Acer Aspire One - £199inc eee 901 killer

[Flibb]

Main reason I fancy XP is the ability to share info between my PC, WM6 phone, and possibly one of these.

One quick question, would I be able to connect this or an eee to my WM6 phone and use the phone to connect to the net?

[dangel]

I dumped linux (for the eee) purely because I had better functionality with the windows drivers (2gb of RAM versus 1gb visible, video drivers do rotation etc etc). I don't find Windows any slower either (which surprised me). Space isn't an issue - you turn off the swap and delete all the windows updates backups and you've got plenty of space left (1.5gb or so) on the main drive.

Touchscreen mods exist for the eee now - cost is about 18ukp plus some careful screwdriver work

The Acer has a spare slot for 3g-type cards I think.

[slypie]

I think Asus and others have lost the plot on pricing as I have a big laptop and want a cheap ultraportable to carry around but don't want to pay through the nose for it. The Acer in that respect might fit the bill.

[Dreaming]

You certainly haven't mastered the skill of drawing nice and quick in MS Word
TBH if you want to take notes that way you might as well go for a tablet AT LEAST 12".

Personally I don't think there is any advantage using touchscreen over paper consider you still need to write on it. Not to mention neither the Eee or Aspire One have rotatable screen which make Draw&Type very stressful.

Main disadvantage of paper is I tend to just chuck it away after lectures and then keep an electronic copy of the lecturers notes. (The reason I write the notes down is writing them down helps me at least remember them) Then for revision I just copy the lecturers notes out AGAIN .

It seems to help facts stick in my head.

Really the main reason to get something like this would be for a toy to tinker with, but I can see it being practical, setting up some sync folders on my desktop then taking it to lectures, writing notes on it, get back and voila, everything magics itself onto my computer.

There are probably better solutions, still using pen and paper atm pretty happily.

[Lucio]

I wonder how long it is before the ultra portable market realise that they need features that are *unique* to their product range, compared to a typical laptop PC.

For example, I could either get a) an EEE PC or b) a MDA phone and quite frankly, the MDA has more features such as doubling as a GPS and a phone. Whilst the idea of adding a USB TV adaptor, and then copying a load of DVD's to memory cards appeals, the cost would rapidly mount up on the memory card side, and without a in-car charger, wouldn't work all that well on long journeys.


I'd love to see some real innovation in this market over the next year, so there's a point of purchasing one.

[Lourdes]

I might get this at that price, though I'll wait to see what the others have to offer.

[kmac]

Agree with lucio...as they stand they are more like a solution looking for a problem.

Of course a lot of this is subjective and some people will love them.

[Thorsson]

My missus wants something to access email and the internet that she can have on her lap in the lounge. Looks ideal to me at this price. Certainly not going to get a fully fledged laptop. The 80Gb one might do my son at college. If it can fit word & excel then that does the trick.

[arthurleung]

Main disadvantage of paper is I tend to just chuck it away after lectures and then keep an electronic copy of the lecturers notes. (The reason I write the notes down is writing them down helps me at least remember them) Then for revision I just copy the lecturers notes out AGAIN .

It seems to help facts stick in my head.

Really the main reason to get something like this would be for a toy to tinker with, but I can see it being practical, setting up some sync folders on my desktop then taking it to lectures, writing notes on it, get back and voila, everything magics itself onto my computer.

There are probably better solutions, still using pen and paper atm pretty happily.

You have a point, but stuff goes both way.
My written notes got so messy I wouldn't even look at it EVER if I just write it down in lecture. I might get to remember a bit more in lecture (not much point as people only go to lecture to take notes, not to absorb stuff on the spot). So unless you have *REALLY* tidy handwriting and always keep notes organized, those notes will be quite useless when you do revision.

I'm pretty much the only student in the department who don't bring any paper / pen into lecture and fully rely on electronic notes. Took me about 2 months to get to the level that I can take notes at 1:1 speed against paper, 4 months later I could have my notes typed out faster than the lecturer write onto the board (copy & paste is a godsend ) and 200% the speed of notes writing. Not to mention no more neck and eye strain (read: touch typing formula) looking back and forth blackboard and paper.

Will see how many people still stay on the course next year, might even get dual laptop setup to speed things up further. (The lecture room is tiny :S)

[DecomposingStar]

Let the mini laptop price/spec battle commence!!!

Can't wait to see where this goes.

[lodore]

i wish Alan Sugar's computer arm viglen would make one. if they did i would definatly buy that one.
still got my pentium 1 with 16mb ram viglen pc running windows 95.
but for now im looking at the dell.
just think of a mini alienware laptop that would be awesome
i know it would never happern because they are focused on high powered machines for gaming.
would be nice to surf the internet and use messenger downstairs. and also take it with me to surf the net and messenger when i go places.

[Dreaming]

i wish Alan Sugar's computer arm viglen would make one. if they did i would definatly buy that one.
still got my pentium 1 with 16mb ram viglen pc running windows 95.
but for now im looking at the dell.
just think of a mini alienware laptop that would be awesome
i know it would never happern because they are focused on high powered machines for gaming.
would be nice to surf the internet and use messenger downstairs. and also take it with me to surf the net and messenger when i go places.

I guess alienware could get one of these companies to make the OEM stuff (with high spec), then send it to them for branding and you get your tech support, add a big price premium. Could work, but it would be no better because as you said alienware don't make this kind of stuff.

[Zadock]

I like the finish on the aspire one case, comes in some nice colours to theres a nice navy blue one I've got my eye on but the red is nice to. I think Acer are spot on with the pricing and the slot intended for a fixed memory card is just inspired, I'm all but sold... gonna see what they others (HP, Dell etc) are going to offer though. For competion sake I wouldn't be surprised if Asus drop the price on the 901(which I've seen on pre-order for as much as £500!) just a touch what with the guide prices on things like the Aspire.

Does anyone have any experience of using Linpus? I've seen some screenies and the layout of the aspire distro is not unlike the Xandros one on the EEE, has a big user friendly non-desktop mode and a simple desktop mode. Looks bigger and bolder than xandros though, the new ubuntu for umpcs thats on the cards looks very promising.

[kmac]

i wish Alan Sugar's computer arm viglen would make one. if they did i would definatly buy that one.
still got my pentium 1 with 16mb ram viglen pc running windows 95.
but for now im looking at the dell.
just think of a mini alienware laptop that would be awesome
i know it would never happern because they are focused on high powered machines for gaming.
would be nice to surf the internet and use messenger downstairs. and also take it with me to surf the net and messenger when i go places.

I too had a Viglen PC ( gave it away) and yes it was very solidly built.
Excellet motherboard ( Supermicro) which you only see in high end server type machines nowdays
Was still in perfectly good working order when I gave it away.

[Crazytom]

Im very tempted to get this, starting uni in a couple of weeks and it could be very useful for note taking and web browsing in general. Much cheaper than the similarly spec eee pcs, so im looking to see if theres a catch. Whats it missing out on thats fairly important? Any reason i shouldnt buy one? Only £200 at pc world atm...

[staffsMike]

Im very tempted to get this, starting uni in a couple of weeks and it could be very useful for note taking and web browsing in general. Much cheaper than the similarly spec eee pcs, so im looking to see if theres a catch. Whats it missing out on thats fairly important? Any reason i shouldnt buy one? Only £200 at pc world atm...

Battery life is mediocre and it makes quite a bit of noise fan wise, so lectures might be a no no. I don't know the extent of the noise issue though, just what notebookreview said in their review.

Good price though.