Fantastic cheap netbook (Acer Aspire One A150L)

Member Name: damsmi2002

Product:	Acer Aspire One A150L
Date:	01/05/09 (370 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, reliable, quick, easy to use, lost of inputs

Disadvantages: Low battery life, speakers not too loud

I have recently purchased the Acer Aspire One with 120gb of memory and 1gb of RAM from Tesco for £129.99 after seeing it advertised on www.hotukdeals.co.uk and I have to say that I am very impressed with it so far.

I was after a small lightweight laptop mainly for use with the internet on the move and also to access documents when not at home and had considered a normal laptop but as they have lots of feature that I didnt want I decided to spend less money and just get the basics. When I saw the offer at the price I really couldnt resist it.

Upon opening the box it was nice to see that a leather wallet was included which looks nice and keeps the unit looking new when not in use, there were also recovery discs and obviosly the instruction manuals. I was surprised by the recovery discs too though as I know a lot of laptops nowadays dont come with them. I originally wanted the white version but they only had the blue one left so I had to have it instead, but upon looking at it I am glad as it looks really nice. It is a deep metallic blue which looks black in some lights and has little orange side bits which look nice, I was impressed with the overall look of the unit as I thought it looked very complete and professional.

When using it for the first time it was very simple to set up the Wi-fi on it and it picked up many more connections than two other laptops that we have in the house, and so far I have had no glitches or interuptions on the wi-fi, It boots up in about 30 seconds and takes about the same amount of time to connect to the internet, so within a minute you are ready to go.

The operating system is Linux, which is something that I havent used before and was a bit dubious about buying, but for my needs I find it very easy to navigate through the menus and access everything on the system. It is possible to put Windows on it but as I am not technically minded I dont want to run the risk of losing or damaging the netbook. I have looked into installing other programs on it but it seems as if you have to put commands into in to be able to do so, rather than clicking to download and install, so for people looking to put lots of extra features on it I would either reccommend changing it to Windows, or buying one with Windows on initially.

The keyboard is very large considering the size of the unit, most netbooks this size have a much smaller keyboard but this is perfect for typing on. Initially I made a few mistakes but after a few uses you quickly adjust. The mouse is very responsive and when looking at it the clicking buttons are either side rather than underneath, which again to start with is a little strange,but soom becomes the norm.

The screen being only 8.9inch is fantastic in terms of clarity. I have seen other which just look pixelated, which is certainly not the case with this one. It is more than large enough too for using it on the move and it is because of it being so small that I went for it. It weighs under a kilo which is absolutly nothing, yet doesnt feel cheap or tacky.

There are three USB ports which is more than some laptops have, an output for connecting to a TV(therefore meaning that the screen size is not an issue) and two SD and multi-card readers so there are plenty of ways to connect devices up to the netbook.

If I had to fault something it would be the speakers. I know you cant expect much given the size but even at full volume it can be difficult to hear and sometimes comes across as tinny.
Also the battery life is around 2.5hours, which I knew upon buying it and this can be upgraded, I just find it quite short, but this isnt really a complaint about it.
For those techies out there I have read that it is not straightforward to upgrade the RAM, not that this is an issue for me, but some people may look into it.

Overall I am very pleased with this netbook and would happily have paid around £200 for it, so for £130 it really was a bargain. It fits the bill for everything I wanted, so I would reccommend it to somebody looking fro a cheap way to access the internet on the move and be able to use applications such as Word etc(MS office documents work on here and vice versa which is great and something I didnt know upon buying it) If you are looking fro something to run lots of applications at once and have the ability to download and add extra things on then this probably isnt for you, but then any netbook wouldnt be for you either. As far as netbooks go I dont think you can really beat this one for the price.

Summary: A bargain for anything under £200 espicially for on the move