Acer Aspire One

richieg

PC world are fairly getting by the whole netbook idea. They have the EE PC 701 linux, 900 XP, Advent 4211 and Acer Aspire One linux in stock.

Played with them all for a while today and I must say I like the Acer a lot; nice size, weight, keyboard, style, screen, OS. The Advent seems a little big and first impressions of the EEE PC screen and keyboard are quite poor compared to the others.

Does anyone have the Acer and how do you find it?
What's it like running media on it and what formats does it support out of the box?

ytareh

I saw this in Dixons Liffey Valley a fortnight ago but no stock for sale ....Looked just ok in my opinion .I reckon it falls between the two extremes of the perfectly scaled down laptop Advent 4211 (in general appearance) and the cute and original Asus EEE (with its SSD Hard drive etc) without beating either -still priced at 349 (right?) its probably better value than a 901 right now ...Advent is still the best bang per buck in my opinion but not necessarily the one Id automatically buy...

Stephen

It came down to a choice between an Eee 901 and the Acer One for me. I got the Eee because it was available sooner. If both became available at the same time I'm not sure which I would have gone for. Both seem to be great little machines.

Scruff

Posting this reply from my new Aspire One Got the windows XP version with the 120gb hd. Havent used it too much yet but am pretty happy with it so far.
Pros:
Keyboard has decent sized keys.
Screen is very clear
its small and light!

Cons:
Speakers are a bit crap
Only 3 cell battery so approx 2hr battery life.

I'll update as i use it more.

richieg

Where did you pick up the XP version and how much did you pay for it if you don't mind me asking?

Scruff

In New Zealand Cost about €410.

sian

Ok so there's the Advent, the Acer, the Asus and now I just saw that Maplins have what they're calling the 'Minibook' and also carphone warehouse have a 'webook'. I just got a Mac but I wouldn't mind having something small and light that I could put "earmaster" on (ear training program, surf the web, and maybe outlook express and googledoc/word. If anyone has any opinions on what would be the best buy I'd luuuuuurve to hear all about it.

ytareh

I know there are one or two very inferior look a likes coming on the scene.Id only recommend Advent 4211 (most like a 'mini' laptop-but heavyish compared with smaller EEEs and shortish battery life))or ASUS(original and cutest) EEE 900(low battery life)901 or 1000...Acer may be worth a look but not Elonex or anything Maplins sells!(they are grand for the odd fan/case etc but sell lots of unknown brand overpriced stuff)
You wouldnt go too far wrong with a 4211 for 379 from PC World...

Stephen

Komplett.ie are selling the MSI Wind now also -- the Advent 4211 is a rebadged Wind.

richieg

Seen an ad today from PC world. The linux aspire one is down to 269 euro

Ghost Train

richieg wrote: »

Seen an ad today from PC world. The linux aspire one is down to 269 euro

not a bad price compared to the original eeepcs

had a look at the Advent 4211 in pcworld the other day, seemed very good

Lenie

Got the 120gb Aspire One with Linux off laptopsdirect.ie for about 340 euro. You can install Windows on it (as I have just done), but you have to do it in a bit of a roundabout manner, because of it having no dvd-drive. I believe this is a bit cheaper than buying the one with Windows pre-installed, though as far as I know, I have just voided my warranty

ytareh

I want to like the Acer Aspire ONE but I just find its neither EEE or Advent4211 but tries to combine both and fails .
This from wikipedia isnt encouraging...

"The solid state hard drive is probably the biggest complaint. Two different models of solid state drive may be received by the end-user, apparently at random. One model is significantly faster than the other, but both models are extremely slow compared to contemporary solid state drives and even "old fashioned" hard disk drives. Although the solid state drive's access time is far superior to any regular hard disk drive, its read and write speeds are extremely slow, crippling the system for use with demanding programs and operating systems, such as Windows XP. This is believed to be why Acer has thus far not sold any models with a SSD/Windows XP configuration. Technically-minded individuals have made some progress in reducing the impact of the SSD's slow speed when used with Windows XP, so the problem could possibly be eliminated in the future. It should be noted that the solid state drive works perfectly with the included version of Linux and has been reported to work well with Ubuntu and other distributions as well, so this may be a strictly Windows-only problem."

elmoie

i did the same as lenie (well XP is going on as i type ) the Linux that comes on it is kind of nice I have to say (not a big linux user) but was liking it and was fast but for my job I need XP .. might try and see if duel boot is an option at some stage ..

Like everything about it but for one thing .. the battery is a bit crap I am getting about 2 hours out of it..

Will look into the 6 cell battery but hear it is a little pricy and sticks out the back ...

so far though I am a very happy bunny..

Oh dunes is doing it for €299 (the 8GB version I would guess)

eth0_

I bought the Acer Aspire One (linux) last night and i'm pretty disappointed with it so far.
Firstly, when I booted it up the trackpad was unresponsive and it was giving a HAL error. My (admittedly limited) linux knowledge allowed me to find out the trackpad wasn't being detected.

Brought it back for a replacement today.
All worked fine for half an hour, then X crashed while watching a short youtube video. The whole system locked up and I had to do a hard reboot. Now it boots up but X doesn't start. There's no way of booting to console unless you enable this from the terminal...which you need the GUI to access.

So i'll have to create a recovery USB boot drive later and see if a system restore fixes it.

God help someone who wasn't computer literate if they break this easily!

liamo

That's unfortunate.

I got mine about 5 weeks ago and it has behaved perfectly.

It saved my bacon in Alghero airport in Sardinia a few weeks ago when we got hit by a tornado and the airport was closed. I was able to go on-line from the airport and hire a car and book flights home via London for the next morning while others were trying to snap up cars and airplane seats by phone. Some people ended up waiting 3 days to get home.

Go Acer !!