NCIX Hands-On With Acer Aspire One, Asus Eee 901, HP 2133, and MSI Wind Netbooks

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=0CuxV-jsrk8' target='_blank'>http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=0CuxV-jsrk8</a><br /><br /></div><p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="425" height="349" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0CuxV-jsrk8&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;border=1" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0CuxV-jsrk8&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;border=1" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p><p>I've been searching for information about some of the latest and greatest netbooks, and <a href="http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=0CuxV-jsrk8" target="_blank">this video</a> (shot last month) answered some of my questions - I figured it was worth passing along!</p>

[mboone]

I have the Acer Aspire One - I'm using it right now as a matter of fact - and it does NOT have an international keyboard like the one shown in the video. It's just your regular English only keyboard. So maybe they sell a different model in the US or something. I don't have any trouble typing on the Acer.

The video demonstrates very well why I got the netbook. The Acer Aspire One is booted up and ready to go in no time, while my Vista notebook boots up about as slow as the HP one in the video. And now with the "hacks" I've applied to the Acer, most notably turning the desktop into a "real" computer desktop instead of that giant icon program launcher it ships with, and installing Thunderbird, etc., it can get done almost everything I need a computer to do. And I can usually have most of those things done before the Vista laptop is finished booting up :-). If the price of the Acer drops to $329 US as expected, it would be a tough deal to pass up!

Mike B.

Biomobility, LLC
http://www.biomobility.com

[Jason Dunn]

Thanks for sharing Mike! How do you find the build quality of the Acer? And the screen size? The 8.9" screen on the HP Mini Note was just a bit too small for my eyes, but the 10.6" screen on my Fujitsu is just fine - so that's one reason why I'm leaning toward the 10" screen on the MSI Wind...

[Felix Torres]

I have the Acer Aspire One - I'm using it right now as a matter of fact - and it does NOT have an international keyboard like the one shown in the video. It's just your regular English only keyboard. So maybe they sell a different model in the US or something.

Nope.
The one Best Buy carries in-store and online is english-only too.
Good feel on both the keyboard and the touchpad.
Nice blue shade and it opens up almost flat which is really useful at times.
I wonder if they'll do a version with the dual-core Atom...

[Macguy59]

@ Mike . . . you must have the Linux 8GB SSD version. I opted for the 120GB HD based version with XP. Comparing the scaled down Linux boot up time with Vista is an unfair fight :p

[Macguy59]

Thanks for sharing Mike! How do you find the build quality of the Acer? And the screen size? The 8.9" screen on the HP Mini Note was just a bit too small for my eyes, but the 10.6" screen on my Fujitsu is just fine - so that's one reason why I'm leaning toward the 10" screen on the MSI Wind...

Not Mike but I find the build quality to be good. It doesn't feel "flimsy". Even at 10" my 49 year old eyes couldn't handle it as a full time puter. But for occasional use the 9" screen is ok (especially once you bump up font size) . It fills the void between my 3G iPhone and 17" MBP

[mboone]

Sorry for the delay in replying, but it looks like the questions have been answered. Yes I have the SSD model and the build quality seems great to me. As far as the screen size, I think it's fine. Bigger screen would be better but of course that makes for a bigger sized netbook, and I wanted this to be as portable as possible. I am still very happy with it.