Radio Shack

Acer redefines mobile connectivity with the Aspire One 10.1" netbook.

Acer Aspire One AOA150-1165 10.1" Netbook (Sapphire Blue)

Love the AOD150

Pros: Adequate Storage, Good Battery Life, Compact, Lightweight

Cons: Small Keyboard

Best Uses: Word Processing, Video Viewing, Blogging, Web Browsing

Describe Yourself: Quality Oriented

I have had my Acer AspireOne AO150 netbook for about a month, and I have to tell you…I love it. I bought it from Radio Shack in King of Prussia, PA, after doing research on RadioShack.com. I have to admit that this was the first technology purchase I have made that was fashion-based. I admit, with some trepidation, that I asked for a blue one. (They had pink ones in stock, and my fragile middle-aged guy ego would not allow that.)

For most things that I use my personal laptop for, it works great. It's surprisingly light, and more importantly, solid. My fear was that it was like the Sony VAIOs, which I have found rather chintzy. It comes with Windows XP, and I was easily able to add Ubuntu 8.10. Ubuntu works flawlessly, but I have a suspicion that it does not do as good a job managing the power as Windows does. But I could be wrong. The on-board wireless works without issue.

The greatest thing is that the battery lasts forever. The stock model has 1GB of memory, and the battery lasts nearly 8 hours. I end up traveling cross country frequently and even when I have to changes planes in Chicago, Phoenix or Dallas, I never need a charge.

To be clear, this laptop is not for everyone. I would not write code on it, nor would I use Photoshop or GIMP. I mainly use it for blogging and reading email. Browsing can be a bit chunky, and there are pauses from time to time. But this is to be expected, since it is only sporting an Intel Atom processor. I also use it as my principle iTunes machine. The 160GB drive is more than enough for my needs, with roughly 1600 songs, and a bajillion podcasts. I would have paid for an SRAM drive, but 32GB seems perilously small. 80 GB would be perfect.

I also watch a lot of movies. Most of my movies come from iTunes, but I also watch Hulu,.com as well. Here you have to be careful. Where possible you need to configure things that deal with streaming media to have as large a buffer as possible. Also, if you have a lot of applications running the video will be delayed and jumpy. Interestingly the audio always seems to be real-time. I wonder why. But, if you makes sure to shut down all extraneous apps, and if you know how, use the Task Manager to kill any processes you don't need. I turn off Google Desktop, but that could be a suspicion on my part.

The one issue that drives me crazy is the keyboard. I knew this going in, so my expectations were set appropriately. I think this is compounded by my atrocious typing. I never took Sister Judine's typing class, a decision I regret every day. (That said, I believe I am the best 6 fingered typist in San Jose). In the interest of fairness, I must say that after working on 2 1000-word blog posts (not including this one) in Microsoft Live Writer, I have to say I am getting used to it. Once you learn the keyboard shortcuts, you can become relatively proficient.

All in all, it was a great purchase and one I would recommend if you are looking for a netbook.

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