My experience with 11.6 AO751H

So, I thought I'd post my experience to date with the AO751H. I bought the WalMart version ($398) that includes the 3-cell battery, no bluetooth, Windows Vista Home Basic.

SUMMARY:
Great netbook, after you tweak it. Without tweaking, it will be frustrating. Afterwards, it runs everything I need and is very comfortable for use on planes, coffee shops, etc.

Out of the box, you will want to make some changes. If you intend to demo this at a store, recognize that the preinstalled crapware bogs this machine down terribly. After uninstalling most preinstalled programs, and cleaning the registry, Vista is very usable. I don't recommend it, but it's usable. Instead, I recommend repartitioning your hard drive and installing Windows 7 as a dual boot option (don't get rid of your Vista partition, as you may need it once Win7 RC expires in a year). If you don't know how to get Windows 7 for free for a year, go here and click "get the release candidate". http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/

You will want to install WIn 7 to a USB stick... follow the directions here: http://gizmodo.com/5257386/how-to-insta ... e=true&s=x

Windows 7 runs MUCH faster than Vista, even with AVG antivirus installed (AV slows down all netbooks -- it's a fact of life). I've been able to successfully have 3 Word 2007 documents, 2 Excel documents, 1 Powerpoint, and OneNote all open and running with no impacts to performance. Photo editing has been slower, but fine. Hulu / HDTV run fine, but with occasional stutters on full screen mode (nothing serious). I have NOT tried games as of yet.

The screen, though... oh the screen. I love it. The resolution has never made me feel as if I had compromised at all. This experience is equal to a mainstream laptop in viewing experience, and superior to one when it comes to portability.

All in all, I am delighted with my AO751H and would recommend it highly... again, with tweaking.

 

When you installed Win 7, did it find ALL the drivers that it needed? I got my 11.6 today and after getting rid of McAfee, the computer seems to have a little snap when running. My ONLY use is for a light notebook while on the road. I've come to the conclusion that my 8.9"er was just too small to read.

 

So you would reccomend AVG Anti-Virus Free as the best/fastest virus scanner? I actually use Avira Antivir, but i´d give that AVG a try.

Greetings,
Felix

 

What about aero performance in win7? I want aero glass due to the many nice features, such as transparancy and window previews.. But as far as i have seen it runs horribly on the gma500 :/

 

My Aero performance is very slow, so i turned it off Without aero, Win7 runs very well on the 751.

What is your Aero-Rating in Windows 7? My is 2.9 with the latest Intel drivers (...1005), but i read some people in the Sony Vaio P forum had better time with this new driver: http://forum.pocketables.net/showthread ... 395&page=2

If you can get managed to run this driver like the Sony guys, i think you will have a good experience with Aero Desktop. BUT, please let me know how you installed it

Greetings,
Felix

 

I've installed windows 7 with the sony latest driver.. aero ran pretty bad.. very laggy with aero on.. my graphics was 2.9 only.. not 4.5

 

If you can get managed to run this driver like the Sony guys, i think you will have a good experience with Aero Desktop. BUT, please let me know how you installed it

Greetings,
Felix[/quote:mtpij4b7]

Try the ones from the Intel site... VISTA drivers, just install using compatibility mode (Vista). On my HP Mini 1000, the index of Aero also jumped up quite a bit using the dirvers from the Intel site vs default Win7 drivers.

 

Too bad this thread has become a Windows 7 post instead of one about 11.6 AA1 experiences.

 

There's a "Acer 751 owners give us a short review" post at the top of the forum. I've put my two-cents there. To sum up: Decent netbook for people who will use it for real work, but not a good multimedia machine nor a good choice for linux users. Battery life is just okay with the 3-cell, but a 6-cell is available that should offer some nice runtime (5+ hours).

viewtopic.php?f=87&t=15641

 

and heres my thread.. viewtopic.php?f=87&t=15568
just a little information, mostly pictures.

 

So does anyone know where a 6-cell could be purchased?

 

http://www.jr.com/acer-computer/pe/ACE_AO751H1885/

$379,99 looks like a good deal. Paid 429 €uros for mine

 

I purchased the AO751h with Vista and 2gb ram with 250gb drive from Walmart for $399 (US). The system was really slow with Vista. If I had a browser open and tried to open Word or some other program it would take about 30-40 seconds to be useable. The Windows performance was rated at 2.6. There were about 80 process and 80 services operating continually.

Yesterday, I installed Windows 7. You can forget all the trouble about formatting and making a bootable USB drive...if you have Vista. You can upgrade Vista without having to clean your computer.

Download the Win 7 ISO. Also, go to WinRar.com and download the free program. Create a folder for your working file and run WinRar to unpack the ISO into that folder. Format your thumb drive in FAT32 or NTFS and then copy the files onto the USB drive.

Before you do any installation, print out the KEY sent to you by Microsoft so you can authorize the OS to be installed (especially if you only have one computer). This isn't a smooth process so be prepared to turn off your computer and turn it back on at times. I had to go into SAFE startup once to get the OS to go thru the preliminary steps to finish the installation. You also have to monitor your computer and be prepared to take out the thumb drive when notified.

When you insert the USB drive you have the option to start "set up". If not you can go to the file and double click.

I will say there were times when it took an hour or more for the screen to indicate something was working. I didn't backup my computer so I would advise it would save you some stress if you were to do so or want to back out of the install.

The performance is much better. The processes and services open dropped from 80 to 68. The Windows performance rating went from 2.6 to 1.9. I really don't know what that means or how that relates to the user experience. However, you can now open Word and other programs in just a couple of seconds instead of nearly a minute. The system seems to pay attention to your input rather than taking all of the resources to run programs.

I don't know about going from XP to Win 7 but the experience with getting rid of Vista is great. I have another AO751h to convert. I am very impressed with the new OS.

 

I've actually gone from win7 back to win xp. If you set up XP right, disabling most crap etc, it really is the fastest usable OS for this machine. The latest graphics driver is fairly decent aswell,- 720p works just fine using coreAVC. Now with the cpu clocked to 1,6ghz, HQ youtube works perfectly as well. Think i'll stick with this, atleast until theres good driver support for linux.

 

Tell me, with Windows 7, do you have a blank screen with just the cursor for about 90 seconds before it loads the user login window?

I tried an upgrade from Vista to 7 and a clean install of 7, it loads the windows splash normally but the screen then goes black (with only the white cursor which is movable) for about 90 seconds. Then the User login comes up and allows me to load the desktop.

I upgraded the bios, tried to install the video drivers from the acer support page but it says my OS isn't supported. Any suggestions? Runs normally aside from that pause at loading.

 

Yes, and only fairly recently. For the first three weeks, there was no delay whatsoever on boot-up. Now, without apparent cause, there is a substantial delay (more than 2 minutes in my case) for boot-up. It doesn't seem to affect Win 7 once logged in -- just the boot up. And, it is not a problem on recovery from hibernate -- just initial boot up.

Any thoughts on why, people?

 

Same issue for me. takes aboiut 2 minutes at blank screen then brings me to login window. Comes out of standby fine and 7 runs okay once logged in. Maybe a driver issue? Could have been a RC1 update that caused it since it didn't do it for you at first?

 

That's what I suspected, too. I'm trying to revert to XP and see how that goes (see other post), but am struggling mightily to get it to work.

 

just fyi, I've recently switched my browser from Firefox to Google Chrome and the performance is like night and day on the 751. For some reason, Firefox is hanging up on a few sites. Switched to Chrome and is running lightning speeds, probably cause it's a lighter program.

 

For those of you who have upgraded to Windows 7 is it better to just upgrade from Vista or do a clean install? I am thinking of upgrading and currently have Vista on my system but want to know if it really makes a difference.