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Acer Aspire One Review

linuxhaxor.net — The Aspire One comes preinstalled with Linpus Linux, which in turn is based on Fedora Core 8...

Who dugg this? Made popular Sep 3, 2008

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  • Nonyaz, on 06/23/2009, -1/+29Not one mention of the Atom processor?
  • tvnews, on 09/02/2008, -4/+30I got an Acer Aspire that had Vista on it - Vista ruined it - really slow.
  • 80hd, on 09/02/2008, -5/+21That's not difficult to imagine. At all.
  • inactive, on 09/02/2008, -1/+16I love my Aspire One, mine only cost $309 dollars at circuit city though. I got the last one in stock, they're selling fast apparently.

    I really love the little bugger because it's about the size of a book and it just really goes along nicely with my other school stuff.

    Personally my only grip with it is the speakers, they shouldn't of even put any speakers in it at all if they were going to put in such crappy speakers.

    It's not so great for media stuff, but it can do a decent enough job with shows and movies from hulu.com and it streams AOLRadio pretty good. Those two things, along with youtube, keep me entertained enough. But when I want to seriously jam out I use my regular computer anyways. The Aspire One is more for bringing to school to take notes on, or pounding out a paper on in the library.
  • stygiansonic, on 09/03/2008, -0/+13I have the 1GB/120GB/6-cell/Windows XP version and haven't had a single problem with it. It's pretty fast, the screen is nice and most importantly, the keyboard is decently sized.

    I tried the earlier Eee PCs but just could not get over the keyboard size. I mean, my hands aren't humongous but they're not child-sized either. The Aspire One's keyboard is large enough to type comfortably on and that's the most important for me.

    (As a side note, has anyone noticed the textarea for comments bouncy/expanding up/down in Google Chrome?)
  • seltaeb4, on 09/03/2008, -4/+15"Linpus"?

    I hope that's a typo, otherwise someone needs to run their naming conventions by Marketing before the product ships.
  • aelias, on 09/03/2008, -3/+13Vista should never be used on a laptop? Is that why every laptop in the store has Vista on it? I run Vista Ultimate just fine on a laptop. Granted, my laptop is a beast, but I watch it run just fine on a POS 500$ Acer daily.

    Sick of Vista getting a bad rap. It's fine. Great even.
  • waydee, on 09/03/2008, -1/+9what the hell are you talking about?

    as long as it has 2gb of ram Vista will run fine.
  • CurtisL, on 09/02/2008, -0/+7bought the 6 cell xp 1 gb ram and 120 gb hard drive version for class and i've been really impressed so far.
  • SuperJimmyJimbo, on 09/03/2008, -0/+7I picked one up at Microcenter, got sick of waiting for the Dell to come out. 1.6ghz/1gig/120gig XP model for $350. Been using it for classes, etc, and its working like a champ. The form factor ROCKS, small enough to forget you have it with you. The keyboard is very usable, and I have pretty large hands. The trackpad, well, sucks. The Display is bright and clear. XP runs....well, its still XP :/
  • pHr34kY, on 09/03/2008, -0/+6Bill gates was right - there IS no reason to have more than 640K of memory!
  • 80hd, on 09/02/2008, -2/+7I would positively love for a subnotebook with say.... 32gb in SSD and a 1280x800 screen.

    The only reason I'm holding off on any of these is the limited resolution:( I know the space is small, but a high res-high dpi screen is what seems to be lacking in these machines.
  • Abatrour, on 09/03/2008, -0/+5I love mine. I got the 1gb ram 120gb hdd model.
    It came with windows xp but i tried Installing Ubuntu on it and it ran real well. Everything worked except for the mic and wifi. The wifi was an easy fix though.But then I tried Diablo 2 in wine and it went painfully slow probably from bad intel video drivers.

    So then after trying to recover Acers weird mbr I managed to put windows back on to play D2.

    If you ever want to try windows on it after linux I suggest NOT installing the boot loader onto the mbr.
  • compgeek, on 09/03/2008, -0/+5I'm so tempted to go buy one with XP home and the 120GB hard drive just to have it as a light surf machine away from my powerhouse of a 17 inch Acer with an Nvidia 8600 series card and 3GB of ram coupled with the 320GB hard drive. Nice machine but too bulky to carry everywhere. This sub notebook should fit the portability bill nicely
  • rollerboy, on 09/03/2008, -0/+5Interesting, I have been looking through the forum and I have not seen anybody report that. Interesting non the less.
  • ez12a, on 09/03/2008, -0/+5runs fine on my macbook pro..
  • sahaskatta, on 09/03/2008, -1/+6the digg comments box jumps up and down in Firefox 3 as well, it's a digg issue. not a browser problem.

    And regarding the laptop, its quite awesome. I just got one you got for $300 at best buy with a coupon. It's pretty darn fast. I just wish the mouse buttons were placed better. Also would have been nice if it fit a 6-cell battery without sticking out!

    p.s. here's my review of the XP 120GB version: http://skattertech.com/2008/08/acer-aspire-one-rev ...
  • RoflcopterFUEL, on 09/03/2008, -0/+4Then you wouldn't positively love any subnotebook. Just carry a laptop then.
  • akino, on 09/03/2008, -0/+4got mine for school as well. so far no problems at all.
  • tokyoturnip, on 09/05/2008, -0/+4I bought the Linpus 8GB SSD version and love it.
    You will love it too if you think like this.
    It is a Netbook, something to just jump online at Panera, or look up some Google Directions at Starbucks. Or even take a call with Skype. (Not installed by default.)
    It is only meant to do a few light tasks, it is not meant to be a Desktop or even a laptop replacement, so forget about working on it for 8hrs straight.
    I would suggest the SSD version because if you keep tossing it in and out of your bag, that HD will break, or drop the needle on the platters sooner or later. Plus you do not need to worry about knocking it around while the OS is up and running.
    Memory 512Mb...Plenty for Linpus, I have had plenty of apps open and don't think I have seen it touch Swap once. But you can always buy a 1gb stick for $20 from newegg if you want.
    And it is customizeable you just need to unlock the advanced menu settings.
    see forums at http://www.aspireoneuser.com/ for details.

    Things I have done.
    Install Japanese IME using rpm package manager.
    Install Skype using rpm from skype.com
    I will be installing OpenVPN to connect to OpenVPN running on my dd-wrt router shortly.
    I will probably be installing pidgin.im and Thunderbird soon.


    i first bought from Circuitcity for $379, but then price dropped, and went back for their 30day price matching, so I did not feel like such a sucker.. I feel even better now know dell is $349.

    Only personal con:
    The darn touchpad is sensitive and right under the space bar...Solution just fn-F6 to disable touchpad while doing heavy typing, no biggie.
  • getoffmybridge, on 05/05/2009, -5/+9Runs fine on a decent laptop
  • MadHarvey, on 09/03/2008, -1/+5Call me old fashioned but, I think every computer review should, you know, mention the processor.

    I mean Jesus, they mentioned the RAM which by your standards is probably not a significant feature
  • ThePeacemaker02, on 09/03/2008, -1/+4I'm thinking about buying a netbook but I'm waiting for that dell one to be released. The Acer seems really good right now. I would've bought an Asus but they are getting too expensive.
  • Sniper, on 09/03/2008, -0/+3Mines 16 inch with Nvidia 9500M with 3GB ram and 320GB hard drive :)
  • wrek, on 09/03/2008, -0/+3Couldn't you just put linux on there?
  • tiuk, on 09/03/2008, -1/+4Yeah, truly a horrible name. I actually read it twice to be sure I was seeing it right.
  • Kuabarra, on 09/03/2008, -0/+3Whoever wrote the review must be a computer noob, or must have been having a major brain fart as he said it had 512 KB "as in kilobytes" of RAM all the time. First time I thought it was a typo, then after seeing it a few times I just thought he was an idiot.
  • nstern2, on 09/03/2008, -0/+3I have one of the xp versions and I decided to scrap xp and put ubuntu on it because I already have a vista desktop and don't really need another windows machine. Anyhow ubuntu runs great on it, and besides spending about 2-4 hours getting the madwifi driver working it has been smooth sailing linux wise. My only gripe with it is the touch pad. In a dark room it is hard to find the left and right click as they are the same size and basically built into the touch pad.
  • sahaskatta, on 09/03/2008, -0/+3I just got that one two it's pretty darn good.

    Best buy sells the 120 GB version with XP for $350.

    also here's my review of the XP version
    http://skattertech.com/2008/08/acer-aspire-one-rev ...
  • higgy345, on 09/03/2008, -0/+3Asus EeePC 901 (and many other forms of the Eee), Gigabyte M912, and MSI Wind to name a few.
  • RyeBrye, on 09/03/2008, -1/+3Minor correction to the article's summary: There's no such thing as "Fedora Core 8" - it became "Fedora 8" at that release and has not had the core moniker since then.
  • leha, on 09/03/2008, -0/+2You wont be able to see a difference between 1024 and 1280 resolution on such a small screen (9in diagonal). Even with 1024 I have to increase fonts on most websites because letters are too small. If you really need big resolution you can attach external monitor, I tested mine on 1680x1050 and no problems.
  • kjcdude, on 09/03/2008, -0/+2wtf is up with the touchpad
  • frontporsche, on 09/03/2008, -0/+2As to the 32gb SSD you want, the Aspire will take 2 SDHC cards. I've found that writing to the SD card (Patriot, class 6, sdhc, 4GB) is at least as fast as writing to the SSD.
  • int19h, on 09/03/2008, -0/+2I've got an Acer Aspire One too. It's great and I highly recommend it.

    Only thing is that the mousepad-buttons feel cheap, but hey, you can click by tapping or just use a regular mouse.
    The battery lasts longer than advertised, the screen is good and I'm happy with the performance.
    While Linpus is a good default operating system, I had great pains trying to install the applications I wanted, so I reinstalled with Archlinux instead, which is just perfect. Archlinux has a handy USB-version-download, which makes it easier to install than Ubuntu, IMO. Just follow the guide on the ArchLinux-wiki and you're good.

    If you upgrade the BIOS (newly released upgrade), you can even make the battery last just a bit longer, since the CPU can go to C3. (use powertop).

    Oh, and the built-in network card works great with Kismet and for recovering the WEP-password from your own wireless router...

    It's a great little computer. Five stars!
  • Giga, on 09/03/2008, -1/+3"512KiB of SDRAM with 8GB Solid State Drive might seem very small"

    You're not kidding. Most CPU's these days have more cache than that machine has RAM.
  • rollerboy, on 09/03/2008, -0/+2I wonder why this review out of the many out there(and arguably better) made it to the front page. I have one and there are some small issues with the aspire one but that's what the price tag gets you, and I'm not complaining. I installed like three other Linux OS but came back to Linpus because of the flawless Wi-Fi and fast boot up. I don't mind Ubuntu load times on my desktop but I wont forgive it on a netbook.
  • bergur1, on 09/03/2008, -0/+2Posting from my Aspire, I agree that it is a very nice machine but the review barely touches on any of it's hardware flaws, in all of it's glory I find him a little hard to believe.

    I have the xp version and I have to say it's handling quite nicely, my only complaints is the sound which is located at the bottom of the machine, not an ideal place for a machine that goes in your lap.

    I got my moneys worth, I am experimenting with everything programs and their ability. I got Quake Live to run full speed over Firefox and Chrome is ultra fast...too bad it seems to be having problems with the digg text wrapping and the text in my comment box is flapping around like a mad dog. This is for chrome not from the Aspire One

    If I were to back this writer up I'd say that the XP version is a GREAT buy, $350 for a free copy of XP, lots more HD space (I've already filled more than 20GB with movies and shows for on the go watching), 1/2 GB more of RAM, and a longer lasting battery.
  • EZ2ENVY, on 09/03/2008, -0/+2i have the MSi wind u100 and traded the acer aspire one for it, and i can honestly say that the MSi wind is ALOT better machine and only cost 100 more, u get 10 inch screen instead of 8.9, bigger "ENTER" button which the small one on the AAO is VERY annoying, as well as slightly larger keyboard, underclocking capabilities, , winXP wit 1 GB ram off the bat, and 80 gig hhd with card reader as well and 6 cell battery, .......
    Either way, trying to say that i LOVE the MSI alot better then i did the AAO..............
  • LordVoldemort, on 09/04/2008, -0/+2"Some problem with the motherboards"

    That's what you bastards always say.
  • bensully, on 09/03/2008, -0/+2Yeah I got my XP Aspire One a few days ago at microcenter. I can say without a doubt this is the best $350 dollars I've ever spent.
    I would recommend buying the XP model over the Linpus model, if you don't like XP, just download ubuntu and put it on yourself. Instead of a tiny ass SSD, you get a 120gig hard drive.
    Yesterday I swapped a gig stick of memory in, marked improvement.
    The EEE has nothing on the One especially for the price point.
    Only problem I have is the 3-cell battery. I get about 2.5 hours out of it, but still I wouldn't mind the 6 or 7 promised with the 6-cell.
    The 6-cell is about $120 right now, way overpriced. Once it drops though, I'm all over it.
  • sahaskatta, on 09/03/2008, -1/+3Here's a pretty good review of the XP version with a 120GB HDD
    http://skattertech.com/2008/08/acer-aspire-one-rev ...

    It costs just $350 in best buy and many other stores now! Not bad in my opinion.
    just wish those mouse buttons could have been placed properly!!
  • inactive, on 09/03/2008, -0/+2It's not lupus. It's never lupus.
  • rollerboy, on 09/03/2008, -0/+2SSDs are expensive, you would have to pay a premium for that nowadays and defeats the purpose of a netbook. There is an Asus Eee 1000 that has a 40gb SSD and the cheapest you can get it for is $650.
  • TehClaw, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1Most ass kissing review I've ever seen :O but then again, I don't read that many.
  • thecompkid, on 09/03/2008, -0/+1A lot of Aspire Ones get the BIOS bricking issue. Believe it or not, the BIOS has the nasty habit of randomly erasing itself. Basically, you turn off your computer, everything's fine, but when you go to turn it back on, all you get is the power light on and maybe a little fan spinning, that's all.

    Now, luckily enough for the Google-savvy consumer, there is a low level recovery routine that involves nothing more than plugging in a FAT32 USB drive with the bios image on it and stepping through a few key combos.

    BIOS bricking would normally be filed under the category of catastrophic and irrecoverable failure, so it's a little alarming that a computer has a known random BIOS bricking issue. It's already happened to me once in the ~9 days i've had mine, and it could be a real issue if you're stuck somewhere without your thumb drive.
  • Fergy, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1The purpose of a netbook is a full internet experience with a good keyboard being portable and being less than 1000+ dollars(which mini notebooks were until asus). I bought the Asus 1000H and thought it was cheap for a portable laptop with 5 hours battery.
  • kiddee, on 10/07/2009, -0/+1acer aspire one
    http://www.aceraspireones.us
  • mrplant, on 12/09/2008, -0/+1Vista SP1, doesn't support the LAN, WIFI and the DISPLAY

    It suports everything - just you have to know what you are doing!!
  • mamaboy, on 09/03/2008, -0/+1I got the XP version, and it's perfect for what I bought it for; word processing and internet. Touch pad is ridiculous, so i just went and got the ultra small targus mouse. Great platform for Ubuntu in the future.
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