A110 owner opinions

First off, as this is my first post, hello everyone!

I found aspireoneuser.com whilst researching netbooks. I've read through a lot of the posts and they have given me a good insight into the AAO and answered a lot of questions. It certainly looks like an awesome bit of hardware and it looks like I'm set on getting one now.

I'm looking to use the AAO as a secondary (commuting) pc. mainly for word processing, web browsing and maybe as a media player and I'm happy to give linux a go, but before I settle on which configuration I buy I'm hoping that you can help me out with some questions...

1. How do you find the performance of the AOA110 with the standard 512mb of memory? (I watched the video and I'm not keen on upgrading the memory myself!)

2. Running solely linux, would you recommend the ssd over a hdd?

I think I may have answered these questions for myself (go for the hdd version based on value for money): PC World are doing the A110 for £199 but John Lewis are doing the A150? with 120gb hdd and 1gb memory for £229 (plus the 2 year warranty).

I look forward to your views and opinions,

Col.

 

Don't go for the ssd unless you absolutely know that your not getting the slow one. Media capabilities on the AAO are okay at best, depending on what you mean. Flash video (youtube, hulu) on fullscreen frankly sucks, but downloaded files with vlc play just fine for me. The screen is also limited by the 18 bit color. Also, if that is all you are going to use the AAO for, don't upgrade the ram. Not necessary and it voids your warranty. If you want to dual-boot xp you will need it though. Good luck!

 

1. with the Linpus (which is all have have used thus far ) the performance is totally fine ... no complaints

2. the SSD should be more tolerant of a bit of bumping around and hopefully (i guess it does ) use a bit less power to keep the little guy running on battery as long as possible. but the SSD is SLOW so if you can't hack the linux and decide to install XP on the SSD one you are in for a world of hurt. and the SSD is SMALL ... meh.. since it is not meant to hold my whole mp3 collection I'm ok w/ the SSD

3. The price drop kinda caught me off guard as well as how little the price diff between the HD 1GB model was and the 8GB SSD... HA I'll live.

 

You seem to be the ideal Linpus/SSD user: heavily mobile, possibly rough environment, straightforward appliction set.

The SSD/Linpus A1 is lighter, slimmer, and more shock resistant than the hard drive version, in addition to getting better battery life. "Only" 512MB is no issue at all, and I disagree with 3earnhardt3 : even if you have the "slow" SSD there is no real life impact in day-to-day performance.

The hard drive is undeniably faster in most situations, has more than 10 times more space, and you get 1GB RAM and a copy of Win XP for not very much money.

There is no right answer. My advice is to not rationalize it on price/performance. Just buy the one you feel attracted to.

[I'm using the SSD/Linpus version. I can recommend it totally if you are happy to stick with the preinstalled apps. If you want to customise things you better be patient and be willing to enjoy the challenge. Some things are easy and some things are frigging impossible, but all cases I've dealt with so far would have been simpler to deal with under XP. That's the simple truth.]

 

Hi,

My One is the Win XP version and so far, I'm thrilled with it. From what I can read from this forum, in general, the many problems spoken of are to do with the Linux version. I don't think (?) there are man problems with the XP version.

I have many programs loaded on my One including Magicjack -- a usb internet phone (I don't have "any" affiliations with Magicjack).

I would suggest you seriously look at purchasing the Win XP version of the One.

Blessings

jwr

 

I started out with a A110 and thought it was great, I really tried to get along with linpus but in the end i missed all my apps and simplicity of Windows. I new i wouldn't be happy Installing windows xp on the SSD drive so i bought a Zif adaptor and a 16GB 300x Compact flash and installed windows xp but it never really worked as it should because it was a 16GB card and it only writes at half the speed it should.

At this point i had spent - Acer One £250, 1GB Ram £15, 16GB SDHD Card £35, external DVDR Drive £40, 16GB 300x Compact flash £105 and about £15 on zif adaptors and cable and I still didn't have the netbook i wanted

Then the A150 with 512MB, Linpus and 120GB HD in white was released for £229.00 So i had to have a look at it in the flesh, I did and it was beautiful so i came home with one. 1GB and a Install of Windows XP later I had the perfect machine

The A150 is a far better machine than the A110, the colour looks far better (much more elegant than the blue), The fan is near silent compared to my A110 and I'm so glad to have a hard drive again, I can now enjoy my One instead of messing about trying to find Linux equivalent of my apps or tinkering with hardware and stripping back Windows in order to get Windows working on the A110.

In theory a solid state drive is the best option for a netbook but in reality SSD's are not quite there yet and if i'm honest i look after my stuff so it's very unlikely i'm going to bash my A150 and wreck the HD.

In my opinion anyone looking for a Acer One should get a A150 it's a far better machine.

 

The Linux version is awesome if you can stick to the base applications. But dare you demonstrate the hubris to customize your AA1, oh you'll have real problems.

I needed to start changing things as I really got to working with it instead of playing with it. that's when I ran into problems. After a week or two of battling with Linpus, I gave up and installed Winxp. Linpus makes the simplest task into a 3 hour ordeal. Now I'm dealing with the impossibly slow SSD and I have almost chucked the thing at the wall a few times because of it.

Note: I'm not a Linux newbie, I run Ubuntu/Mint Linux on my secondary computer and quite like it. I prefer it to windows in a lot of respects. But Acer's Linpus Linux is just infuriating, it's impossible. I don't know what they were going for. They lock the OS down to make it "user friendly," but that really just makes it impossible for the average user to do what they need to. How is that "user friendly???"

I even got the most infuriating error message from windows. After I installed sp3 it loaded up some file indexer that was flogging the already impossibly slow hard drive. Then the thing had the stones to tell me that "User activity is slowing the file indexer." I actually yelled out "NO!! THE FILE INDEXER IS SLOWING USER ACTIVITY!!!" and that was one of the times I almost threw it at the wall, lol.

but I digress...

I'm ultimately going to end up selling it off and replacing it with the newest Winxp w/6-cell battery version. I have it backordered and hopefully it'll come within the month. I'm losing money on the deal, but I'll get the laptop I really wanted in the first place. The AA1 has real potential, but it's almost like Acer released it half finished.

 

maybe I haven't been trying hard enough but I've customize my linux A110 and installed many apps (now having everything i need/want badly up and running) I have had no problems with the linpus choking because of this.

I have had some "learning opportunities" trying to get everything up and running but I'm quite pleased with my A110 for my part

 

i guess it depends on what you're trying to do. every little thing took HOURS on Linpus (and again, i'm not a total Linux noob). Sure I learned a lot, but I need a computer...not another hobby. That's just where I stand.

 

Thanks for the opinions everyone. I think I've settled on a 1gb/120gb hdd linux version, I think this configuration will give me most flexibility in the future (although I am liable to change my mind! ).

Just a couple more things - is there a physical difference in the case between the ssd and hdd versions and how easy is the hdd to get to?

Thanks again,

Col.

 

the case is different for the hard drive models (slightly bigger bottom side)

the connector on the mb is diff ZIF for SSD and SATA for HD model.

getting to the hd will require disassembly(see RAM upgrade video on front page.)

 

luckily the only thing that took hours (that i really needed to get sorted ASAP) was figuring out the lack o' tun.ko module in my case (I really needed openvpn to work..and it was kind of a hassle )

after that everything else (getting my gamepad working / Skype ..etc was sorta not that vital so I sorted it out when I had time.)..

but you know I like to mess with this stuff and frequently d*ck about with this kinda stuff as my hobby anywayz so in my case it has been great fun indeed.

 

I'll give you a run down of my experience. I am a long time Linux user, since 1998 and I also use an Asus 701 daily. I bought the Aspire One SSD limpus version and took it back after 3 days. I was noticing slow SDD performance to the point of lagging while typing a url in firefox. I also loaded Ubuntu but lag got worse. I was going to upgrade the ram but ran into an issue with a motherboard screw being stripped and then decided to take it back and get the win xp hard drive model. I immediately loaded Ubuntu on it and am now dual booting ubuntu and win xp (for some work stuff). I am extremely pleased with this purchase and after the price drop, it was a no brainer. I am using this little laptop all the time and love it. I did have an issue with the HDD version having a slight wobble and resolved by removing the right front rubber foot (not sure what else to call it). The performance is very good and with the 120G hard drive, I don't have to worry about running out of space. The uplift from the SSD to the HDD version was only $21 and I should have gotten the HDD to begin with. I am typing these comments on the aspire1 right now and it's nice to have a keyboard you can actually type on compared to the Asus EEEPC. Course, I still love my EEEPC also, especially with my modded touch screen.

 

Hi

First off thanks to the original poster for doing this thread, was going to start one my self!

Thinking about getting the hard drive version now instead of ssd. Main reason being value for money, by the time you factor in the £15 for a sdhc card of reasonable size you could have a 120 gig harddrive instead for £30.00

Question is would 512 be ok if only doing stuff such as browsing internet, checking emails, looking at photos etc? Thats the main reason for getting the aspire (it'll be the linux version) at this time.

 

There's no other machine that does that stuff better than the AAO 8g with 512mb ram. You just can't beat the 20 second startup time. The problem seems to be that people want more from this little machine than it was originally intended to do. If the 120g with xp was available when I bought my machine, I would have gotten it. Though this is because I love pushing my hardware to the limits, not just browsing internet and looking at pictures.

 

I bought the 8gb linux thing last week. I bought it because I wanted a laptop to take round Europe on my motorbike. I love this thing. I took it out of the box, stuck in the battery and within 2 minutes, outside the shop, I was on the internet.
I've made no alterations to it so it is standard. It does what I bought it for and that's to send emails and surf internet when away from home on the bike. £199 this will do fine for me.

I guess it all depends on what you want it for. For my purposes, it's OK

 

I bought both models - the A110 for myself personally, and two of the A150s for work.

There are only two noticeable differences in using the A150 over the A110 - firstly, the fan is a tiny bit quieter (but even the A110 is so much quieter than a standard laptop, you wouldn't be bothered by the difference). Secondly, the SSD on the A110 is a little slow, but only when saving files etc. That said, the A110 is much faster in startup, shutdown and opening OpenOffice apps.

On the whole, I prefer the A110, being slightly lighter, and robust. As for the 512mb ram, it's more than enough, particularly for the uses the original post described. I mainly surf the web, produce documents & spreadsheets, a little FTP, and the occasional half hour on Quake III - and the memory more than holds up.

ricaird

 

I'm a tad surprised that other Linux users find Linpus so limiting,and that some find AA1 lacking on SSD using Linpus. The OS is only a customised iteration of FC8 and by following tips on this forum I find I can do everything I want do without for a moment wanting to install XP or even Ubuntu. Perhaps I just have modest needs, but if I can edit photos (Gimp), type word-compatible reports (OO), surf on wifi (Opera) and play a few games (ROTT, Lux, GnomeGames) on the AA1, there's not much else I can imagine using the thing for. Well, 3G I suppose at some point.

I'm a long time Linux user with three PCs running SuSe, Ubuntu and Linpus. In the past I've used Debian, Mandrake and Fedora. I think the Linpus OS is a very nice effort at catering for technophopes.. but it's certainly not locked down in the sense of being confined to one set of apps. You can install pretty much anything you want from the FC8 repos or any FC8-friendly rpm from elsewhere. As for slow, well not that I've noticed. I find even Google Earth to be perfectly usable, albeit with a jerky delivery of "flight sequences" and a slow startup. Obviously its no good for modern 3D gaming, but that's not what I'd expect to be a design priority in a "netbook". I love this thing and find the SSD absolutely fine. If of course it was my only computer I'd want more storage. But it's not and do I really want my main data to be in an easily nickable netbook.... horses for courses after all!

 

My A110 is the best thing I have bought in ages. It's also helping me to learn Linux. I have taken it in to work anf the Network guys "borrowed" it for the day. They were impressed enough to start visiting the local shops to see how much they could get one for. The only downside I see is that the blue colour of the case does seem to show the finger prints up easily. Everything else, the kepyboard, OS, screen, is definitely up to the job.

The only thing that needs to be done to a bog standard one to have a decent user experience is to use the Advanced Desktop Script. I would recommend that to anyone who finds the standard Linpus desktop too limiting.

 

I bought this nicer AA1 on sale for $309. It's got the built in 512MB Ram and the 8G SSD. And I must say it's amazing. I've only added a few dozen applications and enabled the "advanced mode" (that's what they call it when it's really just a full menu) in Linpus. The wifi card in this thing is the best. I get better signals from more networks then 5 other wifi enabled computers I have. I have never heard the fan make any noise so it runs pretty darn silent. The 8G drive is plenty for all the applications I want to install now or in the future. And if I want to have media on here for me it's as simple as a memory card or an external drive. I have had absolutely no problems with this system. It runs programs I didn't think it would be capable of. It turns out 1.6GHz Atom proc. is more then enough for me.

All flash videos online have run flawlessly for me. And I have had good media experience in general.

My only gripe is the speakers are on the bottom of the laptop.