Rediscovering the Acer Aspire One Netbook

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sun Dec 02, 2012 11:59 am

A client gave me an Acer Aspire One netbook several months ago, because his wife (who he bought it for) never used it, and she forgot the Windows password.

I honestly didn't think I had any use for it, and at first thought I'd give it away to a child as a present. I have a couple of old thin light 13 inch Acer Timeline laptops lying around the house and the Nexus 7 tablet which I thought were good enough.

I love the tablet, but typing anything other than a short post is painful. I mainly use it for reading, and if I see something interesting I want to post then I email a link to it to myself so I can deal with it when I'm at a real computer.

I mostly want a laptop when I'm sitting in the livingroom recliner, but it's awkward keeping even a 13 inch laptop on the nightstand next to it.

Once I cleaned up the netbook, though, it makes a really nice small laptop. It's small enough to keep on the table next to the chair connected to a charger, it has a nice clear display, and a really good keyboard for a laptop (especially for a netbook). The keyboard is the reason I buy Acer laptops. They are nice keyboards for people with fat fingers like me. They have a space between keys instead of being flush against each other like your typical laptop "chicklet" style keyboards.

The Aspire One is also a pretty good performer for an Atom based netbook. Even with the default 1Gb of RAM the performance is very snappy with Windows 7 Starter Edition. I was contemplating installing Win8 since it's designed for low-power PCs but frankly I think Win7 Starter is just as good and I have also read that finding some drivers for Win8 on this machine might be an issue.

I like it so much, and since it was a freebie, I ordered a small cheap 60Gb SSD for it and a 2Gb RAM upgrade - all for less than $100. Honestly, for casual use, 1Gb is adequate but the RAM was so cheap I decided WTH.

Performance is more than adequate for browsing, email, and even leisure games: Brige Constructor, Peggle, Platinum Jigsaw and Plants vs Zombies run just fine. Youtube playback is good. I occasionally see a stutter but not often.

I have no issues with the small display since it's actually bigger than my Nexus7, and wearing reading glasses instead of computer glasses, it's fine.

Now I did disable all unnecessary services (Win7 Starter doesn't have many, but every little bit helps), I'm running Chrome with the ScriptNo and FlashBlock addons for security, no Flash, No Adobe Reader (Chrome has Flash & a Reader built in) and no Java. I'm running the primary user as a limited user so you can't install anything without typing the admin password, and since it's locked down so tight I don't have any AV installed which definitely improves performance.

Even with the original HDD it booted fast, but with the SSD it boots like lightning, and I don't have to worry about bumping it about.

Battery life is 5 - 5.5 hours (my real world experience - they advertise 6.5).

If you're interested in one I'd keep an eye out for a cheap new or used one if you're interested. I know lots of people who bought them and don't use them.

They still sell them new. Walmart has it for $228:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/19756224?adid ... 7014918896

The Aspire One always did get the best performance reviews over other Netbooks.

I also have always felt they make great inexpensive first laptops for kids.

ZYFER · Post by **ZYFER** » Sun Dec 02, 2012 6:19 pm

Damn I wish I knew before you ordered it! I have 4GB (2GB x 2) of Ram just collecting dust, which I have no real use for since most laptops come stock with 4GB these days.

Qui Gon-Jinn · Post by **Qui Gon-Jinn** » Thu Dec 06, 2012 7:31 am

I have one sitting in storage. Battery is shot. Still a decent little device.

Just got the HP Envy m6.. and My Samsung is still close at hand. I am starting to collect laptops.. hmm

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Thu Dec 06, 2012 9:00 am

You can get re-manufactured batteries for them (and most laptops) on Amazon for $20 - $25.

Yeah, I have a plethora of laptops here now. When company comes over and wants to use a PC for browsing, or a child visits who wants to play games, I hand them a spare laptop that I have locked down as a limited user.

eGoCeNTRoNiX · Post by **eGoCeNTRoNiX** » Thu Dec 06, 2012 9:51 am

My Mom has two of them.. An Acer and an eMachines branded one.. They are the same machine.. She loves them.. Although she primarily uses her iPad 2 now.. haha

DaMaN · Post by **DaMaN** » Thu Dec 06, 2012 10:19 am

I just sold my ASUS EEEPC 1000HE netbook on eBay. I want something a tad faster so I am saving my nickels for an Ultrabook like the ASUS Zenbook UX32VD DB71.