So far, I'm amazed... and pleased

Well, my Aspire One has had a chance to fully charge up and I've had a chance this morning to play with it some more.

So I fired it up and got wireless networking up. It linked in to my router flawlessly. So, just for giggles, I took my One from the living room to the bedroom. My router sits in the middle of my condo, in a second bedroom I've turned into a home office. Nary a hiccup while on the move.

Hopped into bed and plugged in a pair of headphones. Went to the cbc.ca website and accessed their internet radio service. While listening to CBC Radio, I downloaded a copy of the Firefox web browser. The download went flawlessly. Then I saw a YouTube video that had no audio - all while I was still listening to CBC. The video played flawlessly too. No hiccups, jerks or buffering. The wireless connection did fade for a second or two at one point, but the One picked it up again very quickly, with no intervention from me.

Looks like the little Atom CPU does a very good job of multi-tasking, considering the One has only 1GB of RAM. Audio quality is also very, very good. I was less impressed with the One's onboard speakers, though. Very tinny and hard to hear.

So far, I'm amazed. Now I know why retailers are having such a hard time keeping Aspire One's in stock.

 

Good for you. I have just installed and tried out Photoshop CS4 Extended on it, and not only does it work, it works like a charm. Of course, stuff beyond basic photo editing is pretty much science fiction, but that's not what the One is for anyway.

 

I have aslo been very satisfied with this little machine. I tend to use the machince for what it was designed. For more intensive applications, I have a fullsize laptop and desktop that are both much better equipped for these tasks. I usually only use it when on the go, but I am beginning to love my new little toy.

As far as being a very capable machine for portable use, this little gem fits the bill. I have yet to find anything that this little guy cannot do that my other machines can, albiet slightly slower for more processor intensive applications. For the size and price, this machine is wonderful.

I was happy enough with this machine that I picked one up as a christmas present for my wife to use on the go as well.

 

I also have been very impressed with the quality of the Atom CPU's multitasking abilities.

 

Just had mine delivered yesterday, (1 gb, XP, 160gb HD) and so far, it is quite amazing. The fan is a little bit "whiney" but I am pretty amazed at the speed of the system, at least as compared to my older Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop. I had an initial problem with download speeds being terribly slow (although it connected to my home network with no issues) and then I came across a post that said the units ship from the factory with some type of extreme battery saver / economy mode that throttles all wireless speeds to very slow. I turned off that feature and my download speeds went up to where they should be.
I will continue to play with it, but just this morning I whipped it out on the subway (!!) for a few quick changes to a document and it was amazing.
I am trying out open office before I commit to Word, etc.

 

I am delighted too: I had my new basic, entry level model out of the box and up and connected to a WiFi network within seconds. There is no sign of fan noise. The batteries last longer because I have not got Windows or a Hard Drive. I plan to use it as it is without any hardware or software upgrades for a while. Everyone that I show it to loves it.

 

How do you turn off the extreme battery saver function please?

 

Very pleased with my One. Installed Vista HP and Tiny Office and it runs better than my tower at home! Using it mostly for network monitoring tools at work and watching movies via ZoomPlayer on the train home. Copied 15gb of mp3s to it and the sound techs where I work use it to test their sound systems and the lighting techs want some with a touchscreen installed!

 

Multitasking is pretty good indeed, even with 512MB of RAM. I tried to see how many windows I could open and I found that with 4 windows explorer (not IE) windows, 4 firefox windows, WinAmp, Live Mail and OpenOffice Writer plus a few background programs (Acer utilities, Daemon Tools Lite etc.) I was still under the 512MB mark (373MB used( on my tweaked XP installation.
I think the hyperthreading they put in the Atom really helps when multitasking. It might not be a true dual core CPU, but it's like a 1.5-core CPU Well, it doesn't compare to my Quad-core desktop rig but considering the size, price, power usage and noise level of the unit, it's pretty impressive Can't wait until next summer.. then I'm going to sit on my balcony, in the shade and surf the net instead of doing it from the baking hot computer room where the air is stifling. Even now in the winter, I'm enjoying the freedom of having a computer you can easily grab and take with you anywhere.

 

Somewhat related question to this thread, but any thoughts generally on running Vista on this thing? I am still using XP (that came pre-loaded) and I am pretty happy with the way it runs. I am even still running XP on my home desk top and have not yet moved to Vista. So the "main" question is really, how does Vista run on the AAOne, and then secondary, is it "worth" changing over from XP to Vista (assuming that Vista actually runs fine on the AAOne)
Thanx in advance.

 

Vista is really a personal choice. Running the full version of Vista will probably not net you the rsults that you want. Vista is a memory hog and since the One maxes out at 1.5gb of memory, it will run sluggish. Having said that, there are some nlited versions out there that many people are happy with.

I personally like Vista but would not try to run it on my One. Many people do not like Vista but once you get used to it and get past the huge resource hog it is, if you have a well outfitted machine to run it, it has many nice features. MS has worked out many of the bugs that were there in the beginning, but a few still persist. I think it is ironic that many of the people that complain about Vista and the bugs it has probably do not remember (or fail to) the bugs that XP had when it came out that hung around for quite some time. XP is now probably the best OS that MS has released to date.

I am not necessarily a Vista advocate, but I do use it for home use. I do not use it for business use as it does seem to have some problems in a business network environment. It does fine for my home networking needs.

 

Not worth it IMO. Vista does use more CPU, more RAM and more disk space, all of which are at a premium in the AAO. While you can make XP run pretty well on the 512MB SSD version, I can't imagine what Vista would run like. With 1.5GB RAM and a 160GB harddrive, Vista would probably run at acceptable performance levels (but not great), but then again, XP would run even better. Also since it puts higher demands on the computer, battery life would go down. There's really nothing Vista can do that XP can't. There are a few user interface tweaks and other improvements, but nothing that makes it worth it to upgrade if that means sacrificing performance and battery life.

Now if your desktop machine has plenty of harddrive space, 128MB DirectX9 graphics or better, 2GB of RAM (preferably 4GB) and a dual core CPU, then you might want to try Vista on that instead. On my machine, Vista feels snappier than XP, mostly due to Superfetch and Aero, which speed up application loading and the user interface, respectively.

 

I bought my XP 160 gig AA1 last night.
So far so good, had some problems with streaming youtube video but I let MS update the wireless driver and I downloaded a new audio driver for it and everything seems to be fine now.
I started with the Asus 4G in black(still have it) but I wanted something with a bigger screen.
I looked at the MSI Wind and this one and while that 10" screen looked nice the foot print seemed a little larger then I wanted.
The AA1 is bigger then my 4G but its still small enough to feel like a mini.

 

Using Vista on the AA1 is moot. You don't get anything from it, as the only "real" benefit of running Vista is the ability to use DX10. Since the netbook wasn't designed for gaming (even less for games that can run in DX10), there is no point of installing Vista.

All you'll get is less performance for the same functionality of Windows XP.

 

I have to agree. I do run Vista Ultimate on my primary laptop and really do like it, but it is far better equipped that the AA1. However, it is designed for a different purpose than the AA1. If I were you I would stick with XP for the AA1.

 

my dual core gaming rig died 2 days ago and i've been using my ssd ao1 with xp as a desktop replacement and it hasnt missed a beat. aim, skype video chat, like 5 or 6 tabs open in firefox, flash sites, youtube etc, going at the same time and no problems.

 

I agree that Vista has been much improved since it's launch (as was the case with XP), and personally also think it is a significant jump upwards from XP. I wanted it too. However, I doubt that you would be satisfied with the performance you are likely to get on the AA1. If it would have been possible to squeeze decent speed out of Vista on this device, I believe we would have already seen it being offered by Acer. On the few models (i.e. HP) in which it is being offered, I have read complaints of sluggishness. My guess is that it will be on most netbooks by the second half of 2009 when the next generation of Atom processors are due for release.

I have not yet received my AA1, which I ordered yesterday from Amazon, but after reading the many positive comments here (and everywhere else as well) and trying out the machine in stores, I really can't wait to get this dream machine. XP is a really powerful, totally supported OS and it seems perfectly matched to the Acer hardware.

 

most people running vista are running lite builds with tweaks that are much quicker than a regular vista install like what comes with the hp's.

 

Hmmm. I see. If it can be made to run efficiently, I certainly would be interested in giving it a try (eventually). Thanks Yaniel.