Great Netbook: The Acer Aspire One AOD150

The Acer Aspire One AOD150 netbook has stayed on top of many best-seller charts mainly due to its nice design and affordable price. With an added advantage of a long battery life, this model makes it a good choice for the student and business travelers.

The Acer Aspire One AOD150 comes with just about everything you need for surfing the web and other simple computing tasks. It comes in very attractive colors (blue white, red and black) so you can choose one that best suits your personality and lifestyle. With a 160GB (5,400RPM) hard drive, there is more than enough room (for the average user) to store your digital data and the 1GB of installed DDR2 RAM the memory can be easily upgraded to a maximum of 2GB.

The Acer Aspire One AOD150 has a well-designed keyboard with all the keys strategically placed. The keys might be a bit smaller but one can still type at ease. Nevertheless, this model is not without its flaws. The touch pad and mouse buttons are designed on one bar that makes it quite difficult to press sometimes, especially if you pressed it near the middle. The amazing 6 -plus hours battery life of this netbook makes "all day computing" a reality. One thing that makes the Acer Aspire One AOD15 different from other netbooks is it's weight (it is heavier) and it's size (thicker) that is as a result of its bulky battery (for me it is a small trade off for the long battery life).

Netbook Review: Acer Aspire One AOD150-1920 10.1-Inch Netbook - Ruby Red

I have just received my delicious ruby red Acer Aspire One AOD150 netbook last week and it was just love at first sight. I have no complaints about the AOD150 except for the fact that you need to get used to the slightly smaller keyboard (which is the case with any netbook in the market).

One of the best features of this tiny little machine is its design. I only waited this long to get my hands on a netbook because most of the netbooks in the market before the Acer Aspire One looks like a toy more like a computer. The sleek design and professional looks of the Acer Aspire One AOD150 netbook has finally given me the nudge I needed to get onto the netbook bandwagon. I choose the Ruby Red model as I was looking for something edgy and load. This netbook is also available in shades of black, blue and white.

The battery lifespan of the regular 4400 battery is about 4 hours. The new 6-cell 5800 mh battery that can last up to 8 hours of extended use on a single charge. With the longer battery lifespan, I can use the netbook to watch movies when traveling and carry it with me on the good without the need to bring the charger along.

Due to the configurations of the Windows XP home on the Acer Aspire One AOD150 netbook, this little notebook may seems to be much faster than many current laptops. It runs on a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor and has 1GB of RAM. The Windows XP on the netbook is a skimmed version of the original operating system. Many bells and whistles have been removed, creating a speedy performance.

With over 160GB of hard drive space, there is more than enough storage for the average laptop user. The Acer Aspire One AOD150 netbook is also wi-fi enabled (802.11b/g) and has a in built webcam for video conferences.

Netbook Review: Acer Aspire One AOD150-1165 10-Inch Low Cost Netbook

Acer recently updated its line of low cost netbook offerings with the introduction of its new 10-Inch Acer Aspire One AOD150 unit. This review on acer laptops intends to provide you with an overview of what you'll get from this new Acer mini notebook unit.

Acer too, like most other vendors, is now targeting the 10-inch low cost netbook market segment. Well, to be honest, I do think that all those sub 10-inch netbooks are just way too small for the majority of users. A 10 or 11-inch would be just nice for a gadget that is supposed to fill in the gap between a regular sized notebooks and smartphones.

Specifications - Nothing New

So, lets get on with this review of the new Acer 10-inch netbook. First of all, how about a brief look at the specifications. Following is what is under the hood of this little gem from Acer.

1. Intel Atom Processor N270 (1.60GHz, 533MHz FSB, 512KB L2 cache)
2. 1024MB DDR2 533 MHz SDRAM Single Channel Memory
3. 160GB SATA 5400RPM Hard Drive
4. Windows XP Home with Service Pack 3
5. Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
6. 3 USB 2.0 ports for connecting a wide range of peripherals--from digital cameras to MP3 players
7. Multi-in-one card reader supports Secure Digital (SD), MultiMediaCard (MMC), Reduced Size MultiMedia (RS-MMC), Memory Stick/Memory Stick PRO, and XD Picture Cards
8. VGA monitor port
9. 1 headphone jack and 1 microphone jack
10. RJ-45 port for 10/100 Fast Ethernet connection
11. Kensington lock slot

Looking at the specs, this Acer unit does not seem to be any different than every other netbooks around. So, what is so special about it? Price - Hard To Beat. I'll just be blunt up front. The thing that surely makes this Acer unit a best seller is its price. Simple. Value for money. It is more or less similar in specs and configurations with every other 10 inch netbooks.

As such, they all don't differ very much in terms of performance. Acer is certainly pushing extremely hard to capture the 10inch market share. This new model retails at USD349. Thus, it is now the cheapest within the 10-inch range of netbooks.

Battery Life - Watch At Least 2 Movies In A Single Charge

The first wave of netbooks came with 3 cells batteries that lasts for about 3 hours or less pre charge. Today, the new models come with 6 cells batteries. They now lasts from 5 - 7 hours per charge.

The Acer AOD150 comes with a 6 cells battery. Tests have confirmed that the 6 cells battery is capable of powering the unit for about 5.5 hours or so. Not long enough still? Perhaps you should then customize it with a 5,800-mAh six-cell battery. This will power you up for an amazingly close to 8 hours. The unit comes standard with a 4,400-mAh battery.

Mouse Pad Buttons - Located Where It Really Should Be

I don't know about you, but I am certainly not a big fan of those netbook units where the mousepad buttons are designed to be at the side. They feel utterly unnatural for heavy usage. I have yet to master the act of using the side buttons.

Thankfully, Acer decided to go back to the old tried and tested design of mousepads button at the bottom. No more awkwardness with the mousepads.

Display - Same Old Same Old.

Is 1024x600 to be the only video resolution made available for netbooks? I certainly don't think so. HP's latest model supports a pretty fine 1366x768 resolution.

Don't get me wrong, 1024x600 is fine. However, it would certainly be better if we can get a little bit more pixels to play with. More screen real estate to play with.

Keyboard - 89%, Not too bad. Could've been better.

At 89% of a normal sized notebook keys, the keyboard of this Acer AOD150 is certainly nothing to shout about. Of course, I would've preferred it to be a little bigger.

I find it strange that Acer didn't capitalize on the extra space provided by the 10-inch model. There's plenty of room still to put in a slightly larger keyboard.

Should You Get It?

As I've said in the first few paragraphs, nothing much separates this unit from the others. As such, there really is no valid reasons not to get this if you are indeed looking for a 10-inch netbook. Retailing at USD349, it is certainly the best choice if value for money is your main criteria.