Review: Acer Aspire One, a Perfect Writing Tool

The netbook is no secret. The market is flooded with many different types of these portable laptops. Gone are the four kilogram bricks, and in are the lightweight machines that pack enough punch for daily use.

My first netbook was the Asus eeePC 7” version (reviewed here). It was fantastic, but as a novelist, it became clear that writing thousands of words a day was difficult on such a small keyboard, and the screen was difficult at times. I needed a screen that was slightly bigger, and a keyboard that was as big as possible without compromising on weight. Suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome is difficult enough without the additional burden of a heavy laptop, so I needed something around the 1kg mark.

After hunting through scores of different netbooks, I kept coming back to the Acer Aspire One (AAO) and ultimately bought one through Officeworks (and as it turned out, Officeworks has a 7-day laptop return policy. Mine needed a replacement on day 10 due to a faulty motherboard, so perhaps Officeworks is not the best place to shop. See here for more info.

The AAO comes in two flavours: the Linux version with an 8G SSD and 512MB memory, and the Windows XP version with a 120GB mechanical hard drive and 1GB RAM. This annoys me because the competition between the two operating systems is based on the hardware specifications. I wanted something that will last in the future, so the XP version was more appropriate, although I wanted to run Linux. My issue is that to get the better hardware, one has no choice but to buy an integrated XP licence. How annoying. Selling XP with the better hardware is not very competitive for Linux, and besides, I would have been able to get the laptop cheaper without buying the additional Windows XP Home licence.

The AAO starts up slower than expected, but fast enough to not be a problem. With integrated wireless broadband, sound, microphone, camera, two SD slots SDHC compatible, it was more than what I wanted. It even has three USB and one VGA port. The screen is clear and sharp and I have no problems sitting with it on the train writing a 120,000 document.

The AAO weighs in at a little over a kilo. It has a small battery which lasts around 2 and a half hours, plenty for me. I love the aesthetic appeal of the AAO with its piano finish in a variety of colours, the better being blue, then white. It is slender and comes with a slip case that fits easily into a backpack. It also comes with a hidden partition to re-install the operating system (but no backup disks).

As a writer, the best part of the AAO is the design, specifically, the keyboard. The AAO impressed me so much, I bought a second one as a backup in case one of them breaks for whatever reason. Again, I went for the XP version because the hardware specifications with Linux are not what I wanted. Trying to install Ubuntu was easy, but I had difficulties with the Atheros wireless adapter every time a kernel upgrade happened. The only way to fix it was to hook up to a wired line to re-install the drivers. There was also an issue when coming out of suspend mode, but a simple reboot seemed to fix it.

The AAO mouse is difficult to use, but turning off all the jazzy functions made it easier to operate.

Best of all, I understand that OpenSuSE (a popular Linux distribution) installs perfectly on the Acer Aspire One, and I am looking forward to trying it after fiddling about with it on a virtual machine.

Overall, the AAO is a very good, cheap, sturdy machine, and one I will be using for a very long time to come, so good in fact, I bought two. I recommend the AAO. Acer’s service is great. Under warranty, they will send a courier to your door to pick the laptop up, fix it, and courier it back within 10 days.