Beautiful little computer (Acer Aspire One A110-Ap)

Member Name: liz_barratt

Product:	Acer Aspire One A110-Ap
Date:	06/11/09 (32 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Small, light and fast netbook

Disadvantages: Skype not installed and a bug in the system when new

I bought this netbook after using an asus eeepc at work fairly extensively. I wanted a netbook which had linux on it, and this was the one I went for in the end.

Physical Properties

The netbook is nice and light, it is compact enough to fit into your handbag, but the keyboard is still reasonable (It is actually not much smaller than a standard keyboard, the keys down the sides , tab, return etc are noticeably narrower, and the other keys are a bit smaller, but not much). With the Asus machines I was finding I would have difficulty switching between that, my laptop and my desktop computers, however no such problem exists with this machine. The screen is really quite nice to work with, it is very clear. The webcam gives a good picture, and it has 2 memory card slots, one for SD only and one is a multi reader. The hard disk drive is not huge, however for my requirements it is adequate. The machine also looks lovely (although maybe a little girly, but I work on the theory that that makes it less stealable)

Software

The computer comes with a version of Ubuntu installed, which is very concise and easy to use. It looks good, and is very adaptable. There are 4 programme areas; Connect, Fun, Work and Files. Each of these programme areas shows 3 icons on the screen, but it expandable to show the other icons. To change which icons are shown on your front page you just expand the programme area and drag the most used programmes into the shaded box. This will then show these icons on your desktop.
One problem I did have with this linux distribution is that I noticed in the shop that the terminal window didn't have a command prompt, and therefore was pretty useless. This would not be a big issue if you just want to surf the internet on it, however if you want to modify the software at all this would have been a problem. I brought it up at the shop, and they did fix it for me (apparently it is a bug in this release of the software and is easily fixed, it still took them 2 days and numerous visits from me telling them that they had not done it right, but there you go). The computer also comes with open office pre-installed. This is a nice little office programme which does every thing that microsoft office does, and more. It is free too, which is also a bonus.
The only downside with the software (other that the terminal bug) is that it doesn't come with skype pre-loaded. You can download skype, but you also have to download other files to get it to work.
The boot up on this computer is fantastic, it takes one minute to boot up, and 30 seconds for the wifi to connect, so less than 2 minutes from pressing the button to being online (I have used an acer aspire one running windows, and this is MUCH slower, although I didn't time it).

Overall, it is a very nice, quick and handy machine, although due to the screen size you wouldn't want to do any too complicated work on it. It is intended for surfing the internet and emailing with basic office functionality too, and these jobs it performs perfectly. It is a shame that Skype isn't on it, as it is on most other netbooks, and this is something that is not as easy to remedy as it could be. Generally though very pleased.

Summary: Has its limitations, but does what it was intended for