after eyeing dad's 10" acer aspire one netbook over christmas and not thinking too much of it I saw an MSI wind this past weekend and was quite impressed.
Then I saw a craiglist spokane ad for a 'new in box acer aspire one 8.9" with 8gb sshd, 1GB ram' for $200.
Turns out it was a model about 3 months newer without linux, but with a 160gb HD and XP HOME
It was not only in the box, it had never been opened. the ~1" smaller screen is noticible, but does not detrack too much from the functionality. cheapest I think I could get this elsewhere would be before tax referbished at tiger direct for $240 or costco $300
I beleive the touchpad is aware of multiple fingers, as you use two fingers spreading or joining to zoom in and out (webbrowser) - pretty cool. and draw a spiral from top right to middle of pad to activate scrolling from the pad. I actually with is was more like a mac (GASP!) and it just had two finger scroll - mayber there is a hack.
long term, 20$ to boost the ram to 1.5 gb (max MB supports) and to a 32GB SS HD wiht 90MB read and 55MB write a second may be intersting. I'm not in too big of a rush. Really only thing it's missing is bluetooth and a tv tuner. I've even got wireless mice and keyboard sets already that work just great (usb) and the tiny usb mouse that came with it works great.
specs AOA150-1555 black chasis
4 comments:
thats pretty cool! I have been kicking around the idea of a netbook, just haven't had the absolute need for it yet. and I do have the old compaq with a 15" screen on it that still has some life in it (although the battery is dead).
I really like the idea of a SMALL an fully functional thing. not like a PDA, but usable.
i wish there was more support for mainstream linux. this one caught my eye, an arm tablet that is probably everything i want in a machine, except the keyboard costs extra, and linux may in the end keep me from running things i need to. that processor may not be fast enuf to run windows in a virtual machine, rulling it out. but still... man its tempting.
been using this thing for 1 day.
i'm convinced windows is overkill. though very convenient.
I can remeote a terminal machine (windows if need be) and if this thing has wifi, a screen, and a keyboard; i'm set.
i booted one of my linux machines from the closet - it had been off for over 550 days - hit the update in UBUNTU 6, and it jumped to 8.04 LTS - and i came with a remote desktop terminal services client for windows. very impressive. ended up building it full of educational games and giving it to a friend who has a 4 and 5 year old. they love it, and the pIII 550 with 512mb ram 30gb HD and 16mb video card was strong enough for Firefox3, and their flash games on PBS kids and Disney.com
i'm starting to see the netbooks show up with students in grad class. the pc makers may have just pulled off the biggest feat ever, the mac killer!
and the selling 5 year old technology! these babys don't have near the horsepower as some of the big machines, and they don't need it.
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