Acer One D250 with Windows 7, October 28, 2009

By 

N. Himert – See all my reviews

  

Update (17 Nov 09): After a fair amount of travel I stick by my initial rating. Construction is solid and I have had no issues, even after it has been thrown around a bit with my carry-on. Also, you shouldn’t have to worry about the “big” battery sticking out. The extra battery life is worth it and the netbook fits easy in your typical sleeve. I bought a standard netbook sleeve off the shelf for a bit of extra protection and the computer fits in with no issues. In fact, I’m able to get my travel mouse and power cord in with it, zipped up and all, which makes travel even easier.

————————

So I was recently in the market for a netbook for travel reasons and happened upon the Acer One. After days of reading reviews and visits to local electronic stores, I had narrowed my choices down to the Asus (10 hour battery life) EeePC and this Acer One. As luck would have it, I was in the market just as Windows 7 pre-orders began and both machines came through Amazon with the new OS. In the end, the AC adapter issues with the Asus kept me away, and I figured 10.5 vs. 9 hours of battery life wasn’t too big of a difference (and neither would live up to the claims regardless).

The netbook arrived the day after Windows 7 was released and I immediately got to work removing the “extras” that come with the computer. Surprisingly though, Acer did not load too much bloat on the machine and getting it off took no time at all. So then began the installation process. Avast, Office, iTunes, CD Burning software, VLC, Chrome, Firefox, Skype and Quicktime (the usuals) were all immediate needs and all went on with ease. I did purchase the extra gig of RAM that is recommended on most other netbooks (read around and you’ll see) as well, however, it did not come until 3 days later so I had a decent amount of time to play around with this machine with just 1g.

Even with 1 gig, iTunes ran smoothly, I was able to watch Hulu with no hiccups, Office didn’t lag… I was actually quite surprised. The 2 gig showed up eventually though, and things got even better. Installation was a breeze (just open the memory “door” and clip it in) and took only 30 seconds. The computer recognized it instantly. Once up and running again, the system was noticeably faster… very noticeable. Having open multiple programs is not a problem at all (something I will admit I was concerned about initially).

Along the same lines as the memory upgrade, an external DVD drive may be another buy you will want (just like with every other netbook). I did not invest in one, simply because I will not be needing it, but just a thought when pricing out your “full” purchase.

So, what is good and what is bad?

Pros:

Battery life – lives up to the advertisement (for the most part). I run it on the intermediate setting and get 7 hours easy. Currently at 45% right now and have 4 hours and 5 minutes left.

Wireless N and Bluetooth – while not “necessary” these are very nice. I can pick up signals with my netbook that other laptops in the house cannot get. Range is amazing.

Speed – A lot faster than what I was expecting and blew away all my expectations. Just make sure you spend the extra 20-40 bucks and get the extra memory. You will see a big difference (keep in mind though, she does fine with 1 gig). 2 is always better though.

Display – Very clear and easy on the eyes. Thought I might have issues with the small screen but it looks amazing.

Windows 7 – you can read the reviews about it specifically but it runs great. I’ll leave it at that.

Cons:

Keyboard – slightly smaller than some other netbook keyboards out there and can be tricky sometimes.

Touchpad – Acer, as with others, boasts a multi-touch pad (similar to an iPhone or iPod Touch). Maybe I just haven’t found the right use for it, but I find it nearly worthless and even when I can get it to “work,” it is slow and not very useful. Also, some may find the touchpad a tad too small (at least I do). Finally, the click bar on the touchpad is not broken up into two buttons, and while this is fairly common, the click bar can be tough to click sometimes and there are times I will try to click and hit the middle, which does nothing, and you don’t “know” until you look down to see what you’re clicking. I think two distinct buttons would have been better and easier.

In the end, this model (and it’s brightly colored siblings), in my view, are an excellent buy if you’re in the market. At around 0 (depending on how much you get the RAM for), this machine comes with features that you will only find in more expensive netbooks. While I’ve only had it for a week, I will say I am very pleased with my investment. If time permits, I will update this to review how it holds up with travel,…

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Another Fine Netbook from Acer, October 30, 2009

By 

MWebb (Berkeley, CA) – See all my reviews

  

WARNING: netbook specs change rapidly, as do their prices. So be sure to research any changes since the date of this review.

OVERVIEW: bright, clear screen; snappy response (based on a couple of hours of adding and removing programs, after the 31 updates to Win7 first downloaded); tolerable streaming video (ran HD Apple trailers in 480 mode fine; Hulu was sometimes “choppy”; ran “Large” non-HD Apple trailers fine; ran ABC.GO.COM tv shows tolerably well; won’t run Hulu in 480 mode or full screen; ran HQ You Tube fine). Smaller screen and smaller keyboard at a time when other netbooks are bumping up against super light laptops, but at least this is under 3 pounds WITH the charger. And you can’t beat that battery life!

WHAT COULD BE BETTER: The 11.6″ screen on some Aspire Ones is superb – more pixels = ability to see NY Times online full screen without scrolling (the 10.1″ on this one requires slight scrolling, but you are only missing “ad boxes” on the right hand anyway). HOWEVER I bought a 10.1″ because all the 11.6″ models come with downgraded Atom processors (z520 with GMA 500 chips vs. the N280 and GMA 900 on this one). SHOULD come with 2 GB of memory to match the other upgraded specs on this otherwise upgraded version, but unfortunately, doesn’t.

NOT ALL ASPIRE AOD250′S ARE CREATED EQUAL DEPT.: Danger Will Robinson! Danger Will Robinson! Danger Will Robinson! PLEASE NOTE that Aspire has put the AOD250 label on a WHOLE HOST of widely different netbooks. Things to watch out for: the N280 is MUCH faster than the N270 – not because of the processor speed (1.66 vs. 1.6, nothing!) but because of the front bus (memory) speed (677 vs. 533, a lot!). This version, as of the date I write this review, also comes with Win7 while many come with XP; comes with 250 GB hard drive instead of 160 GB on most AOD250′s; has wireless N instead of G (a LOT faster, when internet cafes and other locations upgrade); has Blue Tooth; has the 6 cell battery (AND it’s in the 5200 m.a. version, not the 4200).

WHAT I DID ON DELIVERY (ymmv so think before you leap:

1. BEFORE inserting the battery, I removed one easy screw from the middle back panel, pulled a couple of side clips off the existing memory module, and did a 5 minute total upgrade to 2GB of RAM. Super simple.

2. Install the battery, plug in the charger, boot up.

3. Wait for normal set up; enter minimal information.

4. Load Internet Explorer and click on Windows update – the computer will update soon on its own, but this speeds it up.

5. Installed 38 security updates and 3 non-essential updates. Note: Acer has its own update program to check for BIOS and device driver updates, a nice touch, I went in and changed the update frequency to monthly from daily.

6. Uninstalled the trial antivirus program. Which virus program you choose is up to you; I’ve had good luck with Panda (paid) and with AVG (free, no ads). Based on what I read since then, I decided to try Microsoft’s new, free basic protection program, Microsoft Security Essentials (Google: download Microsoft Security Essentials) and quickly installed it. It’s not supposed to be as up to date as some, but it’s overhead is low and I have some confidence that MSFT will try to make it work well in conjunction with their Win7 patches and updates. NOTE: Security Essentials has its own Malware program which replaces Windows Defender which comes with Win7. Make sure both aren’t running at the same time (make sure Security Essentials DID turn off Windows Defender).

7. Uninstalled all the junkware (trial Office, Norton BackUp, eSobi, etc.). Uninstalled all the excess MSFT baggage – Silverlight, Live Essentials. If you ever use a program that wants chunks of these, they will ask to download and reinstall and you can decide then. NOTE: you don’t want tags of too many programs running in memory, that slows down the computer especially video – the “load” from the antivirus can be especially significant.

8. Downloaded Quicktime; iTunes; Flash 10 (already installed – good work Acer! – but there was an incremental update since the build they installed on my hard drive.

KUDOS TO AMAZON DEPT.: I got this overnight, with the memory chip to upgrade, for only . Wow. I could have had free delivery by waiting a week or two with Super Saver. And they actually got the right computer to me – given how my AOD250′s variants they stock, and colors, that’s no mean feat.

WHY YOU MIGHT WANT GET THE SMALLER BATTERY DEPT.: The humongous runs forever battery is fatter and heavier. Heavy, not a problem; wider not a problem; problem is, it juts down from the body which means it doesn’t fit well in a flat computer slot. On the other hand, it elevates the rear of the deck slightly for better cooling.

YOU SHOULD GET THIS IF: You are cheap or on a budget or want a very…

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Great netbook, October 28, 2009

The Acer Aspire One D250-1633 is exactly as advertised. A nice small netbook with an easy to read screen. Windows 7 Starter works fine. So does Office 2007. I was concerned about the 1 GB memory but Windows 7 Starter seems very lean and Word and Excel and Internet Explorer run (at the same time) with memory to spare. The keyboard certainly is smaller than normal, but I’m a hunt and peck typist so it makes little difference to me. If you’re looking for a small, light, inexpensive netbook this seems like a good choice.

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Great, but not perfect., January 16, 2010

The Acer Aspire One 532h is a lovely little netbook, for the price it is fantastic but like all things it isn’t perfect. Let’s begin shall we?

The netbook is a great simplistic design, very lightweight and compact, perfect for traveling or school. It has an SD card slot for your Digital Camera, etc. 3 USB 2.0 ports, a VGA-out port (great if you wanna use the netbook with a projector), a Headphone and Microphone port, and a kensington lock slot (great if you wanna physically lock up your computer).

The keyboard is a chiclet key style, although this looks nice, the keyboard is forgettable, and by that I mean there is no way to physically remember what key your fingers are touching. This is definitely a shortcoming for the device.

The trackpad is pretty cool, it has your typical tracking area and vertical scroll off to the side, but what makes this interesting is Acer has bundeled software which lets you use multi-touch gestures. a two-finger swipe to the left will act like the “back” button, two fingers in a circle would be “refresh”, it’s nifty, but the lack of speed on some commands makes it more of a novelty.

The screen is bright and beautiful, of course at maximum brightness, its an LED screen so it doesn’t use alot of battery power.

The computer comes with Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g), a built-in microphone, and a 0.3Mp camera. Although the camera’s specs aren’t great, it still looked good when testing with Ustream and Google Video chat.

The other thing you’ll want to remember is this IS windows 7 Starter, so you do get some nice features that come with Windows 7 Home, Pro, etc. You are missing some basic functions. If you want to change the desktop background… you can’t, personalize the sounds… nope. It’s definitely a starter, and if you want a more “full” experience, you will have to fork out some more cash to upgrade.

The computer maxes out the processor when more than two windows are active, this makes it difficult to multi-task. One easy way to remedy this is to give your processor a break, install more RAM in the computer (1Gb to 2Gb extra of 200-pin 667MHz SODIMM RAM should suffice). The last thing is this computer is light, so light that you will find that the computer will want to tip over in your lap (not enough weight in the front), just something to mention.

So let’s cover the key things I’ve learned…

*Beautiful LED screen

*Webcam is good

*computer is pretty powerful and gets basic tasks done quickly

*wakes up from standby in less than 3 seconds

*Battery power is great and could last an entire work day without a recharge

#Chiclet styled keyboard is forgetable and a mediocre experience

#multi-touch trackpad is sort of nice, mostly a gimmick

#computer isn’t properly balenced

#you’ll want to add some RAM if you expedt to get the most out of the device.

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Elegant, excellent, and exciting, February 13, 2010

Exciting

For the first time in 25 years of portable computing, I have no worries — zero — about running out of power during a working day. This is amazing. The battery lasts and lasts… you never have to plug it in, either in your office or at customers… just at night, like a cell phone.

Excellent

As a multimedia designer, I work with words, pictures, motion graphics, and lightweight web code. Programs I use at work run perfectly on this small computer: Framemaker, Xara Xtreme Pro, an older version of Photoshop, Open Office, Audacity, and Soundslides for rapid presentations with audio. If you are a writer or an illustrator, you can do a lot with this device… anywhere you go. Everything works as advertised… the wifi is easy to use, screen quality is great, and, as a non-touch-typist, the keyboard suits me just fine.

Elegant

This PC is beautiful right out of the box. A lovely, simple, slightly rounded plastic shell. And Windows 7 Starter is a kick — it is faster and easier to use than Vista or XP. All my old programs (except Ultraedit, a text editor) installed right away. Including a contact/filing program I’ve been using since Win 95! Talk about backward compatibility! Windows 7 Starter’s only drawback: it won’t let you change the desktop background, but the default blue color works well for me.

This is the perfect way to deliver a presentation. It has a plug for a projector… but, for sales, you can sit with a prospect (anywhere) and just go through your show on the bright screen and never worry about the battery failing.

P.S.

Decided to buy this right after the Apple iPad demo, where I found out that the iPad couldn’t run Flash graphics (hey, I make motion graphics!)… and I can tell you that Apple’s HTML5 idea is nonsense… HTML5 is still on the standards drawing board, and will use H264 videos rather than interactive content. Also, turns out the iPad can run only one app at a time, can’t do copy-paste operations, and won’t run any of my work programs. Am going on about this because if you pay $$$ for a PC, you’ll be asking ‘how long will it take for this tool to earn back my money?’ … and the iPad seems to be snarled up with monthly connect charges, iTunes content charges, etc. — a lot of proprietary, non-open-source costs that can really reduce your profit margins.

Highly recommended. Hope this helps.

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Amazing little booger, February 21, 2010

By 

B. Stone – See all my reviews

  

This netbook just amazes me. Compared to Asus and Samsung netbooks that I have owned it is the clear winner based on the fact that I am carrying it with me 24/7, literally putting it next to the bed when I get in. Added the extra ram (now at 2gb) and upgraded to Windows Home Premium. The unit is lightening fast and the keyboard is easy to adapt to. At under 3 pounds it is almost unnoticeable when carrying all day in my backpack, with my verizon myhotspot wifi device I can whip out the book and connect easily and conveniently anywhere.

The only negatives I can see so far is the lack of bluetooth connectivity but I had to return a Samsung netbook due to it losing the bluetooth and wifi connections after about an hour of surfing. Also there are no recovery discs and the user needs to burn them themselves, one for system (2 discs needed) and one for the drivers (one disc needed). Having owned Acer products before I was prepared for this and had ordered an external dvd drive along with the netbook to create them before setting up and using the unit.

I have seen comments about the screen size. Yes it is small but the clarity on the Acer is the sharpest and brightest I have seen. As a person with “coke bottle” glasses I have no problems seeing the screen.

All in all a good netbook but not a laptop. I do not game and use it only for surfing, email and music on the go (along with surfing in bed using an attached usb light). It is just what the doctor ordered for my needs.

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Battery life is unreal, January 18, 2010

Have been using the system for about a week.

The battery life is unreal. With wi-fi on I get about 8+ hours, with wi-fi off the system says it can go 12+ hours and I believe it. recharge is fast as well.

The screen is very bright although i would have spent more to get 1280 wide rather than 1024. Screen reclines way back so its fine for just about any viewing position.

The body is plastic but feels very solid – no flex like I noticed in some of the ASUS netbooks.

Speakers are fine for everyday use. Haven’t used the mic or speaker out jacks.

System is very light, and the charger is far lighter than I expected.

Trackpad is very responsive although I haven’t mastered the zoom in and out gestures. The left and right click thing is a little stiff and takes some getting used to. I don’t really like the keyboard style. It has teh flat keys with very little room in between and I’m having some problems gettign used to it rather than a standard PC keyboard (hence all the spelling mistakes in this review). that said the keys are very well arranged and none of teh common keys are hard to find or require complex ALT-FN-CTRL-SHIFT type combinations.

Keep in mind that this is a netbook, not a desktop replacement. The machine can get a little slow, usually if you are working in Internet explorer – this machine is going to have be seriously tryign out other, lighter weight, browsers.

this machine would get five stars except for the keyboard, which is a matter of personal typing style. If you are looking to all day battery life for non heavy duty computing then this machine is perfect.

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Everything I wanted in a netbook, March 30, 2010

Great little netbook, first thing I did was pop in a 2GB dimm. Very easy to access memory and hard drive on this model as you do not have to remove the keyboard like have to do on some other models (Asus, Dell, Samsung etc)

There has been some controversy over what memory that Acers will run on…on a gamble I bought 2GB of memory G.Skill F2-5300CL5S-2GBSK Zero issues, booted right up had to do nothing in Bios.

Pros: Silver color (not a finger print magnet on the outside)

Bluetooth

10 hour battery(probably won’t get that long but maybe close)

Windows XP

Ease of access to hard drive to swap out if you want to

FAST with 2GB upgrade

Great Webcam

Cons: Not really any, just observations

Glossy screen reflects a bit but don’t all glossy screens?

Inside is the fingerprint magnet but not a big deal at all to me

Had originally bout a 14″ Thinkpad for an upcoming trip but decided it was still to bulky to bring with me. This netbook will accomplish all that I need for the next few months. Highly recommend!

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Terrific Ultra-Light Netbook, May 14, 2010

The Acer Aspire One 532H is sold in many versions, with some vendors, such as Costco, having unique versions. The major differences are 160GB hard drives versus 250GB hard drives, and “regular” six cell batteries versus long-life six cell batteries. All current versions should have Windows 7, instead of the older versions’ Windows XP.

I bought the Costco version, which comes with a two year warranty, instead of the one year warranty, a 160GB hard drive, and the long-life battery. I have been able to routinely get 8 hours to 9 hours of use before needing to charge the battery. The ultra-light weight of the 532H and its slim body make it easy to carry in my briefcase all day.

When I stop for coffee, it quickly identifies available wireless internet connections. I use it primarily for e-mail and checking the news headlines. However, although the keyboard is a bit cramped, after some time to adjust, typing shorter documents is not difficult. The screen is sharp and easy to read.

The power pack and charger is smaller and lighter than usual, so bringing it along for a week-end trip is not a burden. If the battery is totally drained, it fully recharges in two to four hours, depending on whether you are using the computer while it is charging.

When I have a fast internet connection (1.3 mbps or faster) the 532H will play back TV shows on Hulu smoothly, although sometimes it is necessary to pause the show for a few minutes to enable the memory buffer to fill up.

Using the Windows Task Manager to monitor CPU use and memory use indicates that memory use tops out at 700 megs to 800 megs with eight or ten Browser tabs open, and also running another program, such as listening to music on Pandora or watching a TV show on Hulu. I suspect a program such as PhotoShop would be very slow with just one GB of memory however. The CPU sometimes tops out at 100% load, indicating that the CPU, not the 1GB of memory, is the primary cause of the computer running slowly during some tasks.

There is no reason to upgrade to two GB of RAM if you will be using the Aspire for e-mail, browsing the news, listening to music, or watching videos on Hulu. I purchased a mini-DVD unit so that I could watch movies. Using Windows Media Player, there was a great picture, but no sound. I downloaded the free VLC video software, and movies then played fine, with nice stereo sound. Then I tried Windows Media Player again, and it was also playing DVD movies with sound…I’m guessing that when I downloaded the VLC video player, it included an audio codec that Windows 7 was missing.

If I were going on a trip for a few weeks, the Aspire, its charger, and the mini-DVD player would provide me with a complete computer system that weighs less than a total of five pounds…light enough to keep with you all day. Folks would have laughed ten years ago if you said that someday you would be able to buy a computer that weighed less than three pounds and cost less than 0. A real bargain.

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Great, but not perfect., January 16, 2010

The Acer Aspire One 532h is a lovely little netbook, for the price it is fantastic but like all things it isn’t perfect. Let’s begin shall we?

The netbook is a great simplistic design, very lightweight and compact, perfect for traveling or school. It has an SD card slot for your Digital Camera, etc. 3 USB 2.0 ports, a VGA-out port (great if you wanna use the netbook with a projector), a Headphone and Microphone port, and a kensington lock slot (great if you wanna physically lock up your computer).

The keyboard is a chiclet key style, although this looks nice, the keyboard is forgettable, and by that I mean there is no way to physically remember what key your fingers are touching. This is definitely a shortcoming for the device.

The trackpad is pretty cool, it has your typical tracking area and vertical scroll off to the side, but what makes this interesting is Acer has bundeled software which lets you use multi-touch gestures. a two-finger swipe to the left will act like the “back” button, two fingers in a circle would be “refresh”, it’s nifty, but the lack of speed on some commands makes it more of a novelty.

The screen is bright and beautiful, of course at maximum brightness, its an LED screen so it doesn’t use alot of battery power.

The computer comes with Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g), a built-in microphone, and a 0.3Mp camera. Although the camera’s specs aren’t great, it still looked good when testing with Ustream and Google Video chat.

The other thing you’ll want to remember is this IS windows 7 Starter, so you do get some nice features that come with Windows 7 Home, Pro, etc. You are missing some basic functions. If you want to change the desktop background… you can’t, personalize the sounds… nope. It’s definitely a starter, and if you want a more “full” experience, you will have to fork out some more cash to upgrade.

The computer maxes out the processor when more than two windows are active, this makes it difficult to multi-task. One easy way to remedy this is to give your processor a break, install more RAM in the computer (1Gb to 2Gb extra of 200-pin 667MHz SODIMM RAM should suffice). The last thing is this computer is light, so light that you will find that the computer will want to tip over in your lap (not enough weight in the front), just something to mention.

So let’s cover the key things I’ve learned…

*Beautiful LED screen

*Webcam is good

*computer is pretty powerful and gets basic tasks done quickly

*wakes up from standby in less than 3 seconds

*Battery power is great and could last an entire work day without a recharge

#Chiclet styled keyboard is forgetable and a mediocre experience

#multi-touch trackpad is sort of nice, mostly a gimmick

#computer isn’t properly balenced

#you’ll want to add some RAM if you expedt to get the most out of the device.

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Elegant, excellent, and exciting, February 13, 2010

Exciting

For the first time in 25 years of portable computing, I have no worries — zero — about running out of power during a working day. This is amazing. The battery lasts and lasts… you never have to plug it in, either in your office or at customers… just at night, like a cell phone.

Excellent

As a multimedia designer, I work with words, pictures, motion graphics, and lightweight web code. Programs I use at work run perfectly on this small computer: Framemaker, Xara Xtreme Pro, an older version of Photoshop, Open Office, Audacity, and Soundslides for rapid presentations with audio. If you are a writer or an illustrator, you can do a lot with this device… anywhere you go. Everything works as advertised… the wifi is easy to use, screen quality is great, and, as a non-touch-typist, the keyboard suits me just fine.

Elegant

This PC is beautiful right out of the box. A lovely, simple, slightly rounded plastic shell. And Windows 7 Starter is a kick — it is faster and easier to use than Vista or XP. All my old programs (except Ultraedit, a text editor) installed right away. Including a contact/filing program I’ve been using since Win 95! Talk about backward compatibility! Windows 7 Starter’s only drawback: it won’t let you change the desktop background, but the default blue color works well for me.

This is the perfect way to deliver a presentation. It has a plug for a projector… but, for sales, you can sit with a prospect (anywhere) and just go through your show on the bright screen and never worry about the battery failing.

P.S.

Decided to buy this right after the Apple iPad demo, where I found out that the iPad couldn’t run Flash graphics (hey, I make motion graphics!)… and I can tell you that Apple’s HTML5 idea is nonsense… HTML5 is still on the standards drawing board, and will use H264 videos rather than interactive content. Also, turns out the iPad can run only one app at a time, can’t do copy-paste operations, and won’t run any of my work programs. Am going on about this because if you pay $$$ for a PC, you’ll be asking ‘how long will it take for this tool to earn back my money?’ … and the iPad seems to be snarled up with monthly connect charges, iTunes content charges, etc. — a lot of proprietary, non-open-source costs that can really reduce your profit margins.

Highly recommended. Hope this helps.

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Amazing little booger, February 21, 2010

By 

B. Stone – See all my reviews

  

This netbook just amazes me. Compared to Asus and Samsung netbooks that I have owned it is the clear winner based on the fact that I am carrying it with me 24/7, literally putting it next to the bed when I get in. Added the extra ram (now at 2gb) and upgraded to Windows Home Premium. The unit is lightening fast and the keyboard is easy to adapt to. At under 3 pounds it is almost unnoticeable when carrying all day in my backpack, with my verizon myhotspot wifi device I can whip out the book and connect easily and conveniently anywhere.

The only negatives I can see so far is the lack of bluetooth connectivity but I had to return a Samsung netbook due to it losing the bluetooth and wifi connections after about an hour of surfing. Also there are no recovery discs and the user needs to burn them themselves, one for system (2 discs needed) and one for the drivers (one disc needed). Having owned Acer products before I was prepared for this and had ordered an external dvd drive along with the netbook to create them before setting up and using the unit.

I have seen comments about the screen size. Yes it is small but the clarity on the Acer is the sharpest and brightest I have seen. As a person with “coke bottle” glasses I have no problems seeing the screen.

All in all a good netbook but not a laptop. I do not game and use it only for surfing, email and music on the go (along with surfing in bed using an attached usb light). It is just what the doctor ordered for my needs.

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Excellent Computer, Make Sure Yours Will Accept 2gb, January 26, 2010

By 

MWebb (Berkeley, CA) – See all my reviews

  

October 2010 update:

The review is now woefully out of date.

Please look instead at the just-released Aspire Atom Dual Core Acer Aspire One AOD255-1549 10.1-Inch Netbook – Diamond Black which has a dual core instead of single core Atom processor. Same great battery life, but much better performance. It’s slightly more expensive (at least during the introduction, expect prices to drop in 3 months) but should handle Hulu much better (less stuttering/higher resolution/bigger window size). Or if you don’t mind a smaller Hulu window/lower resolution, the N450 single core version is an updated bargain – Acer Aspire One AOD255-2509 10.1-Inch Netbook – Diamond Black. For only more, the “269″ model has a much more useful 250 gb hard drive – Acer Aspire One AOD255-2691 10.1-Inch Netbook – Diamond Black. I recommend spending that extra for the bigger hard drive. I store my music and video collection on my netbook, use it for travel, and quickly fill up the hard drive – 160 gb isn’t enough for me anymore.

Also if video is your top priority, more than battery life, the recent Acers with the AMD Athlon II Neo chip and Radeon graphics are reportedly much, much better in terms of performande, but batter life drops to 3-4 hours (Acer may be winding this model down already precisely for this reason) – Acer Aspire AO521-3782 10.1-Inch Netbook (Antique Brass). I recommend searching for “netbook AMD Neo” to see what’s available with this new generation AMD chip before you buy.

Please read any review of computers (especially in the rapidly evolving netbook market) more than 3 months old with a grain of salt. Also you owe it to yourself to investigate the Apple iPad, many potential netbook purchasers are buying them instead. A comparison of the two is beyond the scope of this product review, but you need to be aware of this alternative.

_________________________original review below, if you buy one used at a great price:

I deleted my first review which knocked this new netbook from Acer with a 3 Star review, for failing to accept a 2gb memory upgrade – I was told by Acer’s overseas on-line warranty service this netbook couldn’t even accept more than one 1gb.

When I posted my experience as the earlier, deleted review here, the Acer product manager from San Jose jumped into the discussion to affirm that this netbook IS designed to take customer installed 2gb upgrades, and that the warranty support line adviser was simply wrong. Since my particular unit wouldn’t take memory modules that had already been proven to work in my other netbooks (including another N450-based netbook) it was concluded that my particular unit was defective. The Acer product manager reported that all of his production samples in San Jose accepted standard 2gb upgrades. One other reader later reported that his unit wouldn’t take an upgrade either, also using known good memory pulled from another netbook. So basically it appears that there is a glitch in some, but not all, units that Acer is shipping. Based on my past experience with Acer (I’ve owned 5 or 6) and faith in Amazon’s return policy, I would have no problem ordering this ao532h, with the caveat that if you intend to upgrade the memory, try doing it right away while your unit is still within the Amazon returns period. Please note that my sample ran fine with the included 1gb module from Acer, and that upgrading the BIOS per the warranty line instructions did not allow my sample to accept either of the two 2 gb replacement modules I had on hand.

So this review is to confirm that this netbook IS designed to accept a 2gb memory module upgrade, and to caution you to check your unit for compatibility. The 2gb memory module spec’d at Crucial dot com specifically for the ao532h is as follows:

Part #: CT1165194 * DDR2 PC2-5300 * CL=5 * Unbuffered * NON-ECC * DDR2-667 * 1.8V * 256Meg x 64 *

The crucial dot com price is about higher than a similar spec’d module from Crucial which is shown by Amazon on this product page as a recommended accessory. Any generic DDR2, PC5300, SoDimm with 667 speed should work, but if you want to be cautious, make sure you get the exact same part number shown above (CT1165194) until Acer provides additional advice on this issue.

***************…

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An Excellent Value, February 6, 2010

By 

Carolyn Buckingham “Netbook Phreak” (Sandusky, OH) – See all my reviews

  

I bought mine from a local retailer for about the same price. I’ve owned a dozen laptops and even the 14″ ones are too big and bulky for me. I love the portability of this machine and for the price, it’s a really good value.

I highly recommend putting in a 2GB RAM module (I used an 800MHz one) and, if you like, a larger hard drive. The extra RAM gives Windows 7 room to breathe and speeds things up noticeably. The Starter Edition of Windows 7 is too limiting for me, I upgraded to another edition of Windows 7. After you upgrade the RAM and the OS to a higher edition of Windows 7, install the Acer VGA driver for Windows 7 and then you’ll have the proper screen resolution and you can run in Aero mode.

I have run Ubuntu Linux (both the Netbook Remix and the standard one), Windows XP Pro, and Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit on my 532h and they all ran just fine. Stick to 32-bit operating systems on this model since it can’t take more than 2GB of RAM (like all netbooks).

For web surfing, I use Google Chrome and it runs much faster than IE8 or Firefox on this machine. Chrome is a good choice because now you can add extensions, like ad blockers, to it. Basically, if you’re like most people and 90% of what you do on a computer is social networking (Twitter, Facebook, etc.), browsing the web, word processing, email and other simple tasks — well, this machine is all you need.

Finally, remember, it’s a Netbook. Not a desktop or even a regular laptop. If you want to do any serious gaming, forget it, but it will run some games. There are netbook websites that are very helpful and some of them even have game recommendations for netbooks.

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Can’t Beat What You Get For The Price, January 19, 2010

By 

Esther Moskowitz “smart rox” – See all my reviews

  

I strongly disagree with a previous review of this netbook. I also purchased this model number from a different vendor (I just needed it right away) and I have to say that you get a lot for what you are paying. True–it is not as fast as a dual-core processor laptop but that’s the point–it doesn’t need to be! I surfed the web, I watched streaming video on both Netflix and Hulu, I typed a document and you know what? It all worked great! What else can you ask for? Any complaints? Yeah, it doesn’t make me toast in the morning. I don’t understand what people are yelling about!

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Excellent Computer, Make Sure Yours Will Accept 2gb, January 26, 2010

By 

MWebb (Berkeley, CA) – See all my reviews

  

October 2010 update:

The review is now woefully out of date.

Please look instead at the just-released Aspire Atom Dual Core Acer Aspire One AOD255-1549 10.1-Inch Netbook – Diamond Black which has a dual core instead of single core Atom processor. Same great battery life, but much better performance. It’s slightly more expensive (at least during the introduction, expect prices to drop in 3 months) but should handle Hulu much better (less stuttering/higher resolution/bigger window size). Or if you don’t mind a smaller Hulu window/lower resolution, the N450 single core version is an updated bargain – Acer Aspire One AOD255-2509 10.1-Inch Netbook – Diamond Black. For only more, the “269″ model has a much more useful 250 gb hard drive – Acer Aspire One AOD255-2691 10.1-Inch Netbook – Diamond Black. I recommend spending that extra for the bigger hard drive. I store my music and video collection on my netbook, use it for travel, and quickly fill up the hard drive – 160 gb isn’t enough for me anymore.

Also if video is your top priority, more than battery life, the recent Acers with the AMD Athlon II Neo chip and Radeon graphics are reportedly much, much better in terms of performande, but batter life drops to 3-4 hours (Acer may be winding this model down already precisely for this reason) – Acer Aspire AO521-3782 10.1-Inch Netbook (Antique Brass). I recommend searching for “netbook AMD Neo” to see what’s available with this new generation AMD chip before you buy.

Please read any review of computers (especially in the rapidly evolving netbook market) more than 3 months old with a grain of salt. Also you owe it to yourself to investigate the Apple iPad, many potential netbook purchasers are buying them instead. A comparison of the two is beyond the scope of this product review, but you need to be aware of this alternative.

_________________________original review below, if you buy one used at a great price:

I deleted my first review which knocked this new netbook from Acer with a 3 Star review, for failing to accept a 2gb memory upgrade – I was told by Acer’s overseas on-line warranty service this netbook couldn’t even accept more than one 1gb.

When I posted my experience as the earlier, deleted review here, the Acer product manager from San Jose jumped into the discussion to affirm that this netbook IS designed to take customer installed 2gb upgrades, and that the warranty support line adviser was simply wrong. Since my particular unit wouldn’t take memory modules that had already been proven to work in my other netbooks (including another N450-based netbook) it was concluded that my particular unit was defective. The Acer product manager reported that all of his production samples in San Jose accepted standard 2gb upgrades. One other reader later reported that his unit wouldn’t take an upgrade either, also using known good memory pulled from another netbook. So basically it appears that there is a glitch in some, but not all, units that Acer is shipping. Based on my past experience with Acer (I’ve owned 5 or 6) and faith in Amazon’s return policy, I would have no problem ordering this ao532h, with the caveat that if you intend to upgrade the memory, try doing it right away while your unit is still within the Amazon returns period. Please note that my sample ran fine with the included 1gb module from Acer, and that upgrading the BIOS per the warranty line instructions did not allow my sample to accept either of the two 2 gb replacement modules I had on hand.

So this review is to confirm that this netbook IS designed to accept a 2gb memory module upgrade, and to caution you to check your unit for compatibility. The 2gb memory module spec’d at Crucial dot com specifically for the ao532h is as follows:

Part #: CT1165194 * DDR2 PC2-5300 * CL=5 * Unbuffered * NON-ECC * DDR2-667 * 1.8V * 256Meg x 64 *

The crucial dot com price is about higher than a similar spec’d module from Crucial which is shown by Amazon on this product page as a recommended accessory. Any generic DDR2, PC5300, SoDimm with 667 speed should work, but if you want to be cautious, make sure you get the exact same part number shown above (CT1165194) until Acer provides additional advice on this issue.

***************…

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An Excellent Value, February 6, 2010

By 

Carolyn Buckingham “Netbook Phreak” (Sandusky, OH) – See all my reviews

  

I bought mine from a local retailer for about the same price. I’ve owned a dozen laptops and even the 14″ ones are too big and bulky for me. I love the portability of this machine and for the price, it’s a really good value.

I highly recommend putting in a 2GB RAM module (I used an 800MHz one) and, if you like, a larger hard drive. The extra RAM gives Windows 7 room to breathe and speeds things up noticeably. The Starter Edition of Windows 7 is too limiting for me, I upgraded to another edition of Windows 7. After you upgrade the RAM and the OS to a higher edition of Windows 7, install the Acer VGA driver for Windows 7 and then you’ll have the proper screen resolution and you can run in Aero mode.

I have run Ubuntu Linux (both the Netbook Remix and the standard one), Windows XP Pro, and Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit on my 532h and they all ran just fine. Stick to 32-bit operating systems on this model since it can’t take more than 2GB of RAM (like all netbooks).

For web surfing, I use Google Chrome and it runs much faster than IE8 or Firefox on this machine. Chrome is a good choice because now you can add extensions, like ad blockers, to it. Basically, if you’re like most people and 90% of what you do on a computer is social networking (Twitter, Facebook, etc.), browsing the web, word processing, email and other simple tasks — well, this machine is all you need.

Finally, remember, it’s a Netbook. Not a desktop or even a regular laptop. If you want to do any serious gaming, forget it, but it will run some games. There are netbook websites that are very helpful and some of them even have game recommendations for netbooks.

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Can’t Beat What You Get For The Price, January 19, 2010

By 

Esther Moskowitz “smart rox” – See all my reviews

  

I strongly disagree with a previous review of this netbook. I also purchased this model number from a different vendor (I just needed it right away) and I have to say that you get a lot for what you are paying. True–it is not as fast as a dual-core processor laptop but that’s the point–it doesn’t need to be! I surfed the web, I watched streaming video on both Netflix and Hulu, I typed a document and you know what? It all worked great! What else can you ask for? Any complaints? Yeah, it doesn’t make me toast in the morning. I don’t understand what people are yelling about!

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