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SINGAPORE: We take the sheer veneer of gloss on our gadgets for granted, often griping about how easily it gets smudged with oily stains and fingerprints. But what a world of difference gloss makes on the Aspire one, Acer’s answer to the growing market of mini budget laptops.
The Aspire one’s first distinguishing feature is its looks — smooth curves, a glossy white exterior and a black bezel that frames an 8.9-inch screen (1,024x600 pixel resolution). It might be only $699, but it looks nothing like a kiddy budget machine with plasticky aesthetics.
Our review unit is powered by an Intel Atom CPU running at 1.6GHz, 1GB of memory and 8GB of solid state memory. In our tests, the new mobile processor from Intel runs quieter and hardly gets warm enough to become toasty.
There are ports aplenty on this 995g mini-laptop, such as USB 2.0, VGA, Ethernet, headphone and mic jacks. You get two memory card slots — one for SD cards and one 5-in-1 slot. There’s also a built-in webcam and a microphone for out-of-the-box video conferencing.
When you insert a card into the standalone SD slot, its software fuses the extra storage capacity with the internal hard drive, so it looks like one disk without extra configuration. And when you upgrade the SD card, onscreen instructions will guide you in using the 5-in-1 slot to transfer the data onto the bigger memory card — which is a nifty feature.
As with other diminutive laptops, the keyboard may initially feel cramped and will take some getting used to. But we’re not a big fan of the Aspire one’s touchpad because it feels rather awkward to navigate and click on the unconventional mouse buttons flanked at the sides.
It features 802.11b/g for WiFi connectivity and you can fit it with 3G or WiMax connectivity to future-proof your investment.
The Aspire runs a customised Linux operating system (OS) called Linpus Linux Lite and has adequate applications to cover basic computing needs. The OS has a simple, clean icon-based interface that gives you access to your files and applications, with categories like Connect, Work, Fun and Files. A well-placed search box in the interface lets you sift through the files on your hard disk and access an online search engine.
Firefox is included for Web browsing and the OpenOffice suite takes care of your productivity needs. There’s an instant messaging client (IM) that allows you to simultaneously access other IM services such as MSN, Yahoo Messenger and Google Talk.
A three-cell battery yielded slightly over two hours of heavy usage but intermittent use yielded 1.5 days of usage without any charge needed.
We highly recommend the Acer Aspire one — it edges out the competition with its looks, performance and price point. But get the six-cell battery ($129) if you plan to be mobile frequently. The Aspire is available in white and blue, and Acer is also selling a model with 80GB of storage and Windows preloaded in other markets. Pity it has no plans to make it available here yet. - TODAY/sh
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