Acer Aspire One gets reviewed, lost in the shuffle
By Darren Murph 
posted July 18th 2008 9:31AM
posted July 18th 2008 9:31AM
posted July 18th 2008 9:31AM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
Shuffle? Brilliant! Another apple post - let me adjust my tinfoil hat.
To get away from the apple hype, I eat oranges!
when are we getting 6-cell battery in all of the laptops. These netbooks loose half of their charm in curtailed battery life :/ :/
You would think 6 cell batteries would be a standard for these things. Seriously, do they raise the manufacturing costs that much? I don't think so.If I ever bought a netbook, I would want rediculous amounts of battery life because why in the world would I ever use it while at a desk. If I'm at a desk I'll use a real computer thank you very much.
How else are they going to charge you an extra $100 for the battery?
The 3 cell that comes with this thing is lasting me 3 hours.. pretty decent for any laptop's base battery never mind a netbook.
As for the gripes on keyboard and mouse... guess what all netbooks have the same issues... less space... don't like it then I recommend a full size laptop. The one is very speedy with the included linpus linux which is very customizable once you enable the right click menu for linpus.
***From the acer desktop click on the arrow to expand Files then choose the icon called "My Files" (this is a file explorer) once open click on "File" then on "Terminal" from with in the terminal program type the following command without the quotes.
"xfce-setting-show"
Click Desktop to get to the Preferencs for the desktop and choose the Behavior tab. Now select the radio button for Show desktop menu on right click option and close the window.***
+1 for curtailed
I just bought this thing a week ago. I actually really enjoy the typing. For most keys, I type as fast as I do on a regular keyboard. I only mistype certain keys because I have the international keyboard version while I'm used to the US version.
The touchpad does feel cramped, but I feel that they really don't have a lot of space to work with in the first place.
Start-up only takes ~15 seconds, which is pretty damn fast. I also love how they have 2 card slots, one dedicated to expanding the existing storage space seamlessly.
All in all, I feel that this is the best netbook available for the price so far. I'm not sure how well the Dell E will do, but it's up to them to take the crown.
And then there's the styling... *sigh*.
I think its about time for a netbook show down! High noon good for you guys?
I share your thoughts on the Dell. I am thinking when they hit, I'll expense one just to see....maybe even release an unboxing!!!
Dell can shove it where the sun doesn't shine. Playing dirty by spoiling other manufacturer's launch party back in January to steal sales from Asus when they didn't even have anything to show (weren't even sure what will the laptop be like, let alone have a prototype!), being caught by surprise and playing a catchup by press releases rather than product launches... They're not getting any of my money, don't care how good their late-to-the-party laptop is. Besides, their pricing in Canada sucks anyway.
I have this feeling that the Dell will end up more expensive than people are expecting, more on par with the HP mini-note.
Only time will tell.
It's all about the MSI wind.
I don't know, compared to the wind (w/ 8 plus LED's) the aspire1 just looks less like a christmas tree :).
Aspire One - *YAWN*
MSI Wind - On truck for delivery this morning :) !
The market is so saturated with these it's really only going to come down to a small handful of decisions in the end (and most likely from the bigger guys).
I think the only netbooks (sorry, but I think that word is here to stay) worth really paying mind to are the ones from Dell, HP (we'll see if they upgrade that current model), MSI, and maybe... well, that's probably it.
Even the Eees are failing to stay competitive (as far as price/performance go) in their own market now.
Where's my VooDoo Envy netbook...?
I think there is room for the Aspire One because it is the only one currently on the market that actually delivers on what the Eee originally promised: cheap price. This is over $200 cheaper than the Eee 901.
Can't seem to find 'official' MSI wind pricing anywhere (its for sale in lots of places for $500+ but I thought the Linux version was supposed to retail for less?), but this is cheaper. And the HP looks nice enough but performance is the worst of the current crop due to its non-Atom CPU.
So starting @ $379, why would the Aspire One not be a hit or at least a player in this category?
@SHoe
Because the Dell is starting at $299. If you want cheap, you'll go there.
@ Pochi
Agreed but the Dell isn't out yet and we still don't know what sort of catch comes with that price tag (i.e. poor quality keyboard, build quality, performance issues, etc). I'm hoping its decent though and that it pushes pricing down for the whole category.
@SHoe
Hm, I'd say you're safe having faith in Dell. They have seriously ramped up the quality of all of their products throughout the last couple of years. I believe!
: )
where can i get one?
the MSI Wind is the best one out there...read the reviews and weight everything....
ill be getting the XP version (unfortunately only this brings more ram and Bluetooth it seems), or wait for someone to mod a bluetooth in it.
No the MSI is not the best one out there: you can pay thousand of $$$ and get machines that are much better than the MSI Wind, though obviously not for the price. My point being: the MSI Wind ($499) is nicer than the Acer feature-wise - but at $379 the value of the Acer is better. I think I might still go with the Wind because I can afford it and I want that 10" screen. But for many the Acer does exactly what they want and they will save significantly on the price. Its the only true cheap netbook at the moment yet it outperforms the more expensive HP and most Eee models. It will be interesting to see the Dell unit it action.
Has no one worked out yet that all the netbooks are pretty much all identical except the EeePC?
They are bassically only aesthetically different.
Sooo Glad I got my Vostro 1400 instead of another netbook.
It's a good bargain compared to the 901, isn't it?
very good bargain compared to the 901. Even when the 6cell battery comes out in august it will be.
The 6 cell battery one with a 120gb hdd and windows xp is going to be $429. I'm not sure about the US price, I assume it will be the same, but the Eee 901 is 599 in Canada and the msi wind is 549.
I have one of the basic aspire ones and for the price the thing is damn good. It doesn't have the wind's function list but I doubt that is a fair comparison at all (at nearly 500+ you'll be getting a lot more). Maybe after the Dell comes out then we'll see.
What is it with the word 'gets' in engadget headlines? It's horrible - not sure why but it makes my internal monologue wretch! Am I the only one?
Problem with the 6 cells is they're big, defeating the point of a little slim netbook. I got an MSI Wind last week for a relative, and it has a similar battery life (slightly over 2 hours, although that's with a larger screen). With the 6 cell it'd just be too chunky.
Best compromise looks to be from the Gigabyte M912, which has a 4 cell that isn't too sizable, but has double the capacity of the little 3 cells. Given the hardware is basically the same, that should allow for about four hours. Lot more expensive though, since it's a tablet design.
"Best compromise looks to be from the Gigabyte M912..."
-->But the problem is, Gigabyte would not intruduce this in the US. I myself would like a tablet PC but searching on Engadget I found that the Dell Latitude xt (refurbished) or a Lenovo x61 tablet (secondhand) would be a better option. The reason (for me at least) is for the use of multi-touch and Vista's handwriting recognition software.
i like Lenovo U110 design.
someone in china or taiwan should just put the eee pc's get into Lenovo U110's body. that would be perfect match.
its like putting ugly better's brain into jessica alba's body.
An atom processor on a Lenovo U110? Put in a Centrino 2 Core2Duo (..err not sure if that's right) cpu and I'll buy. If you have to go beyond 10 inches then having an Atom is just too small.
Hi, I'm engadget. I choose random words like "netbook" and assign them to products that already have a clear name (subnote or subnotebook), and I act like there was never any clear name for these products. I then would try and justify it by saying that these computers are only good for surfing the net. I need to realize that the world doesn't revolve around me and adding my own titles to products that already have a name only adds confusion to the marketplace.
Engadget didn't come up with the term "netbook," Intel did, as I recall.
holy crap you've become self-aware
haha, apparently the term "netbook" has caught on... nevertheless, I still despise it. It just seems so demeaning and promotes the idea that these cheap laptops can and should only be used for browsing the web. I think that for most basic functions, ie. word processing, browsing the web, using chat clients, etc., these computers work just fine. Maybe I should just give up the fight against netbook, but I will not - I simply find the term inappropriate.
Fail on the picture. That looks like like a Windows desktop background. The real Engadget would have something more Appl-esque. I see thorugh your charades, you... fake-Engadget, you!
> "Hi, I'm engadget. I choose random words like "netbook" and assign them to products that already have a clear name"
No, these are called netbooks... tiny notebooks with a small amount of flash storage space, not designed to be your primary computer. You rely on your NETwork for connectivity and storage.
> "products that already have a name only adds confusion to the marketplace."
I hope that people won't be confused if they are at the store and see an Acer Aspire One for $379 and a HP 15" notebook for $599. I think they will be able to see the difference.
Netbooks ARE clearly different than regular notebooks.
It's a laptop.
"JACKAL! A JACKAL!! IS IT A JACKAL? IT'S A JACKAL! A JACKAL! IT'S A JACKAL, RIGHT? A JACKAL!"
"GOD! it wasn't right the first time you said it, WHY THE HELL WOULD IT BE RIGHT THE NEXT TIME?"
@engadget,
I respectfully have to tell you that this was not Engadget who coined this phrase. This was Intel. It specifically applies to thier reference design of the portable device they termed "netbook". Their concept differentiated this product from other laptops in its functionality.
LAPTOP NETBOOK
======== ========
functionality any/advanced primarily web surfing, email, chat, skype
software full licensed reduced functionality concept
Intel can do what they like. Netbook for me describes exactly what it is and differentiates it.
Hope this has been an education for you.
Anybody who highly ranked you for this must be a complete lay person.
Read the Verbage from the Intel website:
http://blogs.intel.com/technology/2008/03/thoughts_on_netbooks.php
Get your facts right first before you start off on one.
@engadget
Anybody who highly ranked you for this must be a complete lay person.
Read the Verbage from the Intel website:
http://blogs.intel.com/technology/2008/03/thoughts_on_netbooks.php
Get your facts right first before you start off on one.
Why is this so much cheaper in the US? In Germany it currently costs €329 ($520).
I preordered mine yesterday. Blue, XP, 120GB HDD. 54,800 yen + 10%. They dont sell the Linux/flash version in Japan, at least not for now.
I think the (Blue) Aspire One is for the money the most attractive implementation of the netbook concept. 3-cell battery is wimpy, the trackpad buttons may be problematical, but other than that it ticks all the right boxes. The Wind is nice too, but the Acer has the looks: "must... buy..."