Acer Aspire One £199 netbook

[wmrcomputers]

Anyone thinking of buying the acer aspire one at £199 (available allover the place including PC world), with the thought of loading Windows XP onto the 8Gb SDD, READ ON!!!!

Advised a mate to purchase as it's a good spec 1.5GHz Atom Processor etc, and a useable screen size, webcam and all to boot.
Comes supplied with a Linux system installed and can comfortably accomodate XP instead.

The problem lies with the SDD. It can read files super fast (windows boots in about 15 seconds), but due to the way Windows works it can't handle the constant file writes back to the SDD and it slows down to hell!!!

There is a way around this by using something called EFW (Enhanced File Write), which uses some of the RAM rather than writing back to the hard drive, and then you can choose to commit all recent changes (saved files, installed progs, etc) before shutting down Windows. The good point is that if you hit on a virus etc, you just restart and its like nothing ever happened!

Anyone looking for a budget notebook for XP, it can run at very good speeds but you'll need to know your stuff to do it (or ask me for help to set it all up)
ANYONE INTERESTED PM ME

They do a version with 120Gb SATA hard drive for a bit more dosh which doesnt need the mod, but obviously it becomes a price more expected with better sized systems then.

Hope this info is of help to someone, thought I'd share it just incase anyone is considering buying one.

PS - They are great especially for the kids, allthough set up correctly they're fine for grown ups too as long as you're eye sight isn't too bad

 

[My Name is URL]

Got myself an Advent 4211 on its way as we speak and a great bargain at £230....

Did look at the Acer @ £199 but for the extra £30 I got 80GB HDD, Win XP, 1GB Ram and an extra inch in the screen department.

Cannot wait to get it.

BTW, very kind of you to post the above wmrcomputers, great to have you on here

 

[tek-monkey]

Isn't there some sort of 'special' version of XP for these things? Essentially turns off the caching that hammers your SSD. I have to say if I wanted XP on one of these I'd want a HD with it.

Incidentally on boffer they have a USB2 DVDRW/HD/card reader at the min that'd tie in very well with a netbook. Kinda defeats the portability aspect though!

 

[My Name is URL]

Probably worth the extra £30

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/5826005/Acer-Aspire-One-A150L-Intel-Atom-N270-1-6GHz-1GB-120GB-8-9-Linux-NetBook-White/Product.html

Extra ram and 120GB HDD

 

[shoes]

Would one of these work as a nice portable 'out in the field' machine for photography do you think? Only thing it needs to do is to be able to download photos from the cam onto the hard drive and view them. Won't need any fancy softwate (XP has all I need built in as does Ubuntu or whatever linux distribution it comes with).

My question is am I likely to get a reasonable file transfer speed on the USB. FWIW I'm considering one with a HDD rather than an SDD.

Shoes

 

[My Name is URL]

Can't see why not.

Surely the USB is the same speed as normal USB.

Think the HDD will be 5400rpm rather than 7200rpm but nothing major...

 

[shoes]

Thats what I reasoned. I don't think that the 5400 hard drive will hinder my use much.

I wonder how much batteries are for it, as if the life is the advertised 2 - 3 hours then 3 batteries would be more than enough for a days shooting, bearing in mind the machine will be on (although on standby/sleep/whatever its called these days) the whole time.

I use a Nikon DSLR and have the camera control software (which I can recommend to any Nikon user, I believe most Canons come shipped with it and if you own a pentax/sony/olympus etc you will have to find out as I don't know. I cant imagine for one second Sony hasn't got this feature though. But, I digress...) so I may just use the machine to control the camera and have photos go straight to that.

I would get an SDD version but I often fill up 8GB (and need more) when out shooting.

Shoes

 

[tek-monkey]

Wouldn't one of these with a decent sized USB drive be cheaper?

 

[shoes]

Possibly, although the netbook would be good for using in bed/around the house etc. and also throwing in my bag to watch a film on if i'm stuck somewhere or on the brilliant public transport system. At £230 its very reasonable, and I will get at least enough use out it to justify that.

 

[shoes]

Just sitting here in front of my 22" widescreen monitor trying to imagine windows on a 9" screen....

The resolutions vary, I have seen one which boasts 1280x800 which I think would be good for photo viewing although icons etc. would be very small. Knowing the kayboard shortcuts for everything is going to come into it's own i think.

 

[Wookie]

keyboard shortcut? Ha!
CLI FTW!

 

[wmrcomputers]

Hi all sorry i've been busy last couple of days.

Yes the USB is 2.0 and as fast as any other machine, but definately worth the extra £30 to buy the 120Gb HDD model. Again, comes with Linux, but much more ready to run XP than the SSD version.

Well spotted those who purchased an Advent 4211 for 230 quid. I bought the wife one for £280 only a couple of weeks ago, and they are a VERY nice piece of kit indeed.

Back to the Acer Aspire One, and my friends £199 version (now £180 at a few places) is showing some issues using EWF to speed up the SSD, so if you are thinking about it pay £230 instead for the HDD model or the Advent 4211 with a slightly bigger screen.

 

[shoes]

Thats fine then, I don't really mind which OS as I will only be using it to view photos on location. The screen on the camera is a bit small. At this price I think one of these would be a sound investment. I agree that the HDD version is much more attractive, especially for the application I intend to use it for. I think it would be also useful to take the laptop to client to chose which pictures to master/print etc. 3 hour battery life is very respectable, although I assume that a second battery would cost a quarter the cost of the whole unit.

Edit: Just recieved an email from Dell Slow Ass Delivery Inc. to say that they have (finally) built and despached my new Quad Core 'work' machine

 

[My Name is URL]

The Advent 4211 (that I am typing this on) comes with a 3 cell battery but you can buy 6 and even 9 cell batteries for about £50 / £70 respectively.

Ok its a quarter of the purchase price and will stick out a bit but depends what you need.

 

[wmrcomputers]

Mind if I ask you where the advent 4211 @ £230 was please?? Would be handy to know

Cheers gk

 

[shoes]

The Advent 4211 (that I am typing this on) comes with a 3 cell battery but you can buy 6 and even 9 cell batteries for about £50 / £70 respectively.

Ok its a quarter of the purchase price and will stick out a bit but depends what you need.

I am after a light, ultra portable machine to work as a monitor for photography on location. Therefore an extra battery at £50 is expected, so no problem there however if there is one which is 3 x more energetic then that would be a wise purchae IMO. The netbook is so incredibly tiny and light I could cope with the slightly larger battery.

Therefore, I think this is the perfect option for my needs and I shall shortly be purchasing one. The asus looks like the one for me, where were you getting it from?

Also what is the difference in power consumption between SDD and HDD? This won't influence my decision, its clear i need a hdd for my needs, but it's merely out of curiosity.

Shoes

 

[My Name is URL]

WMRComputers, it was a refurbished one from Dixons, but the offer has ended now.

Having said that, PC World have the same for £239

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?page=Product&source_id=aw&sku=118681&camp_id=GiftPal&source_id=aw&camp_id=GiftPal

Don't be put off by refurbished though, mine came good as new, just no manual or box but who uses them? I'd take the £££ saving any day.

GK

 

[My Name is URL]

@ Shoew,

I can't comment on the Acer's battery availability, I think you can get one with a 6 cell battery but I think its £400 (or maybe £300)..

All I know is you can buy a 6 cell or 9 cell replacement for the Advent.

6 cell gives about 5/6 hours, 9 cell should do about 8/9 hours.

 

[tek-monkey]

Anybody used the samsung? Look pretty sexy.

 

[shoes]

6 cell gives about 5/6 hours, 9 cell should do about 8/9 hours.

Should be more than enough for a day out then