Living with the acer aspire one

A month ago, I fell prey to buying what my wife calls a “mini dumb laptop”. I use a powerful Mac Book, and she uses the latest Core 2 Duo processor-based machine. Between us we have 3 GB of RAM in our laptops, and large capacity hard disks, mine is a 13.3” display and hers a 12.1”. So why on earth did we opt for a so-called small wonder.

My company installs complicated wireless networks and often I have to get my hands dirty on the field. As my white Mac could not take the beating any more, I thought of picking up a 15” laptop for my on-the-road work. But the thought of carrying a second laptop—I need both when I travel—in my bagpack made me ensure that I didn’t end up adding more weight.

My needs were simple, the machine should weigh about 1 kg, have a battery time of at least two hours, should run Linux—Yes, I am a Linux guy, but Windows, too, will do—should be decent looking, and have both a wireless and a wired network device. A webcam would be nice, and a built-in microphone so that I can chat with my team using just the laptop.

My options were limited to the HP Mini Note (brilliantly made, but costing around Rs 40,000), the Asus Eee PC (the original 4GB Flash Drive version is now available for about Rs 14,000 and comes with a 2GB SD card thrown in for free) the MSI Wind, the Dell Mini and the Acer Aspire One. A few showroom visits later, I was still mulling the Idea Pad U110 from Lenovo, though I was in no mood to spend the price of a Tata Nano on a laptop that I would rarely use.

The only machine that lived up to expectations was the HP Mini Note, but it was too pricey. I loved the mouse clicks—they have put one on the left and one on the right—and the silver finish. But that was when I saw the Blue Aspire One, with its orange reflective trims, plastic keyboard and mouse keys similar to HP, though a little small. I fired up the machine and it had a Tux Linux built-in (a Chinese import), which was not going to work for me. So I ended up buying the same laptop with Windows XP Home preloaded for an additional Rs 2,000I spent Rs 25,000 on the machine, got it home and asked my tech head to reformat the machine and install Ubuntu Linux and Windows on multiple partitions.

It has since become my machine of choice at home. I use it to check my emails over the weekend, do Skype video conferences with my family across the globe, update my blog, and even some research. I am a big guy, so the keyboard is a tad bit small for me. But it is nicely laid out and I love the fact that the Page Up/Down keys have been placed right next to the arrow keys.

The webcam just about works, and the microphone is good, but the speakers leave a lot to be desired. I managed to get about two-and-half hours on a Windows run, and about three hours on a Linux run (yes, Linux also consumes lesser power). Getting the wireless to work in Ubuntu was a bit of a pain. And, in case you love to install things, you should buy an external CD Drive.

The three USB Ports, a dedicated SD Card slot, and a multi-card reader make the machine versatile, the built in Ethernet port and wireless are good, though the switch for turning off the wireless is not all that nice. The mouse is not as good as the HP Mini Note, but is much better than that of the MSI Wind or the EeePC.

The biggest problem I encountered was with the 1024x600 display. Most sites today are designed for 1024x800, so Yahoo’s new interface on email and the Gmail interface won’t load up and my corporate website looked a bit skewed.

I don’t think the machine will be able to play a lot of games as the graphic speed is not very high. I managed to crash Firefox every time I had more than eight tabs open in Windows, for the machine has just 1GB RAM. Upgrading RAM is not recommended as the whole machine would have to be taken apart.

But still if you are planning to buy a laptop, mostly for web browsing and checking mail, and if mobility, and not speed, is what you are looking for, then do check out the Atom machines. The prices are going to fall soon, making them more more attractive. As of now, the cheapest Acer Aspire One model comes for Rs 19,999 + taxes.

--
The above article appeared in the Indian Express on Sunday October 12, 2008