Acer Aspire Netbook Review

This post ties in with the Dell Debacle of trying to get a simple quote on a Mini 12.  By the title you can guess that Dell never succeeded in providing me with the aforementioned quote so I decided to spend my money elsewhere (not that Dell gives a flying skippy).

The criteria: two units needed for a husband and wife.  The wife’s foremost need was lack of weight.  The husband already has an Asus EEE 1000 but can’t deal with the cramped keyboard.

I thought the Dell Mini 12 would be a good fit for both.  Neither intend the machine to be much more than a note-taking device.  Unfortunately Dell couldn’t get their heads out of their asses long enough to get me a price quote so it was off to different races.

You have no idea how hard it is to find the perfect netbook for two different people at once.

Upon browsing Newegg, I came across Acer netbooks with 11.6 inch screens.  The only thing more stupid than measuring diagonally is making a standard like 11.6 inches. They couldn’t simply make it twelve inches, no sir.  That would have meant the end of life and the universe as we know it, wouldn’t it?

Newegg had two Acers, with the main difference seeming to be the screen size.  Since we established that the keyboard is too cramped on the Asus units with the 10″ screens, I had no choice but to check out the ones with the 11.6″ screen.  In blue, of course.   The price was quite reasonable, right up until I ordered what I consider to be decent warranties for the units, including accidental breakage.

Newegg has been great to us, with most orders arriving the next day or two.  I pulled one Acer out of its box only to discover, to my horror, that they didn’t appear to be larger than the Asus EEE’s we already have.  Fortunately the unit came in a cloth bag that I put on my head.  It looked like headwear and I practiced saying “Would you like fries with that?” because if the boss didn’t like the netbook, I’d be out looking for a job.  I wore it the rest of the day as my personal dunce cap.

I finally put the Acer next to an Asus and discovered that it was, indeed, wider to a significant degree.  Phew.  The keyboard was no problem at all.  Someone pointed out that the keys were flat, like a Mac keyboard.  He had to point this out, as I don’t use Mac keyboards so I wouldn’t have noticed.  What I did notice was that it was almost full size so that was not going to be a sticking point.

And it was a nice shade of blue :)    And the bags I ordered for them weigh more than the netbooks themselves.

SO WHAT’S IT LIKE?

Good thing you asked.

If you purchase one of these buggers, plan to spend at least an hour (conservatively) removing the SHITWARE that Acer put on the XP Home installation.  I have never seen so much crap in my life on an XP install - and we use Dells!  It took forever to beat them into shape, which is rather a shame, as they’re both right out of the box.

Which brings me to performance:  there isn’t any.  To say that these netbooks are anemic is to be polite.  I did not have time to sit  it next to an Asus and see which was faster but I distinctly remember the Asus being much faster to work on and with.  This is a pretty hefty penalty to pay in order to have a slightly larger screen and full size keyboard.  I know it would perform much better with linux installed, but the boss has never seen linux and now is not the time to make the introduction.

The touchpad, which some people despise and I like, had some interesting functions that could be performed with gestures and more than one finger (don’t even THINK about it).   The processor, RAM, and most everything else were the same you’d see on any netbook.

All in all, I’m not going to say it’s a bad netbook.  Let’s just leave it at anemic performance with pleasant screen and keyboard size.