Also it’s worth mentioning I’ve managed to install and run Nuendo and Reason 4 on it! It’s a little excessive to have multi-track sequencing and soft synths on a netbook, but the Aspire One is certainly up to it. Every day tasks are a breeze for it in comparison :)

Overall I absolutely love this machine. The only complaint is the track pad – it is slightly too small (it could do with some extra height) and I often find myself pressing my finger down on the chassis because it feels like I’m pressing the mouse button…but I’m actually a few mm off target. Maybe this is something I’ll get used to.

Otherwise, fantastic piece of kit :)

thanx

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

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!