Acer Aspire One review

Acer says the Aspire One is not a laptop. It might look and smell like one, but the company has gone to great lengths to promote the message that the One is an 'Internet device'. Others, such as Intel, refer to it as a netbook -- a new category of device spawned by the Asus Eee PC 701. You, friends, can call it what you want. We'll stick with mini laptop.

Despite its lateness to the party, the One has pretty much everything it takes to be a market leader. It's attractive and lightweight. It offers solid performance and it's easy to use. Most importantly, however, is its price: the entry-level One costs a very pocket-friendly £220.

Design
The One's dimensions are somewhat deceiving. The 249 by 29 by 170mm chassis makes it approximately 25mm wider than an Eee PC 901, but it's also marginally thinner. At 995g, it's also lighter than the 1.1kg Eee 901. Be warned, though: the One saves weight because it comes with a very small, very lightweight 2200mAh battery, which is dwarfed by the 901's 6600mAh unit.

The One, on the whole, is attractive -- particularly with its lid closed. The curved edges and glossy blue finish -- it's also available in white -- give it a more contemporary, grown-up look than the Eee PC series. The general concensus in the CNET.co.uk offices is that it isn't quite as attractive as an Eee PC 901, but looks are always a subjective issue -- you may think it's the best thing since sliced bread.

By making the chassis wider than most netbooks, Acer has been able to incorporate a keyboard that's 95 per cent the size of a full laptop keyboard. Amazingly, you can actually touch-type on the One without much compromise in your speed. Sure, the enter button isn't as big as we'd like, but the rest of it is spot on. Both shift keys are large and even the Ctrl and Fn buttons are the right way round. Unfortunately, the mouse trackpad is extremely shallow and its remarkably skinny buttons live on either side instead of directly below. This takes a lot of getting used to.

There's plenty to talk about elsewhere. There are three USB ports in total -- two on the right, one on the left. There's also a D-Sub video output port, Ethernet port and mic and headphone ports. Unusually, there are two SD card readers, one on either side. The idea is that one SD reader -- which also recognises MMC, xD and Memory Stick Pro cards -- can be used to access removable media. The other is intended for semi-permanent storage -- you simply slap an SDHC card in and leave it there.

Features
Like most netbooks, the One comes in Linux and Windows XP versions. The entry-level Linux version sells for £220 and packs the hugely popular 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU and 512MB of RAM. Standard storage levels aren't great -- just 8GB of NAND flash memory is provided, but you can't complain given the amount Acer's asking you to spend.

The basic Windows XP model uses the same 1.6GHz Atom CPU, but gets 1GB of RAM, plus an 80GB mechanical hard drive, all for around £320. We love that it has plenty of storage space, but the mechanical hard disk has moving parts, which makes the One more prone to accidental data loss than machines with solid-state drives.

The majority of the One's other features are common across all versions of the device. The 8.9-inch, 1,024x600-pixel display is a good one and the 1.3 megapixel webcam above the screen comes in handy for anyone who wants to video chat with faraway friends and relatives.