Acer intros 10in Aspire One netbook Acer has formally unwrapped the 10in Aspire One, which it said it'll equip with a six-cell battery for a claimed seven-hour runtime. Acer 10in AA1 Acer's new Aspire One: now with 10in screen The new AA1 packs in the customary 1024 x 600 display, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, Intel Atom processor. Acer didn't detail the CPU specs, but …
it seems all the netbook producers are shifting to bigger screens, hard disk storage and probably windows losing the whole point of the netbook of being small, solid state with an OS aimed at portable things you want on the road.
I just don't get the rational behind this move.
Sorry, I have to say it again... Acer's one and only contribution to their netbook for the new year is to make it a bit bigger, heavier and less portable? I'll be sticking with my nice slimline Aspire One, at least until the new tablet-style Eees appear - thank goodness Asus is trying to be a bit more innovative this year.
It may be that just my netbook fever finally has worn off, but this is so boring. What I would like to buy is a simple zero-care netbook with SSD storage, no Windows to nurse along and clever software to keep the most important data synced from and to it via the net automatically. What they try to sell me are shrunk laptops with large HD's and Windows eating my time and peace of mind.
Now, where's my iPod touch again? Ah, in the coat pocket, as always.
The existing AA1 is a very nice little machine (on the whole). If the new one is a replacement then I'll wonder if Acer are losing the plot a bit. The point about a netbook is that it is small and simple. It doesn't need Windows, it doesn't need 160GB drive, it doesn't need to be able to do everything a full-size laptop can. It's an addition to a main PC, not an alternative. It's a tool for certain, limited, functions. PCs are general purpose, netbooks aren't. My kettle doesn't make toast, and I can't take a bath in my mobile phone (yet!). A netbook needs to be able to do all your interweby things, and perhaps work on some documents while away from base, and maybe watch a movie from time to time - and ideally all day on a single charge - but cheap and simple does the job. I've bunged an extra 8GB onto my AA1, I've got a 16GB SSD for copying movies and CDs, and a bigger battery. It works! OK, a bigger screen would be nice, but why stop at 10"? Perhaps 11" would be better - or 12 or 15 or 22". I want something that will just work - and that's the existing AA1. The ability to open it up, check my e-mail and shut it down in 45secs is really quite important!
Couldn't agree more, although I'd like to see them dump Linpus lite, and I don't mean replace it with Windows! I managed to get Ubuntu 8.10 going on mine, with Gnome. It boots up in just under a minute (could be faster with some tweaking), and pootles along quite happily thank you very much. A lighter-weight version would be on the money. The only part of SCC that still applies to most of these new netbooks is the last C. The price point is wrong. £250 IMHO is the right price or you are veering into proper laptop country. Ok, a netbook might be smaller, but 10" is pushing the "Small" part of SCC, and the second C seam to have been forgotten about too. Maybe these devices should be referred to as MEC's (Medium Expensive Computers) not very catchy, I know, but more accurate.
... everyone's requirements are different. Personally I want to use the thing to store photos on as I travel, so for my uses an 8GB SSD is about as much use as a chocolate teapot. I need far more storage, and 160GB will do the job nicely.
I don't want Linux either. I have Windows apps that I want to use, and WINE is a complete pain in the behind, as from my perspective is Linux in general. Windows works just fine for me.
So, it's good news for me I guess; I would appear to be the market this one's aimed at ;)
Same toss every time: someone bitching that it doesn't have a 7”, 1920x1200 screen and runs the most popular OS. Ooooh, 10 inches, I won't be able to lift it! Now complaining that it has more than 8GB storage and a battery that lasts all day? WTF is that all about?
And this crap about 'your supposed to have another, bigger computer at home'; say's who, Intel? Have you tried thinking that through? 1.6 Ghz/ 2GB/ 160GB *is* a proper computer, it’s more powerful than the four y/old Thinkpad I run my business on and not everyone wants to fanny around syncing machines the way you or I do. What do you do when your daughter goes off to university? “Here you go dear, we got you a lovely netbook for your homework, fits nicely in your bag ....oh, and you'd better take this 25KG Quad Core tower and 24" monitor with you too, just in case you need to do more than piss about on facebook.”
Stand near the high street displays for 30 seconds; listen to what netbook customers are asking staff for. They don't want a screen they can't read, hardly any want Linux and they'll bring them back when they find a SSD is too small to store anything on. Just because they don't buy the lower spec Linux models you prefer, doesn't mean they're idiots. They do know what they want, believe it or not.
I welcome the screen size increase, are you all very small people who can't even manage to carry something the size and weight of a book? How do you exist in this world if a kilogram and a dozen cubic inches carried (even for miles) matters? Do you not weigh dozens of Kg yourself?
Then there's the keyboard. What sense is there in making it more difficult to use just so it's smaller? Same with the screen, whether it be 10" or 12" isn't nearly as important as it being 800 vertical pixels, 600 is simply not enough for people proficient enough on a computer that they would be working at higher speed if not scrolling around so much.
As for a comment about why it should have 7 hours runtime, the answer is obvious. You don't want to have to constantly stop using it and recharging it, the idea we should have to recharge anything after mere hours is wrong. Give it at least an entire day, 24hrs of runtime even if that means the weight is doubled. I don't recharge my phone every day, nor gas up the car. Thank goodness other products aren't so crippled as laptops are when it comes to frequency of replenishing the energy storage.
Like many of the previous posters, this just mystifies me. It's bigger and presumably heavier. The screen is larger but likely to be the same resolution so what's the point of that? The battery life is better but then it comes with a HDD rather than SSD, only one card reader and it's physically larger.
The same processor and similar memory in the existing One mean this has more drawbacks than advantages.
I must admit though, while my One is a very nice little machine and only cost £200, the battery life is too short so a 6 cell battery is a major improvement. Nevertheless, this is not going to tempt me to sidegrade (sorry).
What's the point? My AAO 150 cost GBP 199 at Asda and seems to have a remarkably similar spec except for the screen size (same pixel count, same disk). Why would anyone want to pay GBP 299 for that?
Idiots, The One is a great _little_ machine. If anything should change it is that heap of junk called Linpus Lite, I have never seen so many dependency errors! Just put an Ubuntu with Netbook Remix on it instead, e.g. Easy Peasy, http://www.geteasypeasy.com/.
As far as I'm concerned a netbook is the most tech you can get for £200 in a small notebook form factor (so not touchscreen things like iPhones or Nokia 810s)
Going to £300 is just mad as it now directly competes with full function notebooks on price which drastically reduces the market. In my opinion the form factor on it's own isn't enough to make a successful product.
Battery = good.
That's pretty much it. The screen is incredibly poor resolution for 10", but you can blame Intel/ Microsoft for their hardware restrictions on netbooks below a certain price point that use Atom and XP.. that's the real thing holding back any progress beyond the copycat clone specs we see on every netbook out there.
Almost hoping Apple will pull a fast one and enter the netbook market, without those restrictions stunting their hardware, they could bring out a real blinder of a product.
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