Mini Laptop

[Hightower]

I'm looking to buy a portable laptop and came accross this:

 

Acer Aspire One A150L White N270 1GB 120GB 8.9" Net Book - Tesco.Direct

 

What do people think? Will be using it for internet, uni work and programming mainly. Will this suffice?

[plexer]

seems expensive for a linux based netbook.

 

Ben

[JJonas]

seems expensive for a linux based netbook.

 

Ben

 

 

ive seen some good reviews for it though

 

Acer Aspire One review - PC Advisor

 

PC Pro: Product Reviews: Acer Aspire One

[Sirbendy]

Lady in my Dept bought one - she loves it. Installed XP on it, (was linux), quite nippy and well behaved.

[plexer]

Oh yes I probably agree I had a quick play with one instore one day and I really liked the design of it.

 

Ben

[Jack]

That's not a bad price at all! Check out the Samsung NC10. Effectively the same under the hood (1.6ghz Atom...etc), but a bigger hard drive and a very nice keyboard.

 

I've just bought one and replaced the hard drive with a 32gb SSD and can't fault it. For the price it's awesome, the screen is just the right size... couldn't be happier with it.

 

It's a bit more expensive than that though, but I got almost 7 hours out of the first charge!

[JJonas]

NC10 review

 

PC Pro: Product Reviews: Samsung NC10

[Hightower]

Thanks for the feedback. I didn't think it was a bad price. By no means "lets hack the FBI" spec but I'm sure it will be capable of achieving what I need it to do (basically lamp, firefox, pidgin and openoffice).

 

Now I gotta sweet talk the wife and get her to get me one for Xmas

[timzim]

Acer support has in the past given me some cause for concern. Check out a few other forums before you commit.

[Hightower]

Or how would Acer Aspire One A110L White N270 512MB 8GB 8.9" Net Book - Tesco.Direct handle Ubuntu 8.10? Would it manage? Or am I just being a tight arse now?

[Midget]

My brother had the Acer and it was rubbish. 1st was replaced due to failing HDD, and the 2nd one's screen kept going blank.

 

swapped it for the samsung and it's much better quality and have a absolute stonking battery (got 7hours out of it on normal setting)

[linkazoid]

We just bought 15 of the Samsung NC10 for £247 ex vat..

 

Ordered them yesterday, should have arrived by now... must check downstairs...

 

 

The reviews for the Samsungs are looking good, will update when i have had a look...

 

Mike

[Jack]

swapped it for the samsung and it's much better quality and have a absolute stonking battery (got 7hours out of it on normal setting)

 

:D

 

I'm liking mine more every time I use it! I've got Ubuntu on there too and everything was detected and works fine.

[DSapseid]

I have one of these HP Mininote and put xp on it instead of linux. Not bad for £159 +VAT i paid about double that 6 months ago

 

My dad bought my brother the vista version for uni and its great he loves it as its light/small etc and the keyboard is near enough full size so easy to type on.

[CyberNerd]

My Girlfriends daughter (yr10) bought one of these with her summer job earnings at the beginning of September. We bought the 512MB/120BG model and added another 1GB RAM (it worked cheaper to get 1.5GB than 1GB - go figure). I recal the price a few months back was similar to the tesco deal, so I suspect price drops soon.

 

I can thoroughly recommend this laptop, it has been really good. The only criticism from the child is that she can't upgrade gimp to 2.6 easily (she spends all day gimping her bebo) and she's reluctant to upgrade to ubuntu because she likes the GUI of the default system.

Personally I'd stick ubuntu on it, and I think the battery could be a bit better.

 

other than that defo a thumbs up (compared to other notebooks in it's class)

[CyberNerd]

p.s. Intel Atom N270's now clock @2315mhz if you don't mind the liquid nitrogen

Slashdot | MSI Wind U100, Overclocked With Liquid Nitrogen

 

So they will probably qualify for a 'vista capable' sticker

[Ric_]

I hace ths SSD Acer Aspire One in blue (same blue as the writing on the EduGeek syickers btw )... anyway... I love it. Paid £200 for mine from Currys of all places. Much prefer it to the EeePC 701.

[Busybub]

Last time I checked, Play were doing the blue/512ram/120hd Acer for 200.

1 gig stick of RAM from Crucial was about 11 or 12 quid.

 

Couple of points to note:

 

There is a well known issue with the BIOS locking up, usually a couple of weeks after first use. Look it up on the web and have a bootable USB stick with the latest BIOS files handy... On the other hand you might be lucky! Never had a problem since doing mine, and it was easy enough.

 

Letters in BIOS password can only be entered in caps.

 

Linux SSD to XP is not recommended judging by the threads I have read (speed issues).

 

SSD to HD is not a straight swap either, something about a zif cable and missing SATA port.

 

Upgrading the RAM or changing the hard drive is a dog of a task which involves completely disassembling the bottom part of the unit including unscrewing the motherboard from the chassis and accessing the other side of it. It wasn't designed for easy access! Theoretically it will take less than half an hour if you know what you're doing. My first attempt took an hour and a half, being very careful, and I still managed to mangle the clips holding the keyboard.

 

Battery is a paltry 2.5 hours with the standard unit which is flush with the chassis. An extended one is available too.

 

Max system memory is 1.5gb if you chuck in a one gig stick in the only available slot (512 is built in)

 

Nippy with XP, 2003 Server is pretty quick too (VM or otherwise, though the graphics drivers don't work).

 

Keyboard is better than the EEE 701, but the mouse buttons take some getting used to.

 

Otherwise, spec is untouchable for the price if you are prepared to upgrade it yourself.

[sammy]

Hi Guys,

 

any of you tried the Asus 901 model with XP on it. I tried that few months ago, and thats proven very reliable, quick, robust, good looking and battery life is excellent. The next one i want to try is the HP Mininote, then possibly the Acer.

 

The problem seems to be that the better models in these netbooks push into normal laptop cost territory which makes them a difficult choice to make.

 

PS. Only gripe about the Asus is that the distribution supply chain is terrible and they come into and out of stock in the UK....creating issues.

[sammy]

Hp are so much more reliable....i havent got 1 bad thing to say about the warrantys on any of there kit, and i mean not only notebooks, but server kit, storage kit, etc etc. Over the last 6 years i have worked with them , IBM, Tosh, Lenovo, Acer etc etc and HP are the only ones where i can honestly say they have performed briliantly in every aspect.

 

Anyway enough of my endorsements...its too early in the morning to be patting manufacturers on the back.

[asheppard]

Hi Guys,

 

PS. Only gripe about the Asus is that the distribution supply chain is terrible and they come into and out of stock in the UK....creating issues.

 

We normally get ours from Insight or RM. They always seem to have plenty of stock.

[Hightower]

Thanks for all the advice you guys - I have now ordered one and will be here tomorrow.

 

People who have one - should I leave the default O/S on it or reload it with Ubuntu?

[Hightower]

The only extra things I'd need to start with are lamp and gPHPedit. Would these be simple enough to install on the default OS?

 

Is the default OS locked down (in a similar way to ASUS eee PC's) or is it a full linux distro?