Acer Aspire One seen at local retailer

[sefs]

Hi all,

I walked into a local retailer and saw the 160GB HD version of the Acer Aspire ONE going for USD 535. I immediately wanted to do an impulse buy but managed to control myself.

Is this a good system to you guys?

It got a good review here ... http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4575 but i want to hear what others think.

And most importantly it comes wint Win XP but I want to dual boot it with Ubuntu. Is it Ubuntu friendly.

PS. USD 535 is a steal around these parts.

Thanks and Cheers.

[easybake]

I'm really glad I bought mine. I set up a dual boot with intrepid using unetbootin. I did run into some sound problems while running Gnome so I am just using fluxbox with it and it's great.

If you are going to get one I would highly suggest you get the 6 cell battery version. It really helps the portability of the machine.

$535 seems like a lot to pay. I bought mine from newegg for $379 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115518) (it says 120gb but is actually about 144gb).

Also, I wouldn't suggest having this as your only machine. It works a lot better as a secondary machine. But I use it with VNC to remote connect to my main machine anyway.

[Wartooth]

I just received mine about a week ago, and I LOVE it. It's the XP/160 GB version, in the dark blue metallic. I drag this thing everywhere with me. You definitely need to aggressively get rid of the craplets here and there, but that doesn't take terribly long.

The only thing I'd like is to have the touch pad over to the right a bit, but that's not a big issue and I'm sure I'll be quite used to it soon.

I, too, would like to have this dual boot. I've been reading on one of the Acer Aspire One forums about the varying levels of success people have had with dual booting and such. I'm also wondering if Wubi might not be a workable solution for me, since I'm rather inept at a lot of this stuff and don't have much time to devote to learning. :/

If you've been thinking of getting one, and that price is a good one where you are, go for it. Another friend of mine has one and has nothing but good to say about it. He's hoping to put FreeBSD on it, too, I believe.

[gn2]

Spooky. Today I was in an Asda (http://direct.asda.com/Blue-Acer-Aspire-One-Netbook-S050A/000582902,default,pd.html) supermarket (Portlethen near Aberdeen Scotland) which had 120gb Linux AA1's in the shop for sale.

[mustang]

Bought one a couple weeks ago. While they are handy to check email, watch video, etc, they're very difficult to work with for an extended period of time.

For example, sitting down and doing a coding project on it is really difficult as the limited real estate and small fonts make it really hard to get work done. Even things such as web browsing can get slugglish (particularly with flash).

I love the battery life (~ 5 hrs) and the weight though.

[MarblePanther]

I bought my ASUS eeepc 900A for $320

I think you can get a better deal than 500 something for a netbook

Shop around first

[I-75]

Now a days one could find a full featured laptop for less than $500 with some on sale for $399. Netbooks should be priced less than $349 in my opinion.

For what its worth, there is a new breed of netbooks called "Midget PC's" due to be released soon by Coby. It will sell at supermarkets and drug stores. The price is said to be $100. I'm surprised no one in this forum has mentioned it yet.

http://gizmodo.com/5101775/coby-to-release-100-midget-laptop-to-sell-in-rite+aid-kroger

"Midget PCs. If you listen to Coby's marketing director, they're a whole new category of computer meant for leaner times. As far as I can tell though, the PoqetMate-7 and PoqetMate-9 are just netbooks, albeit extremely cheap ones. Coby hasn't offered many specs to ponder, but the models, primarily differentiated by screen size (7in and 9in) will run Linux atop a Chinese Longsoon processor. Past that, I wouldn't expect much more than a Wi-Fi adapter and a few ports, bringing the PoqetMate in line with low-end netbooks like the Asus EeePC 701. Coby plans to bring these to discount retailers, including traditionally computer-averse stores like Kroger and Rite-Aid, by March, making the PoqetMate-7 the first $100 computer to be widely available in the US."

[Prefix100]

It is fantastic with the UNR.

[sefs]

What I had in mind was a little something that is easy to take around to clients to plug in and trouble shoot their network issues or remote into their servers from the LAN, or check email quickly or remote back to my network without having to use client equipment that may be less than secure.

From the size of it I dont think i could do coding on this thing super intensive...I could see me going blind like that.

I thought though all the 160GB versions of the aspire one came standard with the 6 cell version of the battery?

I checked amazon and were I to buy it from there and have it shipped to me by the time i paid shipping and taxes and whatever else I would be back up at the same 500 and something which I thought this was a good deal. Because if anything went wrong with it i could put the local retailers in a head lock.

[Wartooth]

Now a days one could find a full featured laptop for less than $500 with some on sale for $399. Netbooks should be priced less than $349 in my opinion.

The whole point of this thing for me is the size. I have wanted a very, very small laptop for years, but they've all been cutting-edge, high-priced stuff that I simply don't need, and couldn't possibly rationalize. We have a full-sized "real" laptop, 15", I guess (I don't use it much as it's just too ungainly), something like that, and it's simply HUGE for me. I type much easier on this than I do the other laptop, also an Acer, if that matters any.

A big part of the draw of the netbooks are that people can get a sub-laptop sized machine that they're able to use for most of the things that many people use computers for, without paying for hardware that they don't need.

I believe that all the new 160GB models do come with the 6-cell battery now. The older models did not, if I remember correctly, but it's an upgrade that's been added into regular production.