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Darren reviews Acer Aspire One


Darren Kitchen

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Here's my review: http://www.darrenkitchen.net/acer-aspire-o...c-701-as-haktop

It occurred to me the other day while reviewing past footage that essentially I’ve had the same notebook computer for the last 3 years. I guess that’s not too bad but when I got my Dell Inspiron 700m it was already a year old. Then earlier this year I picked up the Asus eee PC thinking it was an adequate replacement. I was wrong.

While the eee PC 701 is a great fun machine to play with it lacks in some key areas. Namely after much time with it the shortcomings of the keyboard, screen and processor really got to me. Thankfully Asus has addressed these concerns with its plethora of models since the original 701 series came out, all of which look like decent rigs. The only problem is the price of these newer models has raised considerably. Enter Acer’s Aspire One.

acer_aspire_one_1.jpg

I first heard of this bad boy when visiting Pronobozo in Toronto for the Pure Pwnage Episodes 16-17 screening. He was between desktops and had picked up this inexpensive netbook to get by. My first impression was amazing. The 9″ glossy screen, atom processor and spacious keyboard had me at first sight. Then when he told me the cost I was immediately sold.

The following day I walked down to Canada Computer at 366 Bloor St. in Toronto to pick one up. Awesomely I was recognized by one of the sales guys. “You’re that guy from Hak5, right?” I love Toronto. Unfortunately they were also remodeling that day and didn’t have any in stock. The other sad fact was that the Canadian version, which had come out a few weeks before the US version, had a multilingual English/French keyboard. It’s kinda a big deal to me, I’m pretty picky about the location of the \ and / keys, size of enter, shift, and backspace, and placement of ~. (This coming from the guy who started on an IBM PC-XT with an 83 key keyboard. F11, what’s that?)

So when I got back to the states I checked it out again and when I found the 120 GB version on sale at a shop near my office I immediately picked it up (along with a case of bawls). Now, after a week of abuse and testing, I present my report on the Acer Aspire One AOA150.

aa1vseee-custom.jpg

Cons

# it dropped in price by $50 2 days after I bought mine (then again I had a feeling it would after reading the gadget blogs but wanted it now so that’s on me)

# battery life only 2.5 hours on the 3 cell

# won’t boot off SD card (at least with the stock bios. hopefully this gets fixed)

# no integrated bluetooth. (not difficult to mod in if you can work a soldering iron, else grab one of those itsy bitsy usb bluetooth dongles that don’t protrude much)

# fan and hdd louder than eee pc 701. quieter than my old dell but not silent

# parts are expensive. 6 cell battery alone is $100 or so I’ve read. Should have waited for the 160gb/6-cell version to come out for the same price I got my 120/3.

# touchpad is obviously multi-touch capable but the drivers don’t support it.

# touchpad left and right mouse click buttons are in weird placement. takes some getting used to.

# acer’s own support site is lacking in the driver area. thankfully aspireoneusers.com had ‘em

Pros

# The glossy 8.9″ 1024×600 LED backlit screen is bright and beautiful. The least expensive screen of its size in the netbook arena.

# The keyboard is spacious. Nearly as big as my Dell Inspiron 700m in size and everything is laid out perfectly. No funky key placement on the US version like the EEE PCs, HP MiniNotes, MSI Winds, Cloudbooks, etc. Full size shift, enter, backspace keys. Effortless typing. Good response. Ok travel. No learning curve.

# The HDD is roomy and not too loud. I’ve got the 120gb version. A 160gb version with a 6-celll battery came out with the recent price drops. If you get the inexpensive 8gb SSD version with Linux instead of XP you’re in for a treat. The Aspire One has two media card reasers. A muli-format on the right which accepts major formats including SD and Memory Stick and an SD card reader on the left which, when occupied, gets added to the available space on the SSD. How cool is that?

# The hardware is solid and commonly supported. The Acer Aspire One AOA150 shares the same graphics and network chipsets as the Asus eee PC 901. This is great news if, like me, you plan to use BackTrack on the machine as a module for this hardware have already been created. ;)

# This thing packs performance. I benchmarked it against the eee pc 701 and it was no competition. I benchmarked it against my old Dell Inspiron 700m and again, smoked it. In Windows it’ll run Photoshop, Sony Vegas, Open/MS Office and any other app I use on a day to day basis (VMWare Server not included).

# On the Linux side I’m very pleased with its performance as well. It boots BT3 in seconds and most importantly has the horsepower behind the wireless chipset to really do some packet sniffing/injection. I benchmarked it against my ALFA (AWUS036H / Realtek 8187) running on a BT3 VM on a dual core host and it totally spanked it cracking WEP (my test AP, not my neighbors cough). I started a dump minutes after the ALFA box and a few minutes later when I stopped ‘em both the ALFA had 67,000 IVs where the Aspire One had grabbed over 177,000. (The eeePC 701 had 49,000 but I started it later. Not a perfect test)

# Nice color selection. I picked up the blue one. The mac-envy white looks pretty good too. I’m sure @snubs wouldn’t mind one in pink. And for you Zune fans there’s one in brown. Yeah.

# The 120gb version came with a legit XP license. Kinda nice to have. Then again when I’m done with this thing it’ll hopefully be tripple booting XP, BackTrack and OSX. ;)

# Stylish. The glossy cover, accent colors and intelligent button, led, webcam and fan placements are appreciated. Too bad it soaks up finger prints like a CSI agent. Maybe some stickers will remedy that.

# Plenty moddable ;)

Final Thoughts

The hardware is solid. Construction is pretty good, a slight step up from the eee pc 701. This won’t be my last netbook in the foreseeable future but it does have some staying power. I’d like a version with a 10″ and slightly larger screen, a 6-cell battery, and a bios that’ll boot off SDHC but until then I’m content on this new box. It really feels like it’s more than just a toy. I’m giving my Dell a rest. We’ll see if I pick it up again.

Starting at $320 and bridging the gap between small and actually useful this thing gets four scoops of technolust from me. Yummy.

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Darren dude, this is not a serious test its more like a adversment for Acer.

Sorry this hole test posting is a bit disappointing.

So please next time let the testing to persons that know how.

Just face it man your may be good in a lot of thinks bud comeing up with hardware testing reports is just not your thing.

Gerard

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Darren,

I have had the 8GB Linux Aspire One from release day in the UK, and I think its excellent value for money.

People will obviously compare it to the other Netbooks, and mentions its failings but the fact is its so much cheaper than the others, its in its own league.

I run Linpus and BT3 on mine and its superb, the inbuilt wireless is excellent.

I use mine for PenTest related stuff, and for fun.

Cracking little bit of kit.

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Darren dude, this is not a serious test its more like a adversment for Acer.

I believe the title was "Review", and I see no problems with the article, it doesn't claim to be scientific so I don’t know why you’re bashing it. I personally enjoyed it, and as someone who regularly gets asked about eeePC’s and now Acer One’s (As recently as yesterday in fact [26/08/2008]) I find the review informative and helpful.

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Darren dude, this is not a serious test its more like a adversment for Acer.

Sorry this hole test posting is a bit disappointing.

So please next time let the testing to persons that know how.

Just face it man your may be good in a lot of thinks bud comeing up with hardware testing reports is just not your thing.

Gerard

i think your bashing this too much. after reading this im gonna get one of these.

ive been looking for something to replace my notebook. and after reading this i checked it out. its exactly what im looking for. far better than what ive got now and its less than half the price.

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Darren dude, this is not a serious test its more like a adversment for Acer.

Sorry this hole test posting is a bit disappointing.

So please next time let the testing to persons that know how.

Just face it man your may be good in a lot of thinks bud comeing up with hardware testing reports is just not your thing.

Gerard

Dude I don't know, or want to know, what your beef with me is but I think you read into my review all wrong. First and foremost I'm not advertising for Acer. I'm not down with guerrilla, viral, sleezy, whatever you want to call it marketing. If I'm getting paid to pimp something you better well believe I'm being upfront about it.

As far as my benchmarking methodology is concerned I explained that it wasn't a scientific benchmark, merely an observation in real world practice. :)

Leave this to the professionals :blink: ? Sure, if I was trying to write a professional review. You see, that's not what I wrote. I wrote this assuming the reader is already familiar with the hardware, the specs, etc, and this is my _personal opinions_ about it. Hell, the whole thing starts out with a little story about how I was introduced to the damn thing and how badass it was to get recognized at a PC shop in Toronto.

There are a ton of places online to get a much better review of the Acer Aspire One from professionals, just as you've pasted. That is if you're interested in ports, specs, and dimensions. ;)

Maybe I shouldn't have called it a review. Maybe opinion-editorial would be better. I only figured some of you guys would be interested seeing as how it is that one of the most frequent thing I'm asked about from viewers is what I think about different notebooks, especially with a hacking angle.

Bottom line:

Yes, I'm not a pro at reviewing hardware. Then again I'm not a pro at hacking the gibson. I'm not a pro at cinematography, script writing, interviewing, business development, post production or a few dozen other things I do but then again _that's the point_. <_<

PS: The real review you pasted was pretty good and compliments my op-ed for those who aren't familiar with the Aspire One. And as I neglected to mention, the glossy exterior is in fact a fingerprint magnet. :)

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Damn straight Darren!

I don't know what some people need to pick apart a simple post about a particular piece of hardware.

I've been looking for a small compact notebook for mobile use for a while and I was not satisfied with the eeepc. Perhaps I'll look into the acer.

I do have a question though, with the speed benefit you get from the ssd drive, is worth it to sacrifice the storage space? Personally I can't decide :blink: I'm wondering what you think.

Thanks,

3v

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3vmike, might be worth taking into account how prone you are to droping things as the SSD isnt going to scramble itself at a heavy knock.

I personally prefer the EEE 901 over the Aspire one, I think the One has a nicer keyboard though but that mouse was driving me crazy.

Maybe if I manage to smash in this new 901 like i did my 701 ill have another look at the One as a contender for my cash.

P.S. decent "opinion-editorial" Darren

P.P.S. why no black Aspire :( everything looks good in black

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Dude I don't know, or want to know, what your beef with me is but I think you read into my review all wrong.

Darren, first of all i do not have or want to have any beef with you, and second maybe my reaction on your posting has bing just a little to hard.

My apologies i never mend to upset or hurt you in any kind of way, i think we are both strait forward men that just mis understand one and other.

I really respect you and your work for and add hak.5, so please can we keep it on that i got up on the wrong side of bed this morning.

Thank you

Gerard

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Darren, first of all i do not have or want to have any beef with you, and second maybe my reaction on your posting has bing just a little to hard.

My apologies i never mend to upset or hurt you in any kind of way, i think we are both strait forward men that just mis understand one and other.

I really respect you and your work for and add hak.5, so please can we keep it on that i got up on the wrong side of bed this morning.

Thank you

Gerard

Dude it's all good we all have our days I'm glad we're cool :)

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Sorry double post but I figured I'd update the thread with my ongoing thoughts on this little guy.

As mentioned above if you're rough with these devices and don't need the extra storage go for the SSD model, it's less expensive anyway.

The touch pad buttons are starting to get to me. I keep reaching for the buttons under the touchpad instincivly and they're not there. Dragging with the right-click button requires doing an awkward maneuver where I cross fingers. It's like playing Galaga as a righty.

I am impressed with the AC adapter. While I wish it could be as compact as the eee pc charger I am pleased with its recharge performance. My eee basically doesn't increase battery life if plugged in while on, it simply keeps the device running. To charge the 701 I have to shutdown and wait at least an hour. This guy seems to charge and run at the same time and charges pretty quickly.

I took the aspire one to work with me for the first time since I got it (I only go to the office once a week and telecommute the rest of the time. The office is 150 miles away). I had it hooked up to usb keyboard, mouce, monitor and running Outlook, Visio, Word, RDP, Photoshop, Firefox and Digsby open without a hiccup.

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I read this review on your blog yesterday, and I really liked it. As an Eee owner I was especially interested in how the Aspire One compared to the Eee, and you answered all my questions. I was just a little sad that your love for the Eee melted away so fast by the first serious Eee competitior ;) A collegue of mine coincidentally got his Aspire One in the mail today, so I was able to look at it IRL. And indeed, the bigger screen and resolution, the faster CPU, and the keyboard are improvements you just HAVE to like, that's a no-brainer.

I gotta admit I'm keeping and eye on the Aspire One now... Not so much because I think the Eee "sucks" all of a sudden, but for two reasons:

1. buying "another one of these little laptops" isn't a huge impact on my wallet anymore

2. I have had many times that I thought "this little Eee would do this task so well". Serving as mini-server, home security, building one into a car, taking care of music in bedrooms and/or bathrooms, etc.

Thanks for the review, and I hope you find good use for your trusty "old" Eee!

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Thanks for posting this Darren!

I was standing in Circuit City looking at this less than a week ago, and I nearly bought it. I decided to wait until I had seen some reviews(it was the fist I had heard of it). I want something similar to the eeepc, but I could use the horsepower, and the new price range of the Asus really turned me off. Package that with XP(required if I want ot use it at work), and it really fit the bill. Seems like I can replace my Aspire with this and be happy

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ill be picking up an aspire one once i can to replace my current laptop. going for the 160 gig with the 6cell. i use a lot of hd space and battery so it would be great to have that. i couldnt handle using only 8gigs. i'd be pissed 24/7 not having enough space to do anything lol.

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Can I just say, I want one...

in pink.

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Darren dude, this is not a serious test its more like a adversment for Acer.

Sorry this hole test posting is a bit disappointing.

So please next time let the testing to persons that know how.

Just face it man your may be good in a lot of thinks bud comeing up with hardware testing reports is just not your thing.

Gerard

I chuckled IRL,

But really nice review. Really answered a lot of questions for me about the little gem. I've been looking for something BT3 supported that's small enough but has a step up on the eeepc's annoying keyboard.

Thanks, Darren

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