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Well I have had the Aspire One for over a week. Other then the price drop announcement I am very pleased. Here is a little longer Aspire One XP Review.
I was a very proud 701 owner. I went to advanced mode in Xandros about a month after I purchased my 701. I like to customize my system to my needs and I could only do that by using Xandros advanced mode. One of the downsides of not knowing an OS is that are unsure of what can be installed in the repository and what will break your system and I broke it lots! Now I take full responsibility for my ignorance, but some of those items were in fact Asus blessed fixes, patches, etc. that broke my system. Without a way to properly backup my system (I know there are ways just couldn't get it to work correctly) I would apply something that I shouldn't have and well F9 was my friend. I loved the F9 key on the 701 for this reason. I guess there was a reason for them to design the F9 recovery in the first place. After some frustration on trying to get Firefox 3 and later version of other software I decided I was done with Xandros. I then switched to Mandriva! Mandriva was my savior when it came to using my 701. The software installed properly the first time, they seemed to support and update it regularly, FF3 and the other items I was looking for were not a problem. The repository was full of apps and most apps had a Mandriva version. The bad part of Mandriva is shared by Xandos as well. The apps were made for a larger screen and were not developed with the 701 in mind. I think Mandriva on a 900/901 would have been great, but I had the 701. BTW I couldn't have used my 701 properly without eeeuser.com and I thank everyone who had helped me and eeeuser.com for being here.
This will sound stupid but my son and I were really excited for the new Clone Wars movie to be released. I wanted to show him a trailer on this website http://www.starwars.com/clonewars/site/index.html the EEE 701 struggled to view the website properly, the videos in the videos section were choppy. This is what did it for me. I loved the form factor and at the time there were no choices, now I had a choice. I packed up my 701 threw it on the bay and added a few items to sweeten the deal. I sold my 701 no problems I lost $75.00 on the deal and I was pleased. Then I sat and waited for the Acer to be released. In the previous post I mentioned my good luck with Acer and when I learned they were releasing the Aspire One I was very excited. I checked JR.com everyday and asked that they notified me when the item arrived. Finally it arrived and I ordered it right away.
In my other post I talked about ordering it and my impression a few days later. I wanted to tell you the back story of why I ordered it as well.
My week with the Acer Aspire One Xp version:
I talked about the quality after just a few days, but my opinion has not changed on this. It is top notch.
The screen is just beautiful, very colorful, very easy to read and look at.
I did not know this when I posted before but the mouse pad is multi touch. In FF3 I can do the pinch to zoom in etc. That has been great and FF3 remembers the zoom level for pages I have visited.
The speed is not blazing, my 1.8GHZ Celerom M on my regular notebook is definitely faster, but for what this unit does I can't believe what a great job Intel did designing this chip for this application! Applications do load quickly and I have no complaints about the speed of the CPU.
SSD/Hard Drive: OK I know that the future maybe be SSDs and I would love to have a true SSD in the Aspire One. Now I define a true SSD as one that is just as fast as a hard drive and unlike ASUS I don’t want a slow SSD and a fast SSD in the same machine. The 16GB version of the 900 is dog slow. So lets talk about the hard drive, I hear it spin up and that’s about it, there is no noticeable noise during reading or writing on the drive. I really babied my 701 so I am unconcerned about shock resistance. There is very little heat from the drive, the CPU is really the culprit here. OK on the downside, the hard drive is not easily accessible. There is no bottom door for replacement. You would literally have to dismantle the unit to replace. This is really a bummer and I am unsure why they designed it in this fashion. You can replace it with time and patience I am sure.
Keyboard: My hunt and peck method improved on the 701 after a few weeks. The Aspire One keyboard is so easy to use and so well thought out. There is very little flex. I don’t think it will win any awards but comparably speaking with the 701/900 it is a major upgrade. I love the dedicated page up and page down buttons.
LED Light indicators:
There is an indicator for power (green when charged, orange when charging).
Hard drive light green when activity
Caps lock green light (701 didn't have it and that drove me nuts).
Num lock green light.
These lights power, drive activity, caps lock, num lock are all at the top left of the machine and they all can be seen with the lid closed.
Power button lights up green and will blink orange in standby, top right.
The front of the Aspire One has a wireless indicator light. My other Acer laptop has it as well. It is solid orange when wireless is not being used and blinks when there is wireless activity, obviously is off when the wireless is off. Below this light is a switch to turn the wireless on or off. Love this feature, I always know when I am online or not.
The fan: My fan runs all the time, my unit came with the newest bios and from other forums it sounds like this new bios makes the fan run constantly. I am hoping for a new bios from Acer that will fix this. The bottom of the unit is just as warm as my 701.
SD card Slots: The XP version still has the two SD card slots. The slot on the left while facing the unit is still labeled memory expansion. That slot does not do the same thing the Linux version does it is just an SD slot and does not add to the drive space, they should have changed the label on this. That same slot allow the memory to be fully inserted and not stick out at all. The right side slot only allows the SD card to go into the unit about halfway.
The mouse buttons: Ok so the mouse buttons on the side took a day or two to get used to, but now that I am used to them, they are perfect. I understand why they designed it that way and I am grateful they didn’t sacrifice the keyboard.
Windows XP: God I missed you Windows Xp, I hate Microsoft and have always been the guy that says try something different. Now that I have XP back on my netbook I couldn’t be happier. My regular laptop has Vista and I have grown to like Vista as well. I even found a nice sidebar application for XP that looks just like the Vista sidebar, which I love. Enough about that though, Bill has a big enough wallet and ego.
Battery: I listed in my previous post about battery life. I still stand about 2 hours 10 minutes doing the normal browsing, email, skype, etc. I just saw the first 3 cell aftermarket battery listed on the bay and I am hopeful there will be a 3rd party 6 cell soon. I refuse to pay over $100 dollars for a OEM battery.
Webcam: The webcam is 0.3 megapixel just like the 701, but it is way better at doing what a webcam should. In darker areas the webcam adjusts the light level up and is still very useable. My friends that I normally used my 701 to skype with couldn’t believe how much better this webcam was. The mic is about the same so I won’t spend any time on that.
Speakers: Well the 701 speakers were some of the loudest speakers I have every had on a laptop and I will miss them, the Acer’s are on the bottom and are muffled easily, not to mention they are just not as loud either. I think most people use headphones most of the time, and I am not saying that the Aspire can’t be heard just not like the 701.
I purchased another Targus portable DVD case that works perfect for the Aspire One and I was surprised that it also came with the slip case, although not as nice as the Asus slip case.
I am very pleased with this machine, it goes everywhere with me and has made me look at netbooks in a different way. Thank you Acer for your contribution (except for your price drop after my purchase).
Sorry I went on and on, I have seen very few reviews out there.
Last edited by omegaeee (2008-08-31 8:12:08 pm)
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Hi there
What about
- fingerprints showing up on the screen bezel
- painted touchpad surface is too grippy
Do these annoy you? Can you upgrade the memory?
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It is definitely a fingerprint magnet. There is a mat plastic lip that runs around the bezel that allows you to open the lid without touching the shiny bezel. But yes it is very shiny and yes it does need to be wiped down after a week of use. The screen is also shiny, but not as mirror like as some I have seen, the HP 2133 was scary shiny. The bezel reflects more then the screen. I wouldn't call it annoying just different. It seems like they are all going to the shiny plastic parts.
The touchpad was grippy for about two days, but after using it for a while it seems to be much smoother. I guess your finger acts like a buffing machine and smooths it right out. My wife's Dell was very similar and after a few days her touchpad was smooth as well.
Hope this helps.
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I personally think asus could have done a lot better with their lcd screens on 701 and 901 . Have you compared the aspire one screen with 701? is it better ? videos don't look grainy ?
Atom N270 is about as powerful as Celeron M353 running at 900mhz without the heavy drain of the battery so that's good news . Low price of acer plus better keyboard is really tempting me .
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The screen on the 701 is not even close to the screen on the Aspire One. The screen is not grainy, the shiny screen makes it hard to photograph. It is gorgeous. I think it is better then the 900 screen, I have not seen the 901 or 1000h screen so I can't compare. I am sure they are all getting their screens from the same or similar manufactures though, so they all may be the same.
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ya seriously those screens on eee are crappy and asus is still using them on their newer 901 models , big players like acer/dell/lenovo will have quality screens no doubt . as for the atom processor it's the laziest in the world sleeping most of the time to conserve power , this may explain the delay when opening internet explorer , etc otherwise it is neck to neck with celeron 900mhz in geekbench calculations...I read a lot of reviews that aspire one came with dead wifi , but unless I try it in real life I wouldn't know the wireless range . Yesterday I almost ordered one but concerned over the slower ssd drive so going to order the hard disk based soon just for trying it out..
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Hi Omegaeee,
could you do me a favour? go to www.dailymotion.com and play the dnc protest video for atom processor load test (% of cpu usage) , if possible try to play 2 dailymotion videos , it's very hard on the processor , my 1.2ghz core duo ulv processor is between 40 - 58% while playing a single video
Last edited by jtt99 (2008-09-01 3:05:57 pm)
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This will sound stupid but my son and I were really excited for the new Clone Wars movie to be released. I wanted to show him a trailer on this website http://www.starwars.com/clonewars/site/index.html the EEE 701 struggled to view the website properly, the videos in the videos section were choppy. This is what did it for me.
I have yet to find a computer that can properly run starwars.com without being choppy. Starwars.com is probably the single WORST application of Flash in the history of mankind.
Visiting on my dual core Turion X2 1.9Ghz processor, firefox uses anywhere from 40-50% CPU time (being single threaded it won't go above 50%)
As far as CPU performance the 1.6Ghz Atom is about par with a right-clocked 900Mhz Celeron-M.
I'm glad you're happy with your Aspire One, it sure does look like a good machine at a good price, being a true Netbook and not the feature / price creep that we see so much in this segment, I'd buy one I didn't have my 701.
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jtt99 wrote:
Hi Omegaeee,
could you do me a favour? go to www.dailymotion.com and play the dnc protest video for atom processor load test (% of cpu usage) , if possible try to play 2 dailymotion videos , it's very hard on the processor , my 1.2ghz core duo ulv processor is between 40 - 58% while playing a single video
jtt99 I had no problems running one of the DNC protest videos, there were many. I was able to run full screen and normal without problems. CPU load was 70 - 80%, the highest I saw was 84%, so the Atom can keep up, but was pushing it.
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I prefer the 701 grainy screen to a shiny one. To each there own!!
Last edited by rosetown (2008-09-01 9:13:53 pm)
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A friend purchased one with xp and 120gb hard drive. After 2 days he returned because he couldn't get wireless working properly. It only worked intermittently.
Last edited by rosetown (2008-09-01 10:35:47 pm)
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The three concerns I have when it comes to the One:
-Slow SSD
-Small battery
-Wireless issues
If those things could be solved, it would be a no brainer purchase (they are as cheap as 701 Surfs were when they came out). Instead, I think Acer made the same mistake as HP. They came up with an excellent idea, but poorly implemented it.
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kubel wrote:
The three concerns I have when it comes to the One:
-Slow SSD
-Small battery
-Wireless issues
If those things could be solved, it would be a no brainer purchase (they are as cheap as 701 Surfs were when they came out). Instead, I think Acer made the same mistake as HP. They came up with an excellent idea, but poorly implemented it.
Mine is the Windows XP version with 120GB hard drive, no ssd. I don't have any wireless issues?? Yes the 6 cell version will be better. Again, this chaps me because I paid the same price as the 6 cell is going for if you can find one.
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rosetown wrote:
A friend purchased one with xp and 120gb hard drive. After 2 days he returned because he couldn't get wireless working properly. It only worked intermittently.
Why didn't he just exchange it?
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nice review, i might just pick one of these up.
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NeilsADick wrote:
rosetown wrote:
A friend purchased one with xp and 120gb hard drive. After 2 days he returned because he couldn't get wireless working properly. It only worked intermittently.
Why didn't he just exchange it?
I never asked him - although he must of considered it. I would have. He also mentioned that he might buy the Linpus 120 gb version, which was not available at Best Buy, but readily available elsewhere in town. He definitely wants a netbook.
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I bought my acerone yesterday. I like it. It came in a smaller box than my 701 did. My first impression was they appear to be the same size, but the one seems slightly longer. The one doesn't seem to be bulkier than the 701 when carrying it around.
My gripes: the case and screen has a glossy finish, unlike the flat texture of the 701. This means its a fingerprint smudge amplifier. No Linux distribution at the Microcenter where I bought mine, but I was able to install Arch Linux without much of a problem.
Pros: lot less heat for the speed, keyboard feels stronger with better tactile feedback, very visible caps lock lights and other lights, much more screen resolution, crisper contrast, and the wifi link seems MUCH more sensitive. I like the 120GB hard drive. I wasn't impressed with the write speeds of the 701's SSD. Simple integer math seems to clock along at 3.1G instructions a second, while glxgears pokes around at half the speed of the 701.
The built in Atheros driver now in the latest Linux testing kernels (2.6.27-rc5) reports 27dbm output power. That's 500mW. I'm not sure if that's accurate, but my range seems to have doubled compared with my 701. My 701 claims 17dbm, or 50mW. I don't know how such a small chip set could have that strong of a transmitter or sensitive receiver. Anyone else try the new kernels?
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I purchased an Aspire One XP 120gb this week. I have the 701. The screen is much better on the One, but those who don't like the glossy screens will not like it. Matt screens have their advantages, but the One screen is so bright & lovely to view.
The keyboard is also a lot more useable, although I found the 701 ok too. It seems to have more bounce in the keys, so you don't have to press as firmly, something I like. My H never worked properly on the 701 unless I hit it really hard, so I often missed H when typing. It also rose up in the middle. The Ones keyboard is nice & even.
Minor gripes - Windows, as usual, comes with bloatware. I found while McAfee was loaded the wireless was pretty slow & sometimes IE would freeze up. I've uninstalled McAfee and it's much faster, no freezing and wireless is better. Windows Firewall with AVG 8 free edition and it runs so much smoother.
My only major gripe - the fan is louder than the 701. I hope they put out a fix for it. I wouldn't return it over it, but it can get annoying if in a quiet location.
But it's great to be back on XP. I can load so many little program I missed. Now I've got it set up how I like it, I'm loving it.
The quality seems great, but the screen on the Asus seem more rugged as they don't have the gap, so it seemed more connected to the body.
Speakers. I've read on so many forums where people say the speakers are a joke. I think they are as good as, if not better than the 701. I'm not sure if it's how I've ripped my music, but I can easily listen to it from another room. They are better than my notebook.
If a fix comes out for the fan noise, it will be a perfect netbook to me and I would give it 10/10. At present, with the fan noise it loses 1 - 2 points.
Another plus is the AC adaptor. My Eee adaptor would sometimes not charge unless I fiddled with it. The Acer charges a lot faster, and has a sturdy connection, so if I move it I don't need to get down to the adaptor to fiddle with it to get it back to AC power.
Last edited by Mels (2008-09-02 1:27:18 pm)
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non glossy screens are ok provided they are better quality like my hp nc2400 , wind has that but I have not compared them in person .
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New review! There are some interesting benchmarks in this review. Enjoy!
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4575
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In post #11 I mentioned that a buddy returned his AA1 120gb XP because, after 2 days of effort, wireless worked intermittently.
He has since purchased the 8gb SSD running Linpus Lite, turned it on, and within a couple of minutes was connect to the web, with none of the wireless problems associated with the first machine.
He has no previous Linux experience. It will be interesting to me, how he fares.
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omegaeee,
can u run hard disk test using passmark software on aspire?
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omegaeee, where did you get the black theme for xp? i like the orange button too.. ha
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This theme is actually the Zune theme from Microsoft. You can get it here.
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=75078
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I Ran Passmark here is the results.
Disk Drive Speed Report
Disk Speed(s)
Computer Name
This Computer
Thread 1
Disk C:
Physical Drive 0
Drive Model Number Hitachi HTS543212L9A300
Configuration Custom
MB/Sec 10.26
Avg. WAR 0.99 ms.
Avg. WAW 0.41 ms.
Avg. RAW 1.10 ms.
Avg. RAR 0.53 ms.
Disk Size 105.9 GB.
Free Space 72.3 GB.
Cluster Size 4096
File System NTFS
File size 1011.0MB
Block size 8192
Test mode Win32 API - Uncached
Read / Write 50%/50%
Sequential / Random 100%/0%
MB Read 307.30
MB Written 307.55
Seeks 0
CPU Type
2xIntel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N270 @ 1.60GHz
Time (Milliseconds) CPU Load Bytes Processed - Thread 1
528.1 13.4% 5398528
1142.4 14.4% 11755520
1751.8 14.9% 18120704
2357.5 15.9% 24526848
2966.5 18.3% 32047104
3577.9 16.9% 38559744
4184.7 17.7% 44982272
4797.7 17.7% 52011008
5404.0 18.9% 58146816
6016.3 19.9% 64569344
6621.8 20.3% 70959104
7233.2 20.5% 77553664
7843.6 21.1% 84221952
8451.6 20.2% 90693632
9064.2 20.3% 97124352
9671.9 19.4% 103923712
10277.0 21.6% 111026176
10886.4 19.2% 116809728
11500.7 20.1% 123478016
12106.6 20.5% 129736704
12716.6 19.8% 136667136
13327.7 19.7% 142819328
13943.5 20.5% 149487616
14544.7 23.5% 156999680
15156.9 22.8% 163438592
15767.2 22.4% 169918464
16370.8 22.8% 176160768
16980.3 24.5% 183230464
17590.4 22.5% 189677568
18203.7 23.1% 196108288
18814.1 22.7% 202407936
19421.9 22.5% 208781312
20026.9 22.3% 215277568
20636.4 22.3% 221642752
21246.8 22.3% 228024320
21857.2 21.3% 234725376
22465.4 19.1% 241344512
23077.8 19.3% 247832576
23688.0 19.0% 254795776
24295.7 21.3% 261865472
24907.8 18.8% 268640256
25515.3 19.1% 275275776
26126.5 19.2% 281501696
26731.3 19.3% 288137216
27344.2 19.7% 294551552
27948.7 19.9% 300957696
28559.1 19.7% 306855936
29168.1 19.9% 313450496
29777.1 19.5% 319864832
30391.1 19.8% 326606848
31000.4 22.0% 333635584
31605.2 19.8% 340238336
32220.2 20.5% 346775552
32824.7 19.3% 352911360
33469.7 19.7% 359833600
34046.5 19.6% 366067712
34653.8 19.5% 372326400
35267.0 19.1% 378732544
35876.5 19.6% 385294336
36483.0 20.2% 391520256
37091.2 21.3% 398516224
37699.6 23.8% 405495808
38309.1 26.1% 413007872
38918.6 23.6% 419864576
39531.6 24.4% 426352640
40141.0 25.1% 433299456
40745.5 24.7% 439738368
41358.0 24.7% 446152704
41968.2 24.5% 452583424
42574.7 24.9% 459194368
43188.9 24.6% 465747968
43796.8 24.2% 472129536
44401.7 24.1% 478658560
45015.0 22.4% 486047744
45625.3 19.9% 492658688
46231.0 20.2% 498991104
46844.4 19.5% 505430016
47467.7 19.7% 511819776
48058.9 19.9% 518234112
48671.8 20.3% 524951552
49281.5 20.7% 531169280
49891.9 20.7% 537919488
50496.4 20.3% 544096256
51105.2 20.1% 550371328
51715.0 19.8% 557105152
52328.4 21.3% 564084736
52934.9 20.7% 570482688
53542.6 20.9% 576880640
54152.7 22.1% 582852608
54766.9 21.8% 589176832
55371.5 21.5% 595566592
55981.8 21.9% 601931776
56589.1 21.9% 608395264
57202.3 21.7% 614735872
57812.7 21.8% 621584384
58420.2 22.2% 627818496
59032.5 23.8% 635281408
59640.0 21.8% 641785856
59640.0 21.8% 641785856
PassMark(TM) PerformanceTest 6.1 (http://www.passmark.com)
Results generated on: Wednesday, September 03, 2008
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