The Acer Aspire One has some interesting features going for it. One of which is more of an accident of the WIndows XP installation side: the second SD card slot. In Linux, it was a way to expand the somewhat-small storage of the SSD. Windows has a 120GB drive, a few gigs isn’t going to help you, and XP doesn’t support it anyways. So, what’s a second SD slot to do?
Maybe accelerating my system is the thing to do. Enter eBoostr, what’s been commonly called “ReadyBoost” for XP. Just like that fated feature, there is a lot of discussion to see whether it really does anything, either by performance or by battery life standards. Even reports on other blogs seem to ask the same question, and it all depends on the quality of the system. Just like with Vista ReadyBoost, the better the system, the less performance boost you get.
The Aspire One falls squarely at the middle of this line. 1GB of RAM is excellent for XP, but it’s not excessive. The processor is dual-core, but low-end and low power. The battery life is short with a small battery, so even gaining 15 minutes with no performance gain is worth it, especially with the 2GB card I am using being worth about five bucks, tops!
My first impression? It does seem to help a little, just from the sense that I do not see the hard drive working quite as hard. The Aspire One doesn’t have a light to denote access to the SD slot, so I cannot tell quite how much the cache is being hit (and you can trust the stats maybe, but it’s good to see more results).
You used eBoostr? ReadyBoost? Post your thoughts on it in the comments, my follow up will be soon.
I made myself a little purchase over the weekend, and I love that I did! I became the newest owner of an Acer Aspire One, just one of a growing number of “netbooks”, super-small but super-affordable laptops that have hit the market over the past few months, this one debuting just this month. At least in regards to the model that I bought, I think it’s a perfect fit.
THE GOOD
* The size … the trend lately for books like that of the Asus Eee have been to slowly work themself closer to the point of an actual notebook, which defeats the point of their existence. This machine at 2 pounds, and with a 9″ screen is perfect. Just as nice to carry as a DVD player would be and far more well rounded.
* Windows XP … this one is a personal preference, I understand, but for me, having a small machine with Windows XP on it works for my needs. I can run every program (including Firefox to write this blog entry) without any slowdowns or problems, and can port all of my data over from my existing environment without any effort. I see the market and reasons for having a mini-Linux version for someone who has no previous machine, but staying within platform is a nice perk.
* The Hard Drive and RAM … those Linux models? Their 512MB of RAM and 8GB (slow) Solid State Drive lock you in, no ability to play around and try anything else. Give me the 120GB hard drive and 1GB RAM of this model any day of the week, it’s XP performance is equal of our Sony Vaio laptops at work, and they are 1.6 Pentium M machines, and I know they weren’t no $350 when they came out!
* USB … 3 USB ports is awesome, it makes up for the couple of weaknesses I will mention. Something is wrong when my netbook has more USB ports than my M1330 work laptop does!
THE BAD
* Internal 3G … many of the netbooks coming up are toting this option, and it would have been nice to have onboard. I can see these being the primary way to get online with mobile broadband very soon, I am relegared to using a USB dongle for this.
* Internal Bluetooth … see the above reason, although low profile Bluetooth is a reality.
* No Recovery CD …. it’s all on the hard drive already, so I cannot recommend enough for users to do a hard drive backup before they fire this up the first time. Maybe my IT experience has made be sensitive to that and untrusting of even the eRecovery tools, but do your own backup dilligence first.
SOME OF BOTH
* The battery … the thing looks no bigger than 3 AA batteries, and that is because it isn’t! It runs on a 3-cell 2100 Mah battery, uses only 30 watts of juice with the super small charger box, and its tiny! It gets about 2.5 hours, which for my needs is not too bad. A lot of people have clamored about this though, and while it would be nice to have 5 hours of battery life, it would also weigh the machine down a bit and defeat some of the benefit of having a machine that small. I look forward to the battery and charger market heating up for this as companies will both offer cheaper standard ways to get juice into the machine (the 6-cell coming out? $100, I am passing) as well as ways to charge it up. I’ve already seen car chargers, I want more!
* Small keyboard … with small screens come small keyboards. You can’t change it, but it has its own advantages of disadvantages.
I expect to post more about my experiences with the laptop soon, but so far, I love the machine!
