First Impression of Aspire One XP/6 cell/160GB/Sapphire Blue

So my Aspire One was dropped off by FedEx just a few moments ago that I had on back order from Amazon.com. It's a lot smaller than I expected and feels sturdy. I like it!

I put it on the AC adaptor and running through XP for the first time configuration options. I like how easy it is to read the screen. I haven't noticed a noisy fan--not sure if there is one. My Toshiba Satellite laptop is noisier--its my main laptop that I use everyday and will become a desktop fixture.

The touchpad on the Aspire One is a little awkward but the buttons are firm. On my Toshiba Satellite touch pad, I use my index finger to navigate and my thumb to press the buttons. The Aspire One seems to work best with my middle finger to navigate and my index finger to push the buttons. Although I think I'll just be tapping the touch pad instead of the buttons since it's easier or using two hands.

The keyboard feels nice and tight.

The WiFi works well---during setup it found all the wireless access points--all 7 of them, and I logged into mine without any issues.
I definitely seeing myself take this every where I go.

Between my laptop and my pocket PC --HTC/AT&T Tilt with a bluetooth keyboard for ultimate portability--I think the Asper One will give me all the things I love about the Tilt without the cramped screen--web browsing is a pain on such a tiny touch screen. For 3G, I'll just use my Tilt as an access point and connect to the net that way.

Although I've read a lot of complaints about the speaker quality, I'm hearing the Windows sounds and sound effects, and while it's kind of tinny and lacking in mid range--it's perfectly acceptable for what it is.

Right now i'm downloading Firefox--the webpage looks great--and the overall speed/feel is just like the laptop I've been using to death for the past 2.5 years--to the point of letters wearing off half of the keys.

I'm a happy Aspire One owner!!

Richard

 

Ok it's day #2 and I've been on the battery for the past 3 hours..I've been waiting for my car to be repaired and the shop has WIFI. The battery meter says I still have 3 hours left.

Since yesterday I began installing my favorite apps that I use for my business. FedEx Ship Manager, Quickbooks Retail edition, Adobe Illustrator, various web tools and Bulletproof FTP, and drivers for my laser printers that are WIFI, Brother, HP, and Xerox. Very happy with the performance. At my house, I've got wireless N and a very fast cable modem to go with it, and speeds are wonderful. At this shop, I'm limited to 11Mbs bandwidth, and a very slow DSL.

I'm finding that's it's easiest to use the touch pad with two hands. My right index finger for navigating and my left index finger for pretty the button. Yeah, it's not as nice as the buttons below the pad, but given the size of the Aspire One and the wonderful keyboard..I can live with it. By the way, earlier I said I'd probably just tap the pad instead of using the mouse button, but I'm not finding this method all that reliable. It might be just me, but the solid click of a button is more reassuring when I'm trying to click buttons on the screen.

When I'm at my desk, a USB mouse is a dream and I prefer it.

Before getting my Aspire One, I was concerned that the vertical resolution, not being standard 1024x768 would pose problems with my favorite websites but it hasn't. It does mean that certain streaming videos need to be scrolled to get to the controls but it's not so bad that Its bothersome.

Also regards to video playback. Flash video playback is excellent. Watching youtube or other videos work perfectly. I have problems watching WMV video clips and even those down scaled and compressed to playback on even my lowly Tilt Pocketpc---sync is lost and sustaining smooth playback is a problem. I need to do more tests however to see what codecs/frame rates work best.

During the past 24 hours of use, I haven't once wished the Aspire One was better or had a feature missing from it compared to my more expensive and larger laptop..which is great news. I will continue to report my experience over the next week.

Richard

 

Ok so here are my two laptops with my Aspire One on the right. If the Aspire One screen looks brighter that's because it truly is! It's actually easier on my eyes.



The point of these pictures is to compare what can be seen on the Aspire One using Firefox compared to a larger screen.


Aspire One using Firefox


Using Firefox's Full Screen option, the viewing area gets better.



Combining that with the Firefox Zoom, shortcut CTRL -


requiring a reduction of only one zoom level and now you can see everything on the screen and even see more vertical content than my larger laptop.
Richard

 

You can also zoom in FF using multi-touch gestures. That plus the touchpad scrolling are my favorite features. I almost never touch the mouse buttons except for the occasional right click.

 

Thanks for the additional info. Had to google the multi touch gestures. Interesting--guess I have some more configuring to do, lol.

 

Wow, just played with the ChiralMotion feature. Neat! Thanks for the tip.

 

Hi,

I just got mine today and have been playing with it too. Where is the battery meter on the XP version? For some reason, I don't see it anywhere.

Thanks!

 

It's in the tray like at the lower right, next to the clock.

 

I can't wait for mine, it should be here next week.

Have you tried playing a DIVX file? How does that look on it? Is the processor tough enough to keep up with it? I watch a lot of TV shows and when I'm on the road, they save me.

 

Haven't tried DIVx yet. Just FLVs work great. Don't expect a lot from the processor. It feels slower than my 2.5 year old Toshiba Satellite Core 2 duo processor. Although XP feels fast because it's new and the registry isn't filled with all kinds of junk that happens over a couple of years...

I'll try some DIVx clips when I get a chance.

Richard

 

Yeah. Well you get what you pay for no? I already have a Core 2 Duo laptop but it's big and will leave that at home. A netbook is easier to travel with and while I can live without watching movies as long as it does Internet and e-mail it's fine for me. First thing I'm going to do is upgrade it to 1.5GB of RAM though.

I'm wondering what case I should be buying now; I want one to hold at least an external slim DVD-RW, the power supply and i'm thinking of getting a spare 3 cell battery too so I'll be covered so for short trips I use that instead of the six.

 

Definitely. For the moment, I'm transporting both my laptop and the netbook as I haven't made the full switch yet, in case there are files I want from the laptop which has a drive that's twice as large as the netbook.

I've also got one of those Iomega eGo external hard drives. That's a worth while drive to have if you need additional storage. the 250GB model is less than US$100.

I've travelled with a bluetooth keyboard and a pocketpc phone that worked pretty well as a laptop replacement, but the small screen made web browsing difficult. The Aspire One is the perfect compromise between my 6 pound laptop and my little pocketpc. Battery life has been 5 hours on the 6 cell, so yeah carrying the 3 cell as a backup could be smart for long plane trips or even another 6 cell. They aren't that heavy.

I'm looking for a case too. Right now I just bought one of those neoprene sleeves to protect it. I figure I can then throw it inside any case. Also for some reason, my AspireOne did NOT come with the protective sleeve case that others have talked about.

Richard

 

I actually use my iPod Touch to do the browsing. I'm telling you that little gadget does wonders.

I'm also shopping around for some bluetooth headphones but I haven't figured out which one I'm going for.

 

Just want to drop a line considering the video playback aspect of the AA1. I just recently got mine (Onyx Black/160GB/6-cell/1GB ram/XP).

As far as DivX/XviD goes, there's absolutely no problem playing them whatsoever. The only problem I originally had was with 720p MKV videos which would never play correctly. VLC completely sucks for it, it's internal codec is nowhere near optimized for playback on slower machines.

What did work is with CoreAVC, using Media Player Classic. I am able to play my 720p .mkv files without a hitch. I've tried most codecs you can think of and tweaked them a long time without good results, but CoreAVC worked right out of the box.

The only thing is that you have to pay for it, but if you plan on playing HD content on your AA1, believe me when I say it's well worth the 8$ (or 15$ if you want more features than just h.264 playback) they ask for it.

 

Great! Now I can't wait even more!

I'm not bothered about watching 720p videos. Good 'ol plain avi will do for me so the DIVX.COM codecs are probably enough.

 

For carrying I picked up a small American Tourister nylon notebook tote at Staples. It would actually hold a thin fullsize laptop but I needed a document sized case. The padded computer compartment inside has room for the AAO leaving enough room for another one. Under the same zipper next to that is the compartment with several drop in pockets for small gadgets & office necessities. The other top zipper is an open compartment with room for a small portfolio. On the very back is a flat velcro closed document pocket. On the front are three zippered cargo compartments that would hold the power brick, a camera, a cell phone, and other small gadgets. So it's sort of a little office a bit less than 4" thick that would be easy to keep with in an airline seat.

 

I found a similar case at Walmart made by Icon model 300B-Blk. It has room for the mini and a DVD burner(LG-50E) on one side with a movable divider and accessories and cables on the other. There are plenty of pockets for small stuff.

My AA1/160G arrived yesterday. My only complaint is the screen brightness is still too high even when turned all the way down with the Fn+< keys. Also bothering me is the hard to push mouse keys and their recessed position. If they stuck up above the surface the stiffness wouldn't be a problem.

I've just reduced the XP partition by 50G to set up a dual boot XP/PCLinuxOS machine. I'll report on the procedure in a separate thread in a few weeks. Time to load more apps now.

 

I hate the touchpad design especially the buttons on the side. When mine comes I'll be using a mouse so unless I'm on a plane or something where I can't use a mouse I won't be using the touchpad at all.

Does the XP version hard drive come partitioned? I hope not.

 

The HD has two partitions. The first is hidden and about 8G. This is where the recovery image resides. You don't see it unless you're doing a recovery. The second is the rest of the drive and about 150G. I installed EASEUS V2.0 partitioner and removed about 50G from the far end. This will be set up as the third partition of 2G for Linux swap and a fourth using the remainder but split logically into 16384M for root and the remainder for home. I'm waiting for the full version of PCL2008 to come out in a few weeks.

 

Oh that's not so bad. I'll take an image of the whole thing though just in case recovery fails or something. I don't like not having the actual media to recover.