reason we highly recommend you check out Acer’s Aspire One line of mini laptop netbooks.

Happy Purchasing!

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