Laptops Arena

Acer Aspire One is a series of Acer mini notebooks (or netbooks as we like to call them). These Acer mini notebooks have an Intel Atom platform and they are in strong competition with the Asus Eee PC's. What is not to love about these compact little gadgets that you can throw in any bag and carry them around with you as if they were a small book? You won't even feel the weight and you will forget you have a small laptop in your purse or backpack.

The Acer Aspire One 751h is a new model of Acer notebook. The standard color for this netbook is blue, but you will also find it in white, red and black. With the 11.6 inch display you will find this to be the latest in portability technology. The keyboard is fully sized so typing is not going to be a problem. The keys are different and they are flat-top which is odd comparing them to the usual Acer concave keys.  You will get three USB ports, an Ethernet port, a multi card reader, a monitor output port, a DC-in jack and both headphones and microphone jacks. One good thing about this netbook is that the bottom side now has separated panels for the hard drive and memory slots. Above the display you will find a small webcam which is very useful especially since this netbook is designed for heavy-travelers and your family may want to see you when you are away from home. As for the touchpad, it's weird that instead of two separated mouse buttons, they have incorporated them in only one.


You are likely to receive this netbook with Windows XP preinstalled but there is a good chance to get one with Vista as well. Of course, you also get your "favorite" software installed. Just kidding, most programs will seem quite pointless, except for those trial versions of McAfee SecurityCenter and Microsoft Office. You might end up by seriously freeing some disk space as there are about 15 programs on the average that will be of no use to you is you are a regular notebook user.

As a conclusion, we are pretty sure you are going to enjoy the Acer Aspire One 751h experience. Even if you may find the screen a bit too reflective and almost impossible to track in powerful lit environments, the colors are really clean and enjoyable and the resolution is very good. Another great aspect is the battery life of the Acer Aspire. When fully charged and with the wireless feature disabled plus the netbook in idle mode, the battery lasts an average of 7 hours and 50 minutes. We expect it would run about 4 hours is you use it for mainstream laptop needs.  Speaker quality is good for this netbook (in fact, it's better than most netbook speakers).  The cons of this model are that you don't have an integrated Bluetooth and you only have the two mouse button united to become just one (we would have preferred to see them separately).



We think that the rather slow 1.33 GHz Atom processor is quite an advantage, since you need long battery life more than you need a really speedy netbook (if you want excellent speed and performance, buy a laptop).  You will not sense the difference unless you choose to playback a movie but then again, remember what is the main purpose that netbooks were designed for. The price is approximately $350, it's quite a good price for the specs of the Acer Aspire One 751h, not to mention that it's a good price to pay for portability.

Another model we have looked into was the 10 inch model, the Aspire One AOD105. The starting price is the same as for the 751h but it is cheaper than other netbooks that are similarly configured.  The processor is a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom N720 with 1 GB of RAM, a bit more powerful than the one we presented above. This is no power-horse either but you will be happy with the performance of this small notebook. We have nothing to complain about the keyboard; the keys are big enough to type comfortably and you get a positive response. However, the touchpad can be a bit of a problem as those mouse buttons are small and difficult to press.  The battery has 6 cells and this provides us with a long battery life (somewhere around 6 hours) but it makes the netbook quite heavy. 160 GB of free disk space should be enough to store all your documents, photos, movies, music, e-books and other useful stuff. You have a Mobile Intel 945GSE chipset which is not very useful but it will come in handy for this small notebook.



Just like the previous model, this netbook is available in red, white, black and blue. When you order it, the standard color is blue with a glossy lid. Here we have the same problem, with only one long button instead of two mouse/touchpad buttons.  This model has the standard and typical set of ports like most netbooks.  With the CPU power and the RAM you get, we recommend you install Windows XP. The 6-cell battery is sure to last more than 6 hours if you use it for basic tasking like web surfing with wireless turned on, checking your e-mail and playing a good song on Windows media Player.  You also have a one-year warranty.

It turns out that Acer mini notebooks are good for the average netbook user but fot those who want something with a bit more power, you will have to go with some HP or ASUS models. Acer netbooks are good for basic needs that are essential when you travel and need to check your e-mail or search some information through the web. They are also suitable if you are on a plane and need to listen to some good music but be aware that most of these netbooks do not have any optical drive so it's useless bringing your favorite DVD's along, better copy the movies right onto the hard-drive.