Tech: Acer Aspire One first impressions

I’m composing this post on the Acer Aspire One, a netbook released this past July:



I had originally planned to get the Dell Inspiron Mini 9, but after my order got delayed, twice, I decided to just grab an Aspire One off of Newegg.com. I've been using it for the past couple of days, so it's time for some first impressions...

The Aspire One is one of the first examples of the second generation of netbooks – powered by Intel’s Atom processor. The Atom was designed from the ground up to maximize performance per watt, and it generally does a good job (although Via's upcoming Nano chip is supposed to be considerably more powerful). It's currently mated, however, to the power-hungry 945SE chipset, so it doesn't run quite as efficiently as it could. The Aspire One, for instance, can get fairly warm, even with the fan running full blast.

The keyboard on the Aspire One is good by netbook standards – which means “barely tolerable” in absolute terms. I mean, there's some people who find normal notebook keyboards too great a compromise – just think what’ll happen when they encounter the Aspire One, with a shrunken keyboard that makes comfortable touch-typing nearly impossible. I've always employed a semi hunt-and-peck typing style, so it's not a dealbreaker for me, but most people should try before they buy.

The Synaptics touchpad is small, but usable, with left and right mouse buttons that run vertically instead of horizontally. I don't mind this configuration as much as some reviewers, simply because putting the buttons on the side of the touchpad gives your other hand a perch on the tiny palmrests. The sheer number of built-in touchpad gesture functions is bewildering, but I disabled most of them.

As I spend more time with this thing, I'll post a full review.