Acer Aspire One A150-Bb Netbook

[Brian WH]

Thinking of buying one of these.

Anyone any comments or experience with them? I really like the use of XP home and the large memory 1024MB RAM , large Capacity 120GB SATA Hard Disk Drive and the colours.

See here.

Acer Aspire One on Amazon

 

[Brian WH]

Nobody, or are you all still hung-over.

 

[grober]

My only comment is that like similar machines it doesn't have a built in CD/DVD drive and runs better under the less demanding linux but as long as you are aware of this fine?

 

[fuzzer]

A few friends have the aspire but for me the battery life and screen size is too much of a compromise.

ive got one of these http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-1000H-W008X-Netbook-Display-Windows/dp/B001C9SXL6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1230899367&sr=8-2

Its brilliant , had it since september and its done more miles with me than i care to think of. realistic 5 hour battery life even with WIFI on and great keyboard for typing and the touchpad is one of the best ive used.

Ive got no complaints what so ever about it excellent wee laptop.

 

[Brian WH]

A few friends have the aspire but for me the battery life and screen size is too much of a compromise.

ive got one of these http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-1000H-W008X-Netbook-Display-Windows/dp/B001C9SXL6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1230899367&sr=8-2

Its brilliant , had it since september and its done more miles with me than i care to think of. realistic 5 hour battery life even with WIFI on and great keyboard for typing and the touchpad is one of the best ive used.

Ive got no complaints what so ever about it excellent wee laptop.

Yes that would have been my second choice.

But on your recommendation mate, could now be first.

See if anyone else agrees, as it is a bit dearer.

I see Amazon have sold out, but this is Direct from Acer.

Acer Aspire One

 

[BTB 500]

From reviews and comments from colleagues the Samsung NC10 seems to be the pick of the bunch at the moment.

 

[crammy69]

I read a review in What Laptop and they liked the Samsung NC10 best, but for value for money I ended up getting the Asus 904HD, its the same case as the 1000 mentioned above, but has an 8.9 inch screen, with speakers either side ( as opposed to underneath ). Mine (black) was just £234 from Amazon with 1gb Ram, 60gb HDD and Windows XP. One thing I would say is that whilst the Acer One is a great looking machine the Asus 6cell battery walks all over it (mine has lasted anything up to 5 hours so far) and also the Asus has the buttons underneath the mouse-pad rather than either side (as the Acer One does) and this is a more natural arrangment.

If your not that price sensitive, the 10 inch screened Asus would be great, you wont regret having a larger screen, thats for sure. I have found that for some forums I read the 8.9" is just a little small, but overall Im delighted with it. I can easily sit with it on my lap whilst watching TV with the Mrs, rather than sneaking off to the study every 10 minutes!, so it could be a marriage saver as well!!.

 

[crockers]

Have a friend who bought Samsung NC10......loves it to bits.....

 

[Brian WH]

Seems you pay your money and take your choice.

They all seem good.

 

[Dryce]

Have a friend who bought Samsung NC10......loves it to bits.....

Decent battery life.

But it's not cheap either.

 

[Antharro]

I'm buying an Aspire One some time this month. Battery life should be 2-3 hours on the 3 cell, but you can get a 6 cell (and there are cheap-o clone 9 cell batteries on eBay) that should get you around 6-7 hours.

Not sure about the trackpad buttons being on the sides, but I suspect I'll get used to it soon enough.

I'm getting the 120Gb version, for the simple reason that unless you're paying a LOT of money, the small capacity SSDs are painfully slow. I have a 16Gb SSD in my Dell Insprion Mini 9 that is so slow that I would rather use my old Windows 95 machine.

Some SSDs benchmark at around 3-5Mb/sec write speed, compared with 70-90Mb/sec for a modern conventional (spinning) hard drive. If you do get the 120Gb version, just remember to treat it with care - spinning hard drives are very susceptable to damage from being moved around / mishandled while they're spinning.

Do bear in mind that these netbooks don't have the processing capability that small laptops have, but they're perfectly adequate for browsing the net, email, watching movies (copy movie to SD card or use an external USB drive).

I've heard a lot about the NC10 being a great machine, but it's above my price point. I can get the Aspire One for a little over £200 (also under £200, but they're out of stock), and that's the 1Gb/120Gb version, not the cut down 512Mb/8Gb version.

Windows vs. Linux.... well, I could work with Linux with no problems, but seeing as I have access to a corporate Windows license, I'm getting the Linux AA1 and putting Windows on it. XP, of course!

 

[Mark300SL]

I got the NC10 just before Xmas for in car tuning - and I love it
Mine dual boots XP/Linux and I also use it for wireless penetration testing
A friend has the EEEPC 901 which whilst very neat with decent battery life - but I found too small to be really useable.

Today in work I was running full scale wireless testing at a rate of about 400 packets per second for about 5.5 hrs solid on a single charge, I am sure it will run for the expected 7hrs under normal use. Spec is very very good but I upgraded the memory to 2Gb for speed under windows.

One failing of the NC10 however is the inability to boot from the SD card slot - it appears as a USB device but isnt listed in the boot sequence. This is a pain if you want to boot different OS's or in my case different Linux live installations. There is a growing thread on the NC10 forum to ask Samsung for the SD boot option to be added to a firmware upgrade and they are at least listening to their customers. It does however boot from a USB stick without any problems - I just prefer not to have a USB stick sticking out of the device. EEEPC boots from SD no problem.

Finally - the Asus 904HD is available from O2 free with one of their 24 month mobile broadband connections. IF you were considering mobile broadband, and if you can live with O2s slower connection speed. It does however come with the added bonus of free Wifi hotspots for the duration of the contract


Mark

 

[Antharro]

Finally - the Asus 904HD is available from O2 free with one of their 24 month mobile broadband connections. IF you were considering mobile broadband, and if you can live with O2s slower connection speed. It does however come with the added bonus of free Wifi hotspots for the duration of the contract

Mark - where are you seeing this offer? I'm not seeing it on either o2's website or Carphone warehouse either...

 

[Mark300SL]

Mark - where are you seeing this offer? I'm not seeing it on either o2's website or Carphone warehouse either...

It was live on O2s site as I was researching it on new years eve when I was in the office??? I can only assume it was discontinued in the new year.

I had researched it as I wanted a second netbook for Pen testing that did boot off SD and was on a different mobile network to Vodafone (We already have a Vodafone 3G dongle) so that it would increase our chances of getting a decent 3G service when working away or in the field. The only reason I didnt go for it was O2's limited 1.8Gb 3G download speed, though the free wifi access with O2 mobile broadband almost swung it

 

[grober]

Quick question to all you mobile computing gurus. Is there any chance of any networks other than O2 getting access to APPLE'S Iphone 3G technology in the UK in future? I believe ORANGE are the "chosen ones" in FRANCE for example as are T mobile in the Netherlands??

 

[Antharro]

There have been plenty of rumours about Apple looking at other providers, but nothing confirmed as far as I'm aware.

 

[Mark300SL]

Yellowsn0w is available now to unlock the latest Iphone 3G FOC (as I understand it)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/01/AR2009010102135.html


Mark

 

[momomo]

Yellowsn0w is available now to unlock the latest Iphone 3G FOC (as I understand it)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/01/AR2009010102135.html


Mark

That is still in beta, alot of people are still experiencing problems when trying to unlock where as for some it works fine. best to wait for a stable version to be released after some more testing.

 

[grober]

Wonder if you bought one in France would it work on the Orange network here?

 

[crammy69]

Wonder if you bought one in France would it work on the Orange network here?

Good question, I just dont understand how all the internet functions would work on another network (say Virgin ) and how much it would then cost to access? could it end up being more expensive on another network?