I just got this netbook yesterday and it was supposed to be a Christmas present from my boyfriend, but I just couldn't wait to open it. I haven't put it down since!
It's small and compact, and is pretty quick. In the item description, it states that the hard drive is 160 GB. When I got the computer, I read the box and it states that the actual formatted capacity is less and may vary depending on preloaded materials and operating environment. When I actually looked at my computer's hard drive, it was 133 GB. I just wanted to share that because I know that some people will use this for pictures, video and music. I am using it almostly exclusively for surfing the internet, emails, and Microsoft Word.
The keyboard is 93% of a normal sized keyboard. Yesterday it was pretty difficult to type because I wasn't used to it, but today I'm doing a lot better! The only problem with my typing is that I keep forgetting that you can't put your wrists down on the touchpad because that moves the cursor and I end up typing where I don't want to type. I did purchase a wireless mouse, which works great, but unfortunately you cannot disable the touchpad built into the notebook.
The battery life is approximately 4 hours, give or take. I would like to have a 6 cell lithium ion battery instead of the 3 cell, but I don't know if they have 6 cell available for this particular netbook.
The one downside is that you have the choice of small print or medium print. If you choose to use the small print, it is so small that your eyes need to rest after about an hour. Besides that, when on the internet, you cannot read a lot of the words because the letters actually blend into one another. So, I use medium print. However, it makes it much more difficult to navigate the internet because not only do I have to scroll down, but I also have to scroll over to see the entire page.
It's thin, compact and portable. It works great for what I need it for! My daughter has an iPod touch 8GB new generation, and now she wishes that she had one of these netbooks instead! Acer Aspire One AOD255-2509 10.1-Inch Netbook (Diamond Black)
This is one of the lightest netbooks around at 2.2lbs (1.03kg = MacBook Air!) for 3-cell configuration. The adapter is very portable and slim at .4lbs (187 grams). It is an elegant, elongated wall wart that plugs into the wall. The plug can even be turned 90 deg to fit your outlet. I think it's the best thing about this Acer product, and they are using it for their newer 11.6" CULVs 1430 and 1830, too. I hope other makers follow this trend and eliminate the thick AC cable at the wall end.
The AOD255 itself is also very thin: at a time when Sony, Dell, and HP gets fat and lazy with 3+lb netbooks that measure 1.2" (3cm) thick, Acer cuts it down to 1" (2.5cm) from front to back (3-cell). At netbook scales, these minute differences in weight and size makes all the difference. To be fair, HP's latest netbooks are lavishly detailed and finished, at the cost of bloated size and weight; the Dell Mini 10 (1018) is passively cooled with only minimal hard drive noise, but looks (and weighs) like it ate the AOD255 for lunch. Toshiba NB500/520 is also needlessly heavy and bulked up, touting Harmon Kardon speaker quality (hint: it's not so good as those speaker grills look). Netbooks makers, Asus (see the EeePC 1018) and Acer excepted, seems to neglect the miniaturization opportunities afforded by the Atom platform. And people wonder why tablets and smartphones are in vogue.
When I bought this I thought it would be the closest I'd get to the VAIO X in terms of portability, a fair compromise at 1/4 the price, and approx. 40% more weight. Why did I want to return it then?
The Fan Noise.
The vent is wider at the bottom of the case, with 3 slits at the top clearly obstructing the airflow, creating a whole lotta turbulence noise, but no wind I can feel. It's like the architect routed your chimney stack to drainage pipe level. The heat gets recirculated inside, making this Atom netbook much hotter than my CULV Acer 1410 (U3500). What's worse, the noise is high(er) pitched. This is an obvious engineering oversight approved by a product manager who hears not, or a designer without common sense.
But still, if you can live with the high frequency noise when doing anything besides typing, and it's silent while just typing, in notepad, I think you'll appreciate its class-leading form factor. The ten or so tabs I keep open in Firefox, however, barely give it any idling rest.
I bought this gift for my wife a couple of weeks ago from another online site.
So far it has been an excellent investment.
Pros: Lightweight, easy to install, faster than Vista. Mine boots in under a minute. Price was excellent. According to some reviews online this is the first Acer Aspire netbook to come out with a dual core Intel Atom processor. It was released in Oct of 2010.
Cons: A little bogged down with pre-installed software. No optical drive (DVD/CD). Initial install setup time is around 20-30 mins, you cannot simply turn it on and use it.
Other Thoughts: Ok, only had it for two weeks now, but will change this if necessary. First I uninstalled Mcafee, Norton, and Office trial. Googled Windows 7 apps, read reviews and installed: Google Chrome Browser, AbiWord, Gnumeric Spreadsheet, VLC Media Player, Panda Antivirus, Paint.net, 7 zip, foxit pdf reader. These programs were recommended for a faster experience on Windows 7 Starter and they certainly deliver. Using Chrome is comfortable and fast. Foxit is faster than Adobe. Also consider installing enhancemyse7ven to keep your new pc optimized. This pc is still new but it seems reliable so far. It's probably as fast as XP which came out 8 years ago. The battery seems to last long. It boots up in about 57 seconds (at least mine does). I originally was going to install a Linux OS like Ubuntu but after seeing how well Win 7 starter was working, I decided to keep it. If anything changes I will update this review. - Acer - Best Netbook - Windows 7 - Netbook'
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