Acer Aspire One
From Silvergrain Labs
Acer Aspire One (hereafter AAO) is a subnotebook computer featuring 9 inch LCD (LED backlight) and 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor. With its compact size, decent hardware spec and light weight (about 1kg), it is great for portable computing environment. It is of course great for darkroom use because of small footprint and easy to convert to light-proof by covering the screen and lights with a red filter (described later).
This is not meant to be a comprehensive product review. There are already many of those up there, and I don't need to duplicate them.
Contents |
Basic features
AAO comes in Linux or Windows. The Linux version comes with 8GB of SSD, while the Windows version comes with 120GB or 160GB HDD. I use the Linux version.
Hard disk has the advantage of faster write speed, but it also eats more power and it's also weaker to mechanical impacts. The SSD model has no moving parts except for the cooling fan.
Atom 1.6GHz CPU has enough power for most computationally unintensive applications. A dual core Atom CPU is supposed to ship shortly, and I expect these subnotebook manufacturers to offer dual core models within a year.
The network connection is via Wi-fi or ethernet. Wifi connection is strong and reliable, unlike some reviewers said.
Linux version is probably useful for two very different kinds of people:
- Those who aren't very computer savvy but need only basic things, such as browser, word processor and spreadsheet can be very happy with the Linux version, since it provides all of the above in a very simple layout. No prior knowledge of Linux is required.
- Those who are very familiar with Linux, who can deeply customize this computer to suit their purpose.
AAO has two slots for SD cards. One slot (left side) holds the entire card within the computer body, and this is good for extending the disk space semi-permanently. The other slot (right side) is a multiple card reader, and it only hold about half of the card within the computer. The latter is better used for data transfer.
When a SD card is inserted in the permanent (left) slot, the card is viewed as a separate filesystem. It may be mounted automatically in /media/volumename, or you can specify the filesystem in /etc/fstab. I use the internal 8GB SSD as the root filesystem, and the SD card as /home filesystem.
The computer ships with 512MB RAM. If you tend to leave Firefox running while working on other tasks, you'd better increase the RAM to 1GB or 1.5GB, because Firefox already eats up much of the 512MB. Adobe Reader is also a big eater. The Linpus OS is installed with 1GB of space devoted as swap region. The OS does need the swap unless the main memory is expanded. In my typical use style, about 300MB of swap was permanently used when the main memory was 512MB.
The battery life is about 3 hours.
The keyboard is tight but decent.
The trackpad is absolutely lousy. I decided to go for Linux and not Windows or Hackintosh because of this factor. Most of the time, I use keyboard-based applications such as emacs, vi and terminal on this computer, rather than GUI-based applications. The lousy trackpad most saves my time because I don't enjoy web surfing on this computer.
The LCD is small but usable for many text-oriented tasks. 600x1000 is not much smaller than 1024x768 people used for years on desktop computers.
The monitor screen is glossy, and causes pretty strong reflection. The reflection is very annoying indoors, and even more so outdoors.
LCD brightness level 4 (out of 8) is bright enough for indoor text apps, but full brightness is better for graphic apps. Full LCD brightness is necessary for text apps outdoors.
Some problems I want Acer to fix
Hardware
SD card on the permanent slot sometimes gets halfway ejected while carried in a bag and walking around; a cover or a protector would be very useful.
SD/USB memory must be formatted in ext2 or FAT filesystem (it can use ext3, too, but ext2 is better for flash memory devices). Current Linux kernel supports HFS+ filesystem, but it is not supported in the version Acer ships in AAO. Support for HFS+ (without journaling) is the most sensible choice for Mac users.
The power adaptor is too bulky, especially the cord; they should supply the adaptor to directly plug in to the wall without the AC 3 prong cable.
I want the next generation AAO to be an inch or two larger, while maintaining the same weight, and use a track point (like ThinkPad) or better track pad (like MacBook).
CF reader feature would be very useful.
Software
The window manager should incorporate a virtual desktop (like Spaces on MacOS) since the physical desktop space is small for tasks that require more than one windows open.
Cold bootup time is quite fast, but waking up from sleep is very slow.
Firefox shipped with the Linpus OS is only version 2. I don't know why they don't ship it with Firefox 3, which works nicer, though requires manual installation.
Built in music player does not play AAC format commonly used by iTunes. They should ship it with an AAC-capable music player.
Alt+tab to switch apps (shift forward), like MacOS, but unlike MacOS, Alt+~ does not shift backward. (It should do so.)
Some remarks and tricks
The most useful strategy is to use applications that can be operated by keyboard, without using the trackpad, because using this trackpad is very frustrating. You can use an external USB mouse, but at the same time, you may want to try CUI softwares as well.
The track pad buttons are very difficult to use. Because of this, enabling the tapping detection is almost mandatory. However, this in turn causes many erroneous tapping detection during normal use, when either thumb lightly touches the trackpad during typing. By setting the trackpad tapping duration to be very short (a couple notches longer than the minimum on the slider bar), this problem was considerably minimized, but then tapping becomes difficult. It's a trade-off. A better click button would solve all these problems.
The track pad is sluggish and sometimes does not detect the finger motion for regular cursor movement. Scroll motion is also inconvenient to activate; you have to sweep near the right/bottom edge broadly, with the finger almost laid horizontally, to activate the scrolling motion. Running a finger on the edge with the finger pointing nearly vertically does not touch broadly enough to trigger the scroll motion.
Some fan noise is noticeable in a quiet room, but not annoying.
Rubber antislip pads on the bottom is easy to come off and lose.
Unique ways to use AAO
Because of lightweight and portability, AAO has a few unique ways it may be used, compared to full spec laptop computers.
AAO is very useful for reading texts (PDF, plain text, html, website, etc.) on couch or while laying. Holding up 2 lbs isn't too bad, but impossible with 5lbs MacBook. Adobe Reader in full screen mode is very useful for this purpose. It can be used as a general purpose e-book reader.
I scan interesting magazine articles using Fujitsu ScanSnap and save them in PDF. I also clip interesting web articles using ScrapBook add-on on Firefox3 (which has full screen mode; press F11). Both of these are great since they allow off-line reading while waiting for a train, long line at a post office, etc. (Ideally, what we need is something equivalent of Devonthink, a Mac software, to run on linux.)
