Advice for a Shopper

Hi,

I've been through all the online reviews I can find and spent far too much time searching around this forum but I'm still at a loss to what Aspire would be best for me. I'd really appreciate advice from any experts

I'm UK based and am looking for an Aspire to keep me online during those 'out of touch' periods - especially when travelling. So battery life, browsing speed and ability to connect via 3g are the priorities for me.

My first thought was that the 8gb+512kb model would be best - I'm not really going to use anything except the browser - but after reading information online it seems that the flash drive is really slow. So is the 120gb+1gb a better buy? I don't feel I need the 120gb of space and I thought 'normal' HDDs used more power than flash?

I'm not a total linux newbie, and as I say I hope to only really use the web, but is XP essential for use with a 3g USB stick? (Failing Acer launching a built-in 3G version...).

Also, the battery life is lower than I imagined - I guess I'll be buying additional battery packs, does anyone have the weight of these?

Thanks for any help and advice!

 

3G sticks are working in linux. There's a 3G sub-forum here with quite a lot of info on which sticks work and how to get them going, so I'd read through that.

The 8GB SSD version is just fine for everyday stuff, so just browsing should be easy as pie. Even a massive 7200mAh battery that will give you all-day browsing power reportedly only ups the weight up to 1.3kg, whereas the basic model should be about 1kg with the ordinary battery.

 

Hi allwork,

Got my AAO 512MB 8GB a few weeks ago for out and about work, I am really impressed. Have a look http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=7613

Think by the sounds of it it will do all you want and a great deal more.

 

I agree. If you don't need the storage space and don't need to install windows applications, the SSD is just fine. I've never had any slowdown on mine except when using system update (but I do that overnight with plug-in power). But if you upgrade to Firefox 3, then you may want follow the tutorials to disable the cache and turn off safe browsing to prevent a lot of disk writing.

 

The SSD version is more than adequate for the web and the 9 cell battery which I have with my ssd version can pump out up to 8 hours if I'm lucky, it's perfect for non intensive stuff.

 

Thanks everyone for your responses. The 9-cell battery sounds interesting but what's the quality like on these non-original batteries? No cases of explosions I hope!

 

well mine which the a 6600mAh by cameron sino was £50 from amazon and its pretty sturdy. it feels like it would take a fair chunk of abuse before going.

 

Thanks everyone. I've just seen this on Gizmodo so I think I'm going to hold off for built in 3G in the UK but Linux, SSD & an extended battery sounds like the ticket for me!

 

A brief follow up - my previous laptop was 'incapacitated' in a liquid incident so I ended up buying an A110-AW which I'm just about getting used to....

 

i paid 325 otd for the 1 gig + 180 gig HD and am seriously in love, hard wired to fiber, got a ext dvd writer with full size KB &
logi roller ball - only thing missing is the serious noise & heaT from desk top - future, here i am. :twisted: