8.9" users, after all this time/problem solving...

(ok. first off i would like to say i LOVE my AAO, i think its the best money i ever spent, its great, fast, simple..including all my mods of course :mrgreen: )but then i got thinking today that i wanted to do some more mods to my AAO..

i have already added more ram, a 500gb hdd and a touchscreen. now i want to put a 4 port internal usb hub, a bluetooth and do a speaker replacement mod. the tally on the AAO is coming up quite higher than the £200.00 i originaly spent for the 150-Ab. So ive been thinking, is the AAO really that great? could you not spend abit more and get more than the 160gb 512 Ram 2200mah battery bluetooth-less laptop?

what do you guys think?

 

If you are at the point where you feel you have to replace the speakers, I'd say you are interested in modding for the sake of it, rather than improving the AAO in any meaningful way. Getting a decent set of headphones and perhaps a nice headphone amplifier would be a much more worthwhile proposition, and would have left your AAO intact with some resale value - had it not already been hacked to bits.

Does having a touchscreen really, really improve your user experience so much? How about the HDD space or extra RAM? Does it really mean you can do something now on your machine that you would want to do regularly?

At the end of the day you are still stuck with a 8.9" screen, crappy Intel graphics, and a slow single core CPU. It just strikes me that you are the netbook analog of kid with the pimped out Honda civic...

Not that there's anything wrong with that if its what you like, just as long as you don't suffer any illusions about what you are doing.

 

i know what you mean by the honda civic comment, i agree that the AAO can be seen as a datsun with £10,000 worth on crap on it. all that be it, its not so much that im into those things but for example i wanted a laptop/netbook to take with me on an airplane whilst flying back and forth countries which would require no carrying of external HDDs but also had a just enough punch of ram and computing power to show clients 3d models (which the AAO can do with the 1.5 ram) its price made it very attractive for all these things that i wanted to do. the touchscreen i have to admit is not like OMGWTFBBQ wow, however, it gives me some bonus points with my clients when i whiz around a 3d model with a stylus.. i mean the speaker add-ons are just for watching movies/webchatting at home cuz they are quite low..

 

Why is there no "its fine" option. Theyre either I love it or I hate it...

 

crap, edited it and it reset the votes..crap..sorry

 

Voted again.. I'm in love with it.
Aspire One is plain awesome! It's small, lightweight, fast, good-looking, boots quick, etc, etc.

 

I love it to death. It's faster than my (elderly) desktop computer and does everything that does.

I've been having some health problems recently and have been using it from a sickbed -- I can't imagine using a full-size laptop this way .

 

AAO is crap
- short battery life compared to other nettops (i have 6 cell which last 7 hours)
- latest bios taken out the lowest screen brightness
-wifi is messed up
- wide screen bezel (8.9" AAO should come with 10" screen in the same case)
- keyboard, touch pad, touch button could be bigger and better
- poor quality left side card reader
- crappy speaker

 

As I browse all these various forums I find that most AAO buyers want a toy; a few want a small portable internet browser, a few want a small portable productivity machine, and some are hobby users who will mod it right down to the logo if they could. All valid reasons to own one. It would be easy to wrap up $1000 in a $299 system when there are a number of high quality budget priced 12" systems out there, unless the form factor is of prime importance. I currently have 2 17" systems, a 15" system, and a 12" system. I bought my AAO strictly as a replacement (or alternative) for the portable storage system/viewers that are popular with photographers. They are very limiting and have small screens and when the AAO came along I thought it would be perfect for storing and viewing images as I fill up my CF cards on extended shoots. It is!

 

I haven't had many problems with mine.

-I replaced Linpus with WinXP. Since I have the SSD version of the AAO, this required some tweaks to make it perform optimally. Had I bought the HDD version, XP would have worked fine out of the box.

-Battery life is a bit short with the 3-cell and the 6-cell battery is rather expensive. For my needs it's fine but if I were to start taking the AAO with me more, I would need to buy a bigger battery. My friend bought a normal laptop for nearly twice the price and the battery life of it is close to half that of my AAO so for the price, I think it's OK.

-Upgrading the RAM is unnecessarily complicated. I'm probably going to give it a try some time in the future, though.

I think most users are just tweaking their systems because they're perfectionists. The machine works fine out of the box.

 

Well, I got mine as I wanted a dirt, dirt cheap but decent new computer. It's perfect! Don't see the need to mod it (apart from putting XP on it), it's fine as it is.

 

8.9" I love it

My technical description is in my profile below
I use the AAO as browser, e-mail station, music player, with Zattoo as TV station, radio -player, I have a portable printer, which I use when travelling. On the AAO I treat my photos (with fotoox), assemble them to postcards (with printoox) and print them on the portable printer by exchanging SD cards forth and back. I prepare documents with Open Office and do my e-banking.
I read e-books with the great PFD viewer evince. I rotate the screen by 90° and can read like a sony reader . there is only one problem: the e-book producers are somehow bound to reader software with Digital rights management which runs only under XP. I have Linux. New Books in simple PDF are rare; mostly they are in DRM coded formats.
I have an external USB HDD with 160GB for backup. Via WIFI of the AAO I could connect that to my WIFI radio; but then my AAO must permanently run. Therefore I consider buying a second one only for this purpose. Here in Brussels they are sold at present for 199€
I don't use any games. So the CPU is almost not used in my normal usage.
On my desk the AAO sits on a book support with 45° tilt; with this position the open screen is vertical and the keybord in handy tilt of 45°. and I can sit in my chair in relaxed backword position.
Book reading I do in my armchair or in bed helding the AAO like a book.

Resumée: I like this little book for its speed and handiness. I would if necessary replace it again by a 8.9" Linux model, since that format suites my needs better as portable device than the 10" model. The 10" model would only be interesting if the resoultion of the screen would be increased.
I would be interested in future in a model, where the keybord is replaced by a 8,9" touchscreen. For short texts like this the touchscreen is sufficient for longer texts I would acquire an external foldable keybord.
The second screeen would then be used to display full screen texts eg in the internet or pictures while the touchscreen would be the command screen. needs some adaption of the available software.
For book reading two screens would be great since I could use the two screens for left and right pages of a book rotating the AAO by 90°. Then the book feeling would be complete except turning pages would be a push button command. The screen is also outdoors clear enough except if full sunshine is on the screen. I am living in Brussels there is not so much sunshine and I always prefer shadow anyway.