Acer Aspire One impressions
Finally, the Atom processor based netbooks are starting to ship in the US. So far I’ve had a chance to play with two of them, the Acer Aspire One and the Asus EeePC 901 (I also own an EeePC 701 and have spent some time with an EeePC 900 which is somewhere in between the 701 and the 901. It’s Celeron processor based like the 701 but has the larger screen and larger SSD of the 901).
I see quite some excitement about the Acer - people like the way it looks, like that it’s so light, like the bigger keyboard. After a few hours with it, I decided to return mine and go with an EeePC 901 instead. Here’s why.
First, let’s talk basics. The price for being so light is that the battery is minuscule. About a third of the capacity of the battery of the EeePC 901. And given that the actual electronics inside are very similar, I’d venture a guess that this will bring significantly shorter battery life as well.
The price for the larger keyboard is bigger footprint (I might be willing to live with that) and a much smaller touchpad with the buttons on the side instead of below the touchpad. That alone would be a deal breaker for me. The ergonomics of this are really bad - I always had to remember to look for the buttons in the wrong place, the touchpad is so small that I often couldn’t move the mouse across the screen without lifting my finger. But it gets much worse. The touchpad also doesn’t support the multi-touch gestures that the EeePC 901 supports. To me this is one of the great often overlooked improvements of the 901 compared to the 701; you can scroll using two fingers on the touchpad - just like on a Mac.
Then there are a few feature differences. 8GB of built-in SSD vs 20GB in the Linux-based EeePC 901. Huge difference. And while the second SD card slot on the Acer tries to make up for it, the SD cards aren’t flush with the case when inserted which is really bad for transporting the computer. And of course access to an SD card is slower than access to the built-in SSD. Also, the Aspire One is lacking Bluetooth which the EeePC 901 has built in.
What pushed me over the edge was my attempt to add more memory to the Acer. On the Asus you remove two screws, pop in a new SO-DIMM, you’re done. On the Acer you remove 14(!!) screws, remove the keyboard connector cable, the touchpad connector cable, remove the keyboard, the top cover, a bunch more screws and then the whole motherboard assembly; and then add the SO-DIMM. You are kidding, right? I realize this is not something that you do every day (or more than once, for that matter). But to me it simply shows that Acer didn’t think this one through.
Finally, the OS. Yes, the Linupus Linux desktop looks pretty at first, but frankly I don’t see any real improvement to the Xandros desktop. It’s just different. And somethings seem much harder to me. I couldn’t get the Network Connection Manager to log me into any wireless networks. It’s really hard to get a terminal window (you have to open the file browser and then you can start a terminal from the File menu - not exactly intuitive, compared to Ctrl-Alt-T on the EeePC). But I’ll admit that this wouldn’t really be a deal breaker - I’ll switch over to a Fedora 9 install right away.
I’ll get my own EeePC 901 on Monday (so far I’ve only played with one that belongs to a coworker of mine for a while). I’ll post more impressions then.
Thanks for visiting!
I hope this was helpful - if not, please leave a comment and let me know why! Were you searching for something else? Did I miss an important aspect?
I haven’t received my Aspire One yet - but I think the larger keyboard is absolutely worth it. I used a eeePC701 and hated the keyboard!
I’m glad you were able to find the UMPC you wanted!
However, the Aspire One may still have been a better deal because you can get the Aspire One ($379) and a 6-cell battery for it (~$100) for cheaper than an Eee PC 901. So you can throw the 3-cell one in the fridge as a back-up battery and use the 6-cell battery daily (although adding the 6-cell battery will make it a bit bulkier), or take both when you will be away from a power source for more than 10 hours of continuous usage.
If you have more muscular fingers like mine, the bigger keyboard outweighs a small trackpad (the trackpad allows for scroll gestures and left-click gestures, so I rarely use the buttons).
If SSD space is still an issue, you can also get a ZIF to CF board and replace the (slow) internal SSD with a CF card of your choosing. While purchasing and installing this board, combined with a 6-cell battery will put the cost of the Acer above the Eee PC, it pays for itself in the long run in that CF cards are common, cheap, reliable, fast, and (in this case) easily replaceable compared to an SSD. It may also be theoretically possible to get better read/write times with a CF card than with even the Eee PC’s SSD.
One of the biggest usability problems I’m having with my Aspire that you didn’t mention is that the PageUp and PageDown buttons are right next to the arrow keys, so when I’m scrolling down a webpage I may accidentally hit the wrong button. Those buttons are half-sized, making them more difficult for my muscular fingers to strike :)
Also, the SSD is lethargic (prompting the need for replacing it with a CF card). However, with some trickery (e.g. following Debian’s example by mounting most of /var on a ramdisk and by disabling access times in the filesystem) this can be mitigated. You might be able to get more mileage out of your Eee PC this way when you put Fedora on it :)
Anyway, thanks for your review! Enjoy your Eee PC!
I just got my Acer Aspire One, which I bought after an evaluation of EEE vs One. I completely agree that Linpus is not intuitive if you need to do more than basic end-user stuff, therefore I reinstalled the mini-box with Ubuntu Hardy/Mac4lin. The whole thing became a beauty to work with and is quit intuitive. The best (for me) is the keyboard being significantly bigger as the EEE’s one (being 6 feet 7, you see the need for that ;-)
With compiz/awn/evolution and firefox plus a few other apps running, the thing is not using more as 350 MB RAM, and runs smoothly.
Cool stuff!
I just picked up an Acer Aspire One laptop the other day. It was an impulse purchase and I am very happy with it. I was at Microcenter and was looking at the Asus, but they were out of stock. Looking around the laptop area, I found this Aspire One for $349 and in stock.
This one is the second generation one… 1GB RAM, 120Gb Hard Drive! $349!!! In addition, this one came with WinXP - which, while I know there are fans of Llinux out there, this truly makes the Aspire One a true perfect travel laptop!
The only downside for me, thus far, is that I have an ATT broadband card that is PCMCIA - I am mid contract, so it is costing me a bit to get a USB version to use with this laptop. (I bought one on ebay).
I do have to admit the near-real-sized keyboard is important to me (big fingers) and I am finding that using this laptop to be quite easy to get used to. (yes, the side-touchpad buttons are not the best.)
This one comes with the 2200mah battery, but I am getting a bit over 2 hrs with WiFi turned on… My full size laptop never did better than 3hrs, so I am not complaining.
J
I prefer Aspire One than Eee! Offcourse PRICE no 1 for me!
thanx