The Acer AspireOne (AAO for short) is one of many compact subnotebook offerings currently on the market. It sits alongside offerings from Dell, HP, Lenovo, and other companies. This new(ish) subnotebook is marketed as a "netbook" and has many distinguishing characteristics from traditional notebooks, but sets itself apart from its larger cousins. It's small size (50 percent of a tradtional notebook), long battery life (2.5 to 5.5 hours), smaller screen size (8.9 to 10.2 inches), and lack of an optical drive, make it ideal for many people.
Hype and promotional babble aside, the story of how I came across this wonderful little machine is more interesting and more important to this ad-hoc introduction.
So the story begins...
...as does most stories... I began my day as usual: woke up, skipped breakfast, watched some news on the television, argued with my mother over some small detail, packed the textbooks I needed for the day, and walked to the bus stop to wait for the always-late CTA bus. As I stood there waitin for the bus, I mulled over the idea of owning the Acer AspireOne. I also briefly weighed the pros and cons of the AAO versus a eReader (i.e. Sony PRS-505, Amazon Kindle) and a PDA (Palm, HP). The AAO was far superior to both a eReader and a PDA. It had similar battery life, a bigger, brighter, and more colorful screen, a full-sized keyboard, let's me do more than read text-based documents, view images, and view PDFs. Then I considered the must-have features for such the AAO: a) lightweight, b) portable, c) low-cost, and d) runs Windows. Those four needs in detail were focused around what I wanted to do with the machine.
Let me explain each of the four features in detail. The machine needed to be lightweight because I carried around twenty pounds of books on my busiest day of classes. I did not want to added another five or more pounds to that burden. Next, it had to be portable. That meant it had to have a good battery life and wasn't bulky. A traditional notebook usually only has 1.5 to 2.5 hours of battery life and were very bulky. At best, a traditional notebook would only be good for one class and then I needed to tether it to a power cord. With the AAO, I could go through two classes, before I had to tether it. Cost was a major buying factor me. I only had a realistic budget of about $400. I definitely, did not want to spend $500 on a machine after spending $800 on my mainstream gaming PC just a few months ago. Lastly, it had to run Windows. Ideally, I wanted Windows Vista, but realistically, it wouldn't run very well on a netbook with its low-end processor, budget-sized memory, and slow mechanical hard drive. I also needed to create, edit, and open Microsoft documents, Powerpoint slideshows, Excel spreadsheets, and so on. I didn't want to deal with OpenOffice, file conversions, and the compatibility headache of using a OO document on the mostly Windows-based PCs at DePaul.
I went through my first two classes of the day (English and Ethics) and proceeded to my friend Matt's apartment-dorm. After another lengthy battle with myself, I decided to borrow some cash from him to make the purchase. Long story short, he offered to purchase it for me from NewEgg and I accepted to pay him back the $415 the netbook cost (after shipping).
A week later, it arrived at his apartment-dorm and I started to unbox it. I had my camera on hand to take photos of the unboxing. I apologize for the poor image resolution (DPI) and blurred photos, but it's hard to take quality pictures without adaquate lighting and a tripod stand. Plus, I don't own a Nikon D60.
The white border sorrounding the AAO in the right picture is folded cardboard, not styrofoam padding.
It isn't very shock-resistant or vibration dampening as styrofoam padding is.
As you can see from the pictures below, the month-plus usage this little AAO received has dirtied it with many smudges and fingerprints. The black exterior and interior is still shiny as always. First image (from top left): Shiny, black, fingerprint-smudged, and there's my LX8's USB receiver sticking out the side. Second image: The front view of the machine with my cell phone, mouse, and a USB flash drive for size comparison. If you look closely, you can see the intake vent on the bottom porion just under the lid. Third image: The bright red ring around the hinge of the lid is the only off key color that sets this netbook apart from other shiny black netbooks. We can also see the VGA out port, ethernet port, the third USB port (USB dongle is in it), and the SD expansion slot that allows a user to expand the available storage space on his PC by inserting a 8 MB to 8 GB SD/SDHC card into the slot.
Fourth image: On the reverse side, we can see the microphone input jack (pink), the headphone output jack (green), the two remaining USB ports, the mutli-card reader, the Kensington security lockhole, the other side of the hinge, and the battery stick out of the back. Fifth image: The battery struts its stuff for all to see. Woooo! Sixth image: The bottom of the netbook. Intake vents to the top, outtake vents to the left side, the battery at the bottom, various stickers, and the round bevel is the GPU fan. There's small compartment cover on the lower right (secured via two precision screws). Inside is just empty space for a possible bluetooth or other wireless connectivity chipset. It may get used in the future if Acer decides to put anything there. The only RAM expansion slot is just off to the top side of the cover. Some more pictures are included below for your viewing pleasure.
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