Acer Aspire One (AOA110-1722) First Impressions and Unboxing
The Acer Aspire One's home -- initially, at least.
Introduction
First, I’m a writer and my preferences may not mimic yours. I’m more concerned with the keyboard and screen than anything else. Battery life is also important, but everything else takes a backseat. However, in the interest of providing useful information to others, I’ll attempt to cover as many bases as possible. There’ll be more details (technical and otherwise) when the final review of the netbook is up.
Sleeve on top, netbook on bottom
Unboxing
As soon as the Acer One is yanked out of the box and the plastic bag its in, it’s immediately apparent that the high gloss finish is a fingerprint magnet. Similar to a Macbook, it picks up fingerprints and shows them off for everyone to see. A minor quibble, but certainly something that some people are endlessly frustrated by.
Contrary to other reviews I’ve seen, Acer has seen fit to include a (presumably) synthetic leather sleeve that is somewhat protective. For those who are careful with their machines, even the cheap ones, it should be sufficient for light traveling. However, it should be noted that the sleeve leave the corners curiously unprotected since the sleeve’s corners are open.
Power on
The battery snaps in and has a battery lock switch, all nice and standard. The initial boot of the One goes through a short process of choosing your language and setting the time and date. After confirming your settings, the One reboots itself and in about 15 seconds is at the Linpus basic desktop.
Desktop, display, and SD slots
Restore disc, guides, battery, power cable, AC adapter, sleeve, netbook
Looks nice outside, eh?
The desktop is nicely arranged and done better than the Eee PC’s Xandros basic desktop. The screen itself has a very nice, clear appearance that highlights the attractive interface. Of course, it’s also very glossy and means you have to be careful about back lighting. Although I’m not a fan of glossy displays, this one looks like it should be manageable. The display is quite usable at half brightness, however, reflections are amplified at the lowest setting and are very distracting.
The memory card slot on the right is disappointing because, unlike the Eee PC 701, the SD card sticks out about 1/3 inch. SD cards do sit flush in the left slot, however, it’s also the “storage expansion” slot – cards put in that slot are added via some sort of magic to the overall SSD storage whereas the right slot is a typical “access” slot.
Keyboard
Power, VGA, ethernet, USB, SDD expansion slot
The keyboard, which I’ve been using while typing this, is quite good for a netbook. It has a good feel to it, not squishy or stiff, but I still prefer my Apple keyboards (desktop and MacBook Pro and iBook for that matter). The keys are larger then the Eee PC’s and that makes for a better typing experience. Most important to me, however, is the proper right shift key. Acer saw fit to move the arrow keys and page up/page down keys below the right shift key and somewhat parallel to the bottom row. This is more akin to what a “normal” (think MacBook Pro) keyboard looks like (and not very netbook-like), and the result is that using the right shift key doesn’t move your cursor up to another line and start screwing up everything because you’re hitting up arrow instead.
Touchpad
Audio, USBx2, SD slot, security lock
The touchpad is a weak point on an otherwise strong machine. Aside from the odd placement of the buttons, they’re really, really small. I have long, thin fingers, and even I find them to be too small. The touchpad itself is also very small. Although it’s wide, it certainly doesn’t look or feel as “tall” as the Eee PC 701′s pad. It does have a sizable scroll zone on the right even though there’s nothing on the pad to indicate this. However, like other netbooks, because space it at a premium, it’s possible (if not likely) that you’ll occasionally touch the pad without meaning to while typing and completely mess up your location. This isn’t as big a deal when doing web browsing, but it’s beyond frustrating when you’re trying to write.
Noise and heat
The fan whir is noticeable but quiet, however, it seems louder than the Eee PC’s to me. This may require a little more comparison in a more controlled environment.
Assuming one isn’t blocking the exhaust vent on the bottom left while using it, heat remains low. It hasn’t been anything more than “warm” to me yet, even when the vent is being partially obstructed.
Writer, Firefox, and wifi
OpenOffice’s Writer opened in a matter of a few seconds – definitely faster than the Eee PC, but not as fast as I thought it’d be. General menu romping seems pretty quick, though it does sometimes lag for a fraction of a second when trying to open the menu listings.
Connecting to my wireless network was quick and painless and the included browser, a horribly out of date Firefox 2.0.0.14, opens in a painfully slow 15-20 seconds. I’ll have to see about hopping into the advanced mode to get rid of that and install Firefox 3 instead. Subsequent opens of the browser are quick at 2-3 seconds, though I did experience problems reconnecting to the wireless router after using the hardware switch to toggle the wireless off. After entering the password three or four times, it reconnected and was fine afterward.
Performance
General web browsing seems pretty snappy and is beyond adequate. However, playing YouTube videos in full screen has a definite lag. Hulu videos at 480p, in the default player window, play at mostly full speed. Regardless of running on battery or AC, this does not improve. Playing 480p Hulu videos at full screen is akin to watching the video at something like 10 frames per second and is unacceptable. To make matters worse, a common problem with flash and linux reared its ugly head: audio desync. I’ve fought with that many, many times in the past and it was disappointing to see it on the One.
Battery
The synthetic leather sleeve. Not too awful.
35 minutes into using this now, with 17 devoted only to typing and the rest web browsing/videos and typing, the battery has dropped by 15% according to the meter. It didn’t move at all when I had wireless off and wasn’t browsing, but it’s estimating 1:43 remaining with 65% charge.
After leaving for some appointments, I came back and woke the netbook up and looked at the battery meter. Leaving it in sleep mode for 12 hours resulted in a 15% battery decrease. It’s not surprising to see such a drastic decrease considering the small capacity, so leaving the One in sleep mode for long periods of time isn’t a good idea.
Last thoughts
My standard use for the Eee PC to this point has been 1-2 hours a day for writing when I’m away from my main computers, and I’ll now be substituting the One into that role. I’ve had the chance to get one “typical” day in using the One, and overall, I’m pleased. Mistypes due to the keyboard were very low, and hitting the up arrow instead of shift was far less of a problem (but not non-existent).
Because the one has a reasonably sized display, it may also see some light web browsing (something that’s awful to do on the Eee PC 701) and other similar tasks in the future.
I’m hopeful about the One. At the very least, the blue is fetching.
Is it necessary to scroll to the right to view web pages in their entirety? How about typing on OpenOffice? Can you see the full page view clearly enough to read the words and see the layout?
The resolution is 1024×600, so most sites play nicely in terms of horizontal space. Ironically, I’m not sure I’ve tested my own site… It should be fine on most sites, especially those that have dynamical width (this one isn’t, for instance).
I’m not sure if this answers your OpenOffice question or not, but horizontal space hasn’t been an issue. With the normal view in the word processor there’s still enough real estate to show margins on the sides (and text is large and clear at 12 pts). Vertical space, however, is limited. In normal view in Writer, you can see ~4 inches of the document (going by the ruler), though I’m sure you could reclaim more by hiding toolbars. I haven’t done anything in the presentation program and very little in the spreadsheet one, but the limited vertical space doesn’t bother me when I’m writing. However, I’m not sure that would be the case if you’re planning on doing presentations.
Hope that helps.